Re: Fifty Plus Cohousing
From: Sara A. (mabonwymindspring.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:48:01 -0700 (MST)

At 11:22 AM 2/13/03 +0000, you wrote:
but until a better term
comes along, I can't imagine it would harm anybody or the movement in any
way. Why does it matter to you?


Because it will indeed harm people and the movement. If you justify excluding people under a certain age because they don't share "common interests, etc", then why not exclude people for other reasons? Ethnicity, country of origin, physical abilities, sexual orientation? And why try to be INclusive? How can people talk about working to include people of different perspectives, life experiences, different economic situations, and not see that restricting cohousing to one age group is antithetical to the whole concept? The conceptual model for cohousing is a **village**, which by definition includes all ages and situations of people. If you want a retirement community with a clubhouse that you call a common house, go right ahead. But it's not cohousing; it's not, by definition, a village-style community.

Besides which, I question the motives for wanting to restrict a community to over-50 anyway. Seems to me like it's just a way of trying to get around the laws against excluding families with children by setting up a different requirement that merely makes their presence highly unlikely.

Sara


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