Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: PR for cohousing

[Collaborative Housing Society (cohosoc]

I just wanted to blow our horn here for a sec., because even without a
single cohousing project (by that name, anyway) built in this province, we
have still managed to get quite a lot of PR over the past few years, and it
seems to be on the increase.  This Thursday I am being interviewed for an 8
minute documentary for our local 6 o'clock news show, which has a direct
feed into our national news network.  We have also had exposure in our
"national newspaper" (Globe & Mail), a consumer affairs show (CBC
Marketplace), the largest circulation newspaper in the country (The Toronto
Star), lots of radio exposure (CBC is a very popular alternative sort of
similar to US public radio), and very frequent articles in local and
specialty newspapers, usually highlighting local neighbourhood initiatives.
I'm also writing a column for the Journal of the Ontario Prof. Planners
Institute, as well as a couple of other magazines.

How do we do it, you might ask.  I've wondered that too, since we have not
done the hundreds of phone calls, blizzards of press releases, professional
p.r. types, or other attention-getting devices that conventional wisdom
would suggest is necessary.  All we've done to contact the media is an
occasional letter, regular newsletter mailings, and the odd phone call to
highlight specific events.

In asking the various media types why they're interested in this idea, it
seems to boil down to the fact that, rather than bombard them with appeals
to do a story about a bunch of people who have made a nice community for
themselves, we've come at it as a human interest story that highlights
universal concerns in society at large.

For example, the rural seniors who were being packed up and shipped off to
urban  "adult lifestyle" condos, until they decided to build their own
village via a cohousing _process_.

Or the group of artists who bought a building to provide themselves not only
with security of tenure, but also a room to share a fax machine and
photocopier, because artists are business people too.

Or, most recently, the effect that our limited options for home ownership
(eg. no shared ownership) has on both the shape and the livability of the
city.

In other words, what is it about our world out there that has made it
necessary to invent cohousing?  What are the big picture issues that
cohousing highlights?  What is it about cohousing that is universal?

We have to remember that the media is interested in reaching a broad
audience, and even in Denmark, cohousing is only received on a narrow
bandwidth.  Not everyone wants closer community ties, or even thinks that
anything is lacking in the community they already live, and are not really
interested in your idea of good community anyway.

The "Newsclips" video from the CoHousing Company expresses this big-picture
side of cohousing quite well, and it is worth getting a copy ($25).

I think that another of the reasons the media has paid any attention to us
even without built projects is that the presence of our organization lends
an element of credibility to the whole thing, so that whether approached by
us or by any individual group, there is a broader movement being offered -
ie., a societal issue, not just a private venture.  By organization, I don't
just mean this central point, but the whole network of people, groups and
organizations that has been willing to share contacts, experiences and
suggestions - a process we are trying to strengthen over the next few months
- to present a much bigger picture than any one project or proposal might
do.

Certainly, having Cardiff Place up in Victoria BC does help, (and has
generated a renewed flurry of interest) especially since they all want
"visuals" to back it up, but there are lots of places around that capture
the essence of intentional neighbourhooding even without trotting out the
cohousing word (the cohousing under our noses?)

I also think that avoiding the image of cohousing as a housing form is part
of the answer, for reasons I alluded to in a recent post.  New forms of
housing come and go, as do new kinds of communities.  Ideas about how we
live as a society, how we how we can rebuild the places we work, raise our
children, care for our elderly, these are issues that everyone has an
interest in, and these are the issues that will attract and sustain media
coverage of what we are trying to do.

At least, it seems to be working here. . .