Your Summer News & Updates | |
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Chickahominy Indian Tribe Childcare Center, Providence Forge, VA
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In a recent trip to Virginia (my first trip since March 3, 2020) I got to work with the Chickahominy Tribe to begin designing a new childcare center and future senior housing village. It was nothing less than one of the most remarkable experiences I have ever had. They are the warmest and sweetest people ever—never fought the Europeans although they are just a few miles from Jamestown, settled in 1607. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, who was the chief of 30 tribes including the Chickahominy Tribe. The present-day chief of Chickahominy laid pearls of wisdom on me, embedded with clear intent, every couple of minutes in our conversations. “Chuck,” he told me, “Our tribe had two people die in nursing care (not COVID related) over the last year and that is just not who we are. Somehow it just happened that we evolved our solutions to your solutions, and we need to get back to our own intentions and solutions.” And “We need to get back to elders sharing with generations coming up. We want the seniors right next to the childcare center so that they can at least have lunch with each other.” They can have evening and morning conversations and do activities together. The childcare center will serve 164 kids, led by an amazing director. I fell in love with her thinking and means of communicating at every level—the combination of her words, the ever-shifting inflections in her voice, her never-wavering attentiveness, and ever-present considerations. So, if we get the design criteria / program done by 6/25 (almost mission impossible) the Chickahominy Tribe stands to receive $4M in funding, and that will help catalyze these projects. It has been a crazy four weeks for us at The Cohousing Company, and this week will be the same—and the future work carries a lot more than architecture with it.
At another point in my visit the chief said, “Chuck, people ask us all the time, ‘Can they disturb our burial grounds?’ Whether it’s a private property owner or the federal government, no matter what we say, they always do what they want.” Here is the childcare center feasibility summary: the Chickahominy want to serve their tribe, but because they seriously believe that the surrounding community is also in need of help, they hope the new facility will have a positive influence beyond the tribal center.
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Auburn, California: Proactive County Involvement | |
The future is a society in which people help their governments accomplish great neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods turn and benefit the cities themselves. And if we can get municipalities and counties to play along, they will model increasingly great neighborhoods and lower their costs for every line item of running a society (the city or county budget), the total cost of which can reach $250 to $300 million per year for even a small county like Nevada County, CA, or $1.1 million per year for a medium-sized county like Placer County. From police calls to jails, hospitals, and hundreds of other costly services, cities and counties stand to save massively by having functioning neighborhoods. Nevada County (with a population of only 100,000) pays over $1 million a year just to get seniors to their doctors, pharmacies, physical therapy appointments, friends, and groceries. For 15 years the 21 seniors living in the Nevada City Cohousing have simply asked their neighbors for these same services and built ever better relationships along the way. Cities and counties providing properties to build high-functioning neighborhoods is the future of cohousing, because it benefits not only residents but their cities and counties as well. In the future cities will certainly embrace making high-functioning neighborhoods a priority.
In Denmark, community planning departments seek out cohousing professionals with sites that they are willing to surplus for little or no remuneration, so long as they agree to build a cohousing neighborhood. They also inform cohousing professionals of distressed sites they feel would be better off as high functioning neighborhoods. They recognize that with cohousing built in such places, neighborhood centers would rejuvenate, property tax revenue would increase, schools would do better, and line item investments would be better utilized at every level. Danish planning departments have seen and understand what cohousing brings to the neighborhood: volunteers, eyes on the street, local grocery stores, bakeries, and many other local services.
This Danish model has now started in the United States with Placer County, CA whose county government has signed an agreement with The Cohousing Company to establish a cohousing project on a 4.6-acre site. The site, currently sitting empty, has generated zero tax dollars for the county over the last 50 years. Once converted to cohousing with 25 units alone, it will provide over $200,000 to the county over the next 10 years in property tax revenue alone, generate fewer costs to the county than any other neighborhood in Auburn, and model a stellar neighborhood along the way.
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Auburn Cohousing Kick-off Event:
July 13th at 6:00 PM (come at 5:30 PM to meet the good folks involved) at Auburn State Theatre (985 Lincoln Way, Auburn, CA). The kick-off public presentation is free. For questions regarding this informative meeting, please contact cohoauburn@gmail.com Or call Merrill Kagan-Weston (future resident) at (530) 906-3962.
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Golden Rod Cohousing, Lincoln, NE
by Craig Carlson
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President Jimmy Carter was my early inspiration by putting solar collectors on the White House. Now I was in my second year of my Passive Solar Residential Design Associates Degree at Red Rocks Community College in Golden Colorado. We were given an in-depth assignment to use our passive solar design knowledge in a creative way. I chose to go beyond a one house design and think about the concept of a small town or community, built from scratch, a masterplan that would connect all lives and structures with the many powers of the sun.
Not long after I graduated, the solar panels were removed from the White House roof and the promises of solar energy left the mainstream of American energy solutions. My career in solar energy faded and I took up my trade of commercial painting.
It took a few decades of twists and turns along with my discovery of the cohousing model to bring me where I am today and after. I nurtured a six plus acre plot of land for many years, patiently waiting for the water, sewer, and road infrastructure that comes with annexation to the star city of Lincoln Nebraska. Annexation to Lincoln finally became a realty two years ago.
I found when I passed 60 years of age a dream evolves into a passion and a sense of legacy. I’m able to begin putting people into the places needed to create an ecovillage cohousing we are calling Golden Rod, after the state flower of Nebraska. Watching it bloom will be a dream come true.
For more information about Golden Rod Ecovillage, please contact Craig Carlson at craigcarlson007@gmail.com or call at (402)560-0747.
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"It takes a village" Podcast interview by Eve Picker | |
Eve, an astute interviewer on all things architecture, and world famous in Pittsburg, PA, gets the most out of Chuck Durrett in a fun interview.
Q: What’s the difference between a regular neighborhood and cohousing?
A: Well, fundamentally, it’s quite different and here’s how. You’ll notice when you walk in, it’s a modern-day village, the Danes would say they are not creating anything new, they are just re-creating what used to happen naturally, but now we have to make very consciously, self-consciously, and dig deep into our subconscious to find that more natural way of being. So we have to get our sleeves rolled up and make them happen. For example, imagine a typical suburban block on a street lined with generous front porches and that everybody parks at the very end of the street and walks by all the other houses on their way home past picnic table, valley ball courts and sandboxes, that’s cohousing. And there’s this one house where nobody lives, yet everyone lives. That fundamentally changes the nature of a neighborhood basically, that’s where you see everyone and get to know everyone, it plays a big role down the line. Now imagining you take all the garage doors off of the front of the houses, a typical neighborhood is about 110 feet doorknob to doorknob, and cohousing neighborhood is range from 20 to 30 feet doorknob to doorknob, so now when you walk by you can see smile on the face, and the person in the kitchen waving at you. It’s simply the opposite of an anonymous house or spread-out suburb, or even warehousing (typical apartment). Now imaging where the street used to be, there are sand boxes, play yards, picnic tables, and gardens, and that’s what cohousing looks like.
(excerpt from interview)
CLICK HERE to listen to the interview
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Creating an Affordable Cohousing Community (Starts July 16, 2021) | |
This is a 5-week online course by Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC)
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW
It was a big success in April by FIC to hold a seminar for folks starting a new ecovillage and for whom economics is too often a big impediment. There are many nascent cohousing groups in the same predicament. This is not about coliving or shared housing, although they certainly happen in cohousing. This is about starting a new $5M–$15M community.
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Study Group One is NOW available for register! | |
Dear Friends,
When reporters ask, "How will COVID-19 change senior cohousing design." I always have the same reply, "We will work even harder to assure that in the good times (pre/post-COVID) people are even more prepared for the bad times (COVID or other)." And the best way to set seniors up for success is to facilitate the possibility of knowing each other, caring about each other, and supporting each other. True meaningful relationships are facilitated by proximity, common activities and shared history, like the experience of building a project together. I hear over and over from seniors in cohousing that they are socially distanced, but not socially isolated whether it be daily Tai Chi, organized walks, buying each other groceries, Yoga, or drumming outside at 7 pm everyday - during the blue hour - to say hello one more time, and to say goodnight—especially important for single-person households.
But even without the virus, there is a senior housing crisis in this country. In the United States, traditional senior housing options aren't meeting the needs of older adults. Senior cohousing, or cohousing for 55+, has proven to mitigate loneliness and provide support to keep older adults in their homes for longer without draining government resources. Senior cohousing communities honor elders and make their lives healthier, more convenient, more economical, more practical, more interesting and more fun. Prospective cohousing residents come to the table with both feet pointed towards the future by first going through Study Group 1 Aging Successfully (SG1) Workshop.
For decades, The Cohousing Company has trained facilitators to hold SG1 Workshops around the world. This fall, we invite you to join us for our SG1 Online Facilitator Training. You will gain access to tools and guidance to support seniors where you live, helping them move past denial to become proactive about their aging options. Enabling seniors to imagine a community-based eldering scenario where they know, care about, and support each other is important in empowering them to live with purpose.
The SG1 Online Facilitator Training will meet weekly for online participatory webinar and presentations led by Charles Durrett, author of Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, along with special guests who are also professionals in cohousing and senior housing fields. Discussions will include case studies, critical thinking, and resource sharing, but most importantly how to help seniors become conscious of the issues of aging successfully—get out of denial and to become much more proactive in the creation of their own wellbeing in the last third of it all. At the end of the 10 weeks, participants will have a clear understanding of current trends in senior cohousing and learn how to present senior cohousing in an effective format. We encourage you to invite your friends and others in your area to take the course with you, creating a strong web of resources for older adults to age successfully. Most importantly, once they decide to become proactive—nothing can stop them.
Here is a testimonial from a past participant:
"I was very fortunate to participate in Study Group 1...and feel well equipped to train others in my area. [The] program impacted me personally by helping me quantify what will work for me in my retirement and to be proactive in pursuing great options for healthy and productive senior years." - Sue Smith
Visit our website cohousingco.com for more details and to sign up. For more information contact Dorae Hankin at mda.admin@cohousingco.com & Jinglin Yang at jinglin.yang@cohousingco.com.
There is too much humanity left on the table to not do something. The SG1 Facilitator Training will be all about setting older adults up for success and we look forward to having you join us.
Thanks,
Charles "Chuck" Durrett
The Cohousing Company
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A Book Review for “A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town”
by Kate Nichols, Communities Magazine.
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The Best of Both Worlds (film) | |
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'The Best of Both Worlds' explores the lives of residents in four cohousing communities in Northern California. It also examines senior cohousing communities and how living in them improves the quality of life for residents. We are reducing the price of the DVD to $19.95 while supplies last. It is a perfect video by award-winning filmmaker John De Graaf to show to prospective new members. This fun 27-min film tells the story of cohousing in short order.
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