Mid Atlantic Cohousing

The Edifying
Form Follows -- NOT Function --  but FICTION.

As in story telling.

Buildings, according to architect Ole Scheeren, tell the stories of the people who live and work in them.  When buildings tell stories rather than simply function to solve an identified problem then you can weave together the architecture with the people who will live in them.

Ole Scheeren's The Interlace, a 1000+ plus apartment building in Singapore wonBuilding of the Year award at the World Architecture Festival in November of 2015.  

In this plan, Scheeren topples on its side the vertical columnar building form so associated with high-rise affordable housing.  By doing so, on the same site plan space as would be sited densely packed vertical buildings, he creates a series of connected buildings with an array of community spaces from pools to community garden to a dog run not possible with 14 separate vertical columns.  The design does this while maximizing privacy and community space.  Sounds a lot like the very principles of cohousing.  In fact, in the very broadest sense of the word ... with The Interlace Scheeren has "co - housed" the site and its residents.  In fact, Scheeren calls The Interlace "a vertical village of living and social spaces integrated with the natural environment."

In addition, through the use of vertical gardens the design actually increases the amount of green and open space that would have been available just from the site's ground level foot print.  This is a design principle we see being used with great frequency in the "vertical forest" buildings.

This newsletter published a short notice of Scheeren wining the Building of the Year award.  Scroll to the bottom of the blog post 11/17/15. GIZMODO has detailed description of the project plus lots of great photos.  

Be even more inspired.  Watch Scheeren's TED talk "Why Great Architecture Should Tell a Story."

​Sunday, February 7, 2016, 2:00 pm,  New Member Social  EcoVillage Arlington, Virginia, Boccato Gelato & Espresso, 2719 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201

Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community!  Freeland, Maryland.

Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC.  Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup.

Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year.
 ​

Or, your furniture is your bedroom.  The French designer Gilles Belley calls it making spaces out of furniture ... ​  

You can leave comments about blog postings or all our published work right here on the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website's blog.  Newsletters are posted to the the web site two days after being emailed to subscribers.  Or you can send your comments to ANN.  She reads them all!   While at the website, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website.  Look for FREE downloads!  

If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself!  We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people.  Subscribe using the button on the Home Page!
​

What is cohousing?  
This has to be the most asked question in cohousing.  Now I have a tool that — oh my — even beats out Google. It’s Pinterest which I, along with about a zillion other people,  have discovered judging by the number of categories under “cohousing” the number of “pinners” and the number of “boards.” 

And, thankfully, so.  

For awhile, I was trying to aggregate photos and information around certain categories in cohousing for the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website.

Not anymore.  Why bother when there are established categories with curated boards available right on- line instantaneously available?
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At the Pinterest  home page, in the search box, I typed in the ubiquitous question “What is cohousing?”   A beautiful page opened up with an array of options to explore.  At the top of the page it included that very popular and well-received graphic from Great Britain -- “Cohousing 2.0” — it’s impossible to reproduce on a website — I know — I tried.  I contacted the company twice for permission to reproduce the graphic (rather than just a link) but no response from the company.  Here it is.  This page also yielded Ross Chapin’s Pocket Neighborhoods, The Cheesecake Cohousing Consortium for growing older together,  a look at Berlin’s Radical R50 Baugruppen Project (another project that made the popularity rounds a couple of months ago). 

With apologies to Zero Mostel and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” -- Something for Everyone on Pinterest Tonight!

If you type in “cohousing” at the Pinterest search box, you will come up with 56+ categories to search including articles, green, Italia, buildings, kitchens, garden, plans, seniors, ideas, concept … as I said: something for everyone.  

Curiously, there is no category for “Common House”.  You will find many boards, pins and pinners about Common Houses under the category “Common.”  One of the ones I like in this category is a collection from google.ca  — a Canadian Google search compilation.  Yes, Pinterest compiles Google Searches by pinners (nomenclature for the people who post collections to Pinterest.)

The collections include videos, photos, web pages, some audio, sketches, etc.
Do you use Pinterest in your marketing and outreach efforts?  How do you use it?  How has that worked for you?  Do you have some tips to share about using this resource?  Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to Ann.  Include contact information.

Up?  Down?  Where will interest rates be in 2016?

Inquiring minds want to know!  Here are two "experts" in an posting in Urban Turf  forecasting interest rates to stay in the low to mid 4% range. ​

You're at a meeting.  Suddenly, unexpectedly, you find yourself face-to-face with one of the key people who will soon consider your zoning application.  Or your financial package.  Or your design submission. Or, a prospective member.

He or she asks the question:  So, what is cohousing?

You have 10 seconds to make your marketing pitch about cohousing before the person is distracted by someone else clamoring for attention.

What do you say?

I don't know about you, but I've often found it difficult to cram into 10 seconds:   What Is Cohousing?

Until I ran across this formula in an Entrepreneur on-line newsletter.  

According to its author, Robert W. Bly:

Most elevator pitches, unfortunately, don’t work because they're just straightforward descriptions of job functions and titles, generating not much else aside from disinterest and a few yawns. For example, a fellow I met at a party once told me, “I'm a certified financial planner with more than 20 years’ experience working.” OK. But who cares?

This is The Formula, developed by Paul Karasik and cited by Bly in the Entrepreneur article:

1.  Identify the issue, the "pain" or the question that needs addressing.  Use the question:  "Do you know that..."

2.  Next is a statement that is a clear, concise descriptor of the product or service:  "What I/we do ..."

3.  Lastly, identify the BENEFIT:  "so that ..."

Here's an example when I'm asked about our consulting services for senior cohousing:

Do you know what seniors fear most is loneliness, helpless and boredom? What we do is collaborate with you to help you build a state-of-the-art neighborhood for aging in community so that you can live longer, healthier, connected and fulfilled lives.

You can use this formula to pitch ANY product or service -- even the budget for budget approval!

TIP 1:  If you're building a cohousing community ... everyone in the group should have an elevator drop pitch that fits his or her way of speaking. PRACTICE giving the pitch to each other.  You'll be surprised!  It pays off to do this!

TIP 2:  You will want to have several pitches to use for different people and situations. I might well have a different pitch for an individual who is a prospective member vs. an institutional leader from whom I need support.  The key is always:  what's "it" to him or her?  Why do they care?

Do you have an elevator drop pitch for cohousing you want to share?  We'll reprint it. Need help developing a pitch? Let us know and we'll repost it for feedback.  Send your elevator drop pitch to share or your request for help with a pitch to Ann. Please include your contact information!

Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community!  Freeland, Maryland.

Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year.

Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC.  Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup.

 From the CohoUS website:

Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ?

This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form.edit.

Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016 Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey.

​There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members.

Do you have an announcement?  Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws:  Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info!

Another Treehugger contribution:  Top 10 Shipping Container, Pre-Fab, Modular Homes of 2015.  We like this list because the entries span quite a spectrum:  3D printed houses which we reported on in our first two newsletters, shipping containers with the works included, passive house and ... more!
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Would you live in this 400s/f Airstream trailer?
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Tiny houses ... tiny houses ... tiny houses ... why not give up this conversation as if "tiny houses" are something new and just live in a -- gasp! -- trailer?  At 400s/f this trailer can hold its own with "tiny houses" and ... it's moveable!  Curbed.

Project Sunroof -- Google, of course!
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Thinking of installing a solar roof?  Don't know where to start?  Begin with this FREE web application for determining your solar needs.  

"When you enter your address, Project Sunroof looks up your home in Google Maps and combines that information with other databases to create your personalized roof analysis.
Don't worry: Project Sunroof doesn't give the address to anybody else unless you ask it to."  from the Sunroof website.     

Data analysis is available for about nine geographic areas at present.  If yours is not available you can sign up to be notified of its availability.

You can leave comments about blog postings or all our published work below.  While here, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website.  Look for FREE downloads!  
!  
If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself!  We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people.  Subscribe via the home page of this website.

How to make a gingerbread house in 2 minutes and 49 seconds!
Winslow Cohousing, Bainbridge Island, WA

You can leave comments here.  While here, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website.  Look for FREE downloads!  Subscribe!  

If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself!  We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people!

Old age, another final frontier:  and just like deep space, it is dark and unknown. 

In the last few decades I have watched my grandparents, aunts, mother in law, a few peers, and dozens of hospice patients age and die.  I've always had friends who are much older, and in our talks over the years they share what getting older feels like, their various physical challenges, and how they are thinking about the end of life.  Some cope with humor, some with different flavors of denial, some with an interesting assortment of approach and avoidance.  I had been working in the well-being field, and when I applied well-being concepts to my interest in aging, I landed in cohousing. 

A cohousing community could be a perfect forum for support and exploration during aging. Through a great convergence of interests and opportunities, I am now a (much older than usual) student in a graduate program in Applied Gerontology, studying with a major senior cohousing researcher. 
 
I have been thinking a lot about aging lately, especially the really old years.  In Gerontology class we discuss three stages of old age: 

• young-old,  about ages 55-65 (even called “late middle age”  or “go-go” by some);
• middle-old, about ages 65-75 or 80 (or “slow-go”); and
• old-old, ages above 80 or 85 until death (or “no-go”.) 

In our youth-obsessed culture, the old-old years are often collapsed into stereotypes of physical ailments, meaninglessness and irrelevance, and there seems to be little about it that is appealing.  In the interest of full disclosure, some aspects of old-old age are difficult, physically and emotionally:  people important to you die, you are not able to do as much as you used to, and your body is deteriorating.  Still, when approached with acceptance and curiosity, the last part of life can be as rich and rewarding as the earlier years, in a different way. 

I now propose the term “Deep Aging” (TM) to describe the period of life between the beginning of old-old age and death.  Deep Aging (TM) implies depth, exploration, meaning, insight, courage and subtlety, none of which is guaranteed simply by the passage of years.  It conveys a life task to age deeply and meaningfully, and challenges us to pay attention and plumb its depths.
 
My biology professor spent an entire course describing “normal age-related changes” in physical functioning.  By age 80, the average person will have a reduction in maximal breathing capacity of about 55%.  We will experience about a 40% reduction in kidney function.  Our mitochondria (you remember from high school biology, the “powerhouse of the cell,”) will have reduced by 15%, meaning the body simply produces less energy.  Collagen will degrade over time, resulting in increased stiffness.  Cartilage thins, muscle mass and bone mass decrease. 

All of these are normal age-related changes.  There are always outliers:  the 90 year old who swims the English Channel, the 82 year old ballerina, the 85 year old who runs competitively.  But most of us experience normal age-related changes right on schedule.  An optimal diet, optimal exercise, optimal genes, optimal environment and optimal lifestyle are beneficial for a whole host of reasons.  But aging will still occur, if you are lucky enough to live into your older years, and eventually you will die.
 
And death?  Ninety percent (90%) us will die from a predictable chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer, organ failure, or dementia.  These deaths take time, maybe years, and the effects of illness are on top of the normal age-related changes that are also underway.  So, exceptional as we all want to be, there is a good chance that we will need a plan for managing our old-old years, with or without chronic illness. 
 
Now for the good news:  in cohousing, experiencing this life stage together with peers creates conditions to magnify the richness of aging, especially in the very advanced years.  Even in cohousing people say “I'm not old!” or think because they have a co-care agreement with neighbors that they will be protected from the perils of aging.  We have seen cohousers die at home as they intended, but other long-term cohousers leave the community to move to assisted living or a nursing home because their needs exceeded what they were able to manage, for different reasons. 

We have an opportunity in cohousing to explore Deep Aging (TM) with the courage and innovation that brought us to cohousing in the first place, and make our communities liveable into our old-old years.  Some communities are actively discussing end of life issues, and some are finding ways to make their intergenerational community more age-friendly.  With openness and creative thinking, cohousers can figure out how to make aging in place in community a reality for our members. 

In the next few weeks, cohousers interested in tackling the issues around Deep Aging (TM), aging in place in community and all the attendant co-care issues will begin a national conversation to address these challenges.   For more information contact:  Ann Zabaldo.

​Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing

FOR A LARGE TURKEY, THE NIGHT BEFORE

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Wash and stuff  the turkey. Coat surface with oil or butter or nothing. I cook the turkey on top of a bed of stuffing in a large enough pan. If you want to make gravy, cook the additional stuffing separately so you can save the drippings.

I use Pepperidge Farm Herb Dressing and add onions, butter, and sometimes cranberries or celery. You can add anything you like. You can also make your own stuffing, of course, but why duplicate the masters?

Cook the turkey at 300 for one hour to kill surface bacteria and seal the surface.

Turn the temperature down to 165, the “done” temperature for turkey. This is the key to slow cooking. The dish will never be over-cooked. All flavors and texture will be unharmed.

Cook 1 hour for each pound. Watch the oven temperature—many ovens have difficulty maintaining low temperatures. Crack the door if it gets too hot. The oven may only turn on for a few minutes every hour or so.

Use a meat thermometer to ensure that the turkey is done. (The pop-up button that ensures that a turkey is done may over cook or undercook a turkey using this method — or any method, actually.

SOME OVENS TURN THEMSELVES OFF AT ~12 HOURS, so may have to reset them.

Only the turkey is fail-safe. I can’t control your oven.

NEXT-DAY TURKEY SOUP

DAY ONE

After dinner: Do not let people take all the left-over meat and dressing. (You may need help. Weapons are usually not necessary.)

Save the dressing aside so people can put it in their soup or eat as a side dish.

Put all bones, skin, etc., in a large pot and add water to cover. If some bones are sticking up, just push them down periodically while cooking until they stay down. Add 1-3 tablespoons of vinegar depending on the size of the pot to leech calcium out of the bones. The vinegar will cook off so no taste will remain or what does will blend with other flavors.

Put onions, parsley, celery, etc. in with the bones. You can cut them into large pieces, just small enough to fit in the pan.

Strong simmer until the  connecting tissue is soft and the bones just begin to fall away — about 4 hours or so.

Put the whole pot with the bones and vegetables in the fridge or if it is cold enough, outdoors. Put  a stone on the cover outside if you have raccoons or large cats. Leave it for 12-24 hours to leech more calcium out of the bones and allow the flavors to blend.

DAY TWO: 

Scoop off the big globs of fat on the top. You don’t have to be meticulous about this. You want plenty left for taste and nourishment. Remember, this is a one pot fills all meal.

Warm the pot so the soup stock is completely melted.  Cool until safe to handle and pour the soup through a colander into another pot.  With the solids now in the colander, pick out the loose pieces of meat and any remaining on the bones.

Mush the meat carefully by hand to be sure there are no small bones.

Set the meat aside and throw out all the solids. The vegetables will be cooked to a mush of tasteless fiber but don’t cry over them. All the taste and minerals stay in the broth.

If you want to remove more fat, you can put the pot of liquid back in the fridge so it floats to the top and becomes solid. Or use a baster to siphon it off. But remember, a lot of the flavor is in the fat. Don’t over do it.

Boil the liquid down until it has a rich taste, usually reducing it by 1/4 to 1/3. This depends on how much water you used on Day One.

Hearten up. The soup is almost done. Season and add whatever else you want in the soup — carrots, celery, beans, rice, noodles, etc. — and cook until they are done. Add left over turkey just in time to heat it thoroughly.

Heat dressing separately if desired. (I like cold stuffing.)

I use soy sauce instead of salt because it gives a richer color. Soup stock can be really ugly and I’ve never been successful in the clarifying techniques recommended in cookbooks. (You probably lose flavor anyway when you swirl eggs around in it.)

I like Old Bay for poultry. Then I just smell stuff on the spice rack and decide if I want it or not. Sage is good in turkey soup. Some butter gives a nice aftertaste. It doesn’t have to be a lot. A very small amount adds flavor.

Fail-Safe Slow Cooking Turkey sounds like a lot of work but it isn’t. Most of the time things are just cooking by themselves.

Sharon Villines
Fail-Safe Slow Cooking Turkey & Next Day Soup
Takoma Village Cohousing
TakomaVillage.org
Washington DC
202-722-1727
sharon@sharonvillines.com

Recipe posted online at: 

http://www.sharonvillines.com/fail-safe-slow-cooking-turkey-and-turkey-soup/

You can download all the recipes from Thanksgiving AND Sharon's wonderful Fail-Safe recipe for cooking a holiday turkey right from our website!

​Wanna have a contest?  What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see?  Send your suggestions to:  Ann Zabaldo.  Or you can comment on our blog.  Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ...

You can leave comments below.  We welcome them!   Cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website.  Look for FREE downloads! Subscribe!  

Subscribe to our newsletter! ! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people!  Just go to our HOME PAGE and sign up by clicking the button in the middle of the page!

​Thirty-five people attended the recent tour of Takoma Village Cohousing on Sunday, December 6, 2015.  Special guest, Alice Alexander, Ex., Director of CohoUS spoke briefly at the tour.  Takoma Village conducts these public tours four times a year to educate the public about cohousing and to maintain a healthy pool of prospective buyers for resales.
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Speaking of the very dynamic Alice Alexander mentioned above ... after the tour she met with 23
members of Mid Atlantic Cohousing in a "white gloves off" session to discuss the challenges facing cohousing communities as members are aging.  What became clear at the meeting is that little has been done either in intergenerational cohousing or even Senior cohousing to address the period of time between "healthy aging" and death.  This is the life stage in which "activities of daily living" or ADLs become paramount.  These may include feeding, dressing, toileting, bathing, etc.  Nancy Francis, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, identifies this stage and the time approaching this stage "deep aging."  Currently, in almost all cohousing communities when members approach this stage they must find other support including moving to assisted living or nursing care.

To address the issues surrounding "deep aging", Mid Atlantic Cohousing is organizing a working group of MAC members to study the issues and to begin formulating a cohousing response to keeping our elders in the community throughout the life span.   MAC will work with gerontology expert, Janice Blanchard, to identify issues in late life aging as well as begin constructing the framework of a model that can be used by cohousers and others to tackle the issues.  Janice has been at the forefront of gerontologists looking at aging and community.   MAC is delighted to be working with this expert with a 30,000 ft view as well as the ground level experience. This working group will  then attend the upcoming Aging Better in Community conference being co-sponsored by SageHill Cohousing and CohoUS.  Together with others attending the conference MAC believes conference attendees can design and take away a process for initiating a program for their respective communities.  For more information please contact Ann Zabaldo 202.546.4654  ann.zabaldo@gmail.com.
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Mid Atlantic Cohousing is announcing another 2-year intensive Facilitator Training Program with Laird Schaub. The program will start in the Fall of 2016.   MAC initiated this facilitation training series for Laird which, after a very successful completion in our region, he replicated in many other parts of the U.S.   More than 10 MAC members  participated in the original training program -- many of them are still facilitating and training others in their respective cohousing community.  We'll post details as soon as they become available.
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Still time to cut your own tree before Christmas!  Hundredfold Farm (Orrtanna, Pennsylvania) is one of the few cohousing communities which has a community owned and operated business:  a Christmas tree farm.  And as it's the season ... at  Seven Springs Tree Farm you can cut your own tree on Fridays (10a-6 p) and Saturdays and Sundays (8a-6p). Heads up:  The Farm will be closed on Christmas Eve.  After you've lassoed and tied down your tree atop your car stop by their neighbors at  Halbrendt Vineyard and Winery.
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Heathcote Community (Freehand, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016.  Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland.

Just because it's the holidays ... it's chocolate ... and it's FLAT PACKED no less ...

You can leave comments below.  Cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website.  Look for FREE downloads!  Subscribe!  
​
If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people!

Every morning, all across America people peer into bathroom mirrors searching for signs of age.  No line, no blemish is overlooked.  We dread the appearance of those little lines at the corner of our mouths and eyes and then we console ourselves with the thought that, really, they are hardly noticeable.  Still we know the truth.  We are getting older -- every day one day older.  
William H. Thomas, M.D.
What Are Old People For?

What are old people for?  What ARE they for?

When I started my cohousing journey waaay back in 1991,  I was 41 years old. Three months before I turned 50, I moved into my cohousing community, Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC — the same year I got my first invitation to join AARP.

Just this past November Takoma Village celebrated its 15th year living in our cohousing neighborhood.  
Now, I’m 65, a card carrying Medicare user Parts A&B, and an AARP Part D insurance plan subscriber.  I would tell you my hair is grayer but only my hairdresser knows that for sure.

We are all getting older.  A veritable tsunami of Americans are turning 65.

• Where will we all live?  
• What are our options?  
• Will we choose a Sun City “active adult” community living there until we can’t act anymore?  And then where do we go?
• Can we afford a Continuing Care Retirement Community? 
• Will we live our last years in assisted living?  In a nursing home?
• For those of us already in cohousing … has our community grappled with the needs of elders no longer able to take care of themselves?  Are we expected to move out?  
• Ditto for those of us in Senior Cohousing?  What are the plans for the community to help its members stay in the community?  
• Will our intergenerational communities become NORCs  (Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities)?  The kids have grown up and moved away and only older folks are moving in?
• Where are we headed as we head toward old age?
• In the end — literally and figuratively — is there a place for me in cohousing?

These are just a very few of the questions you can explore at the upcoming Aging Better Together - The Power of Community conference co-sponsored by SageHill Cohousing and CohoUS May 20-21, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In addition to some of the heavier and headier questions about aging in cohousing we will also celebrate the joys and contributions of being a senior living in or planning to live in community.  As a group:

• We are wiser
• We are bolder
• We are not weighed down by career or raising a family
• We have time and energy to contribute
• We are definitely funnier because you can’t get older without a sense of humor

I am on the planning team for the conference.  I invite you to share your thoughts about aging in community, what you would like to see addressed at the conference, what’s happening in your community.  You can leave your comments at the bottom of this blog post on our website.  Or, you can write me directly:  Ann.Zabaldo@gmail.com
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And … I invite you to attend this conference.  It promises to be the first of many to come.  Be a pioneer.  Be there!

​Hundredfold Farm (Orrtanna, Pennsylvania) is one of the few cohousing communities which has a community owned and operated business:  a Christmas tree farm.  And as it's the season ... at  Seven Springs Tree Farm you can cut your own tree on Fridays (10a-6 p) and Saturdays and Sundays (8a-6p). Heads up:  The Farm will be closed on Christmas Eve.  After you've lassoed and tied down your tree atop your car stop by their neighbors at  Halbrendt Vineyard and Winery.

Heathcote Community (Freeland, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016.  Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland.

If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself!   Look for FREE downloads just for signing up!  We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people!  

Two weeks ago, we announced this first ever contest designed to gather those super good delicious recipes from cohousing communities around the world. 

This week, we announce the winner of the $50.00 prize!

Alice Alexander for SWEET POTATO GINGER!
​

​What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see?  Send your suggestions to:  Ann Zabaldo.  Or you can comment on our blog site under this posting.  Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ...

Happily Ever Aftering in Cohousing:  A Handbook for Community Living is a slim book that packs a big message. (The title is almost longer than the total word count of the book!)

Written by Charles (a.k.a Chuck) Durrett with Bernice Gonzalez and Erik Bonnett of McCamant & Durrett Architects, the book compiles best practices for living in cohousing.
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This is the second most important book those in cohousing should read.  Whether you are just starting your cohousing adventure, a member of a forming, building or built community this is THE book to read.  In fact, I would go so far as to suggest with a very understated declaration:

READ THIS BOOK FIRST!  

The introduction alone is the single best constructed argument of why do cohousing in the first place posing the singular question:  “If it doesn’t work socially, why bother?”

In the book, Chuck and company describe four areas of best practices for insuring a healthy, working, collaborative community:  

• Group Process
• Management
• Common Dinners
• Maintenance.  

We will look at these topic areas in a future posting. 
​
Today, let’s begin at the very end with … 

The dictionary defines a tax as “a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.”

Who wants to pay taxes?  Who ever thought there was a tax to pay in cohousing?
​
So what is “The Cohousing Tax?”  Here is Chuck's description:

I, too, believe the occasional frown is a small price to pay. 

However, in some communities and maybe even most communities, the cohousing tax exceeds an “occasional” frown.  Sometimes the cohousing  tax is fraught with downright upset, conflict, hurt feelings, frustration and confusion. On balance, this may be a small tax to pay for the rich life found in a cohousing community where living is by far more than something “homemade."  

Sometimes the cohousing tax is great and sometime small.  It’s the love, labor and time I commit every day to this investment called community.  

• It’s staying up with neighbors long nights grieving the loss of a child, spouse or parent.
• It’s connecting across sometimes serious differences to find common ground on which to move the community forward.  
• It’s rallying around and supporting projects that seem completely out of reach financially and logistically. 
• It's celebrating the rounds of birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones making each one new.

For this investment I get triple digit returns.

Let's not forget that sometimes the cohousing tax is too much for some folks and they choose to leave.  When too many people leave perhaps it's time to revisit the tax code!

So far, for me, the gifts of community living in Takoma Village in Washington, DC far outweigh the cohousing tax.  We run surplus revenue not deficit spending.  But not everyone would agree.  It's not for everyone.  People do move away.

Chuck is fond of saying at every opportunity that living in cohousing is “easy.”

It is not "easy." 

It's hard.

But it is, oh, so much richer, far more dimensional, and a more integrated way of living.
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Read this book.

Start with the ending. 

It will put into perspective the “taxes paid” to live in cohousing.