Cohousing-L Mailing List: Non-participants in community

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

I changed the title of the thread from work agreements to non-participants
to respond to Rachel's question about what about people who don't do squat.

In my experiences, cohousing has a larger percentage of people who are on
the low end of the contribution scale than other kinds of community. I think
this is inherent in the functional structure of cohousing. There legally are
limited requirements because if the requirements become too great, the banks
may not give mortgages. So for example you can not require a mortgage holder
to attend monthly association meetings, such meetings are voluntary. Nor can
you require a mortgage holder to do x hours of work. So all such agreements
are local, and have to be.

In many families, holding a mortgage requires two incomes. Add kids to that
mix and you have people who are being asked to spend time with their kids,
or do some community task. Add other complexities like ex-spouses, family
illness, etc. and there can be real limits to how much a family will give to
community. I once met a classic case, a cohousing couple who both worked as
teachers, had two kids, the mother-in-law was sick with cancer, and one of
the kids got sick with some kind of illness, the other had problems in
school. One got home at 6-7 at night, the other, had to pick up the kids
from after school care, deal with chores, doctor office stuff, etc. On
weekends they were supporting the sick family member and trying to find a
bit of time as a family. They were outraged that their group demanded they
put in 8 hours of community time a week! From their perspective, they got no
support from the community, and eventually they moved out.

It is not uncommon in my experience for couples to go two ways, one person
does community work and is interested and excited, the other person is less
so or not at all. So one person in a family carries most the community work
and social connections.

Finally in my experience, over a five year period, people who are least
involved tend to move on over time. They  get little out of living in
community so why put up with what can be seen as restrictions and hassles?
The less involved you are, the less social support you get, which is a key
element in most peoples personal satisfaction of living in community. Its
harder to gather energy and caring for somebody who does little and who you
know hardly at all. One couple here had a baby and got tons of meals, help
with household chores, gifts, and other support. Another couple got a couple
frozen dinners. The difference is that one couple is very involved, the
other, almost strangers. I just heard that the latter couple plan on moving
out next month.

Some people go into hiding, after having their feelings hurt, or feeling
attacked or for other social reasons. If your group pays attention to who
shows up, sudden changes can reflect communication or other problems that
might be worth working on. However, most cohousing groups do not do this.
Its a boundary issue, we don't do personal or group work of this kind, we
don't have time to do this kind of observation and support for people.

There are patterns to all of these which can be observed and talked about
and understood. And once you understand the situation you can adapt and
adjust expectations and requirements if you care to.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com