Re: Supporting forming communities & national policies/structures
From: Tree Bressen (bressenefn.org)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 06:31:19 -0700 (MST)
Hi,

Tom, i am thrilled to see this posting!

>Wouldn't it make more sense if money and effort flowed
>the other direction, from formed communities into
>specific areas of the country with no cohousing?

Yes!

>If every member of a
>cohousing community paid $X dues to the National, or
>if every formed community just paid the dues based on
>its membership, and included in that $X were $
>earmarked specifically to help spread cohousing around
>the country, then it would sure help a lot.

This is exactly the model that has been successfully used by the
Federation of Egalitarian Communities for the past 30 years.  I know that
most people on this list are probably not familiar with the FEC, but it's
been a backbone of the communities movement for decades, including
channeling huge resources into the more well-known FIC (Fellowship for
Intentional Community) (the organization that publishes the big
Communities Directory book, Communities magazine, and the www.ic.org
website).

The FEC was founded in 1976 based on inspiration from seeing the networks
among Israeli kibbutzim.  The assocation is based on explicit shared
principles: egalitarianism, nonviolence, ecological sustainability,
participatory decision-making, nondiscrimination, and group participation.
The main thing that distinguishes our groups from other intentional
communities is that all the main community income is shared.  We currently
have 7 full member groups (the most well-known of which is Twin Oaks in
Virginia), and 7 affiliated "communities-in-dialogue."  The FEC is a
network and has no authority, each community has extremely wide latitude
to conduct their own affairs; for example, "participatory decision-making"
means consensus at one place, majority rule at another, and a rotating
council of planners at a third.

People who live in FEC communities accept a lower "standard of living"
(they don't have their own kitchens ;-), in exchange for high quality of
life and the increased economic security that comes from the high level of
resource sharing.  In return for working full time (usually about 20 hours
a week on things that earn money, and about 20-30 hours a week on other
stuff like gardening, accounting, cleaning, construction, childcare,
cooking, shopping, and so on), one receives a private bedroom, food,
clothing, healthcare, etc., and a small personal spending stipend.

Each full member community contributes $200 plus one percent of income per
year.  That money is used to do outreach on behalf of all the groups, and
funds other activities of interest to the members as well.  More
importantly, each community also contributes 10 hours per adult working
member per year--rather than that labor being done by all the adults in a
community, usually a few people at each community take on being delegates
to the FEC and doing outreach and other work of the organization.  We hold
5-day "assemblies" two times a year, rotating hosting among our member
communities, and each community sends 1-2 delegates to each assembly, so
we can discuss big issues and plan our upcoming activities.  Hot topics
lately have included how to start more FEC communities and how to support
communities in doing more resource-sharing, whether or not they will ever
be in the FEC.

>--Using the model of union organizing, could there be
>paid organizers whose jobs it would be to travel the
>country and help groups? We have some spare bedrooms;
>you could bunk with us if you want to spend some time
>in the East.

Probably the most popular FEC program among the individual members is the
Labor Exchange program, where members from one group go spend anywhere
from a few hours to a few weeks at another group, helping out with
whatever work is needed.  Later the receiving group sends out members of
their own to repay the work.  One of our communities (it happens to be
where Laird Schaub lives, who some of you know as an excellent roving
process consultant) is a small agricultural community, and several other
communities send help for the sorghum harvest each fall--a lot of that
labor is simply donated, and it's great fun for the people involved.

Another program worth sharing about is our shared health risk fund.
Instead of joining the for-profit insurance scam, the FEC communities pay
in $10 per month per person into a joint fund called PEACH ("Preservation
of Equity Accessible for Community Health").  It serves as catastrophic
insurance for our communities, with a $5000 deductible that a community
pays before they can access the fund; it ensures that no FEC community
will go under due to high medical costs of one person.  There is over
$500,000 in the fund now and it's put in socially responsible investments
when not needed for medical care.

>--Is spreading cohousing part of the vision statement
>of your community?  Could it be?

>I'd like to challenge the creative and
>intelligent folks I keep reading notes from on this
>list to "think big" about some of these issues and to
>take on the formation of spreading of cohousing as one
>of the missions of your community or your life.

Yes yes yes!

I know that some individuals on this list have already taken on that
mission, and i trust that more will over time.  The shift i'd like to see
is for cohousing communities to each commit to supporting the movement.
(Contrary to what another person posted, there are only 18 completed
communities and 15 forming communities who are currently members of
Coho/US.)

As someone who walks in multiple worlds (i used to live in an FEC
community and i currently serve as secretary to the organization; now i
live in a co-op but do a lot of facilitation work with cohousing groups),
i am really pleased to see these potential overlap points emerging.  I
know that cohousers won't form something just like FEC, but as an
organization that's worked successfully for so many years, i hope we can
be an inspiration.

Enthusiastically yours,

--Tree

P.S. For those of you who have been aware of the saga of my home
community's attempts to buy the property we've been living in for the past
3 years, Walnut St. Co-op is proud to announce that we finally closed the
deal yesterday.  Unable to obtain a bank mortgage due to our co-op status,
our purchase was made possible through the creation of a community
revolving loan fund and the trust of 20+ supporters who contributed to it.
:-)





------------------------------------------
Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR  97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
www.treegroup.info

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