Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fwd: the failure of cohousing in the united states

[Raines Cohen (rc2-coho-L]

On 11/15/04 8:06 PM, Chris ScottHanson <chris [at] cohousingresources.com> 
wrote:

>Anyone know anything about this guy and his claims?

When I see something provocative from somebody I don't know, the first 
thing I do is a web search to get some perspective - where is this person 
coming from? What's the context of the comment?

A self-description in a message board he allegedly disrupted cited him as 
labeling himself:

> Head prophet of the world; a future President of the United States; a 
Christian - a
>pacifist; professional musician/songwriter 

You may find other terms to describe him; I'll leave that to anyone who 
cares to examine his record of disrupting other mailing lists and 
discussion boards:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22douglas+stambler%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

He sent that same letter to many communities today - we all should feel 
free to discuss it here (where he can read what we have to say), but I 
don't see any actual facts to base a discussion on.

He complains about "negative attitudes of people who are dominating the 
cohousing movement in america at this time", yet his is the most negative 
screed I've seen, and I've seen thousands of positive responses and 
attitudes, after visiting dozens of communities and serving on the 
national board for six years and coordinating a national cohousing 
conference and helping publish Cohousing magazine and seeing every single 
inquiry about cohousing for the past year. According to our database, he 
hasn't ever subscribed to Cohousing magazine or made any inquiry about 
Cohousing to the national association in the past decade, so he may be 
projecting some small subset that he's been exposed to.

If his point on the failure rate were true, I'd certainly imagine we'd be 
hearing about it here... and we wouldn't have years-long waiting lists 
for openings in some communities and resale prices exceeding local market 
conditions across the board (except where intentionally capped).

If his point on elitism were true, we wouldn't be seeing extensive 
partnerships between Cohousing professionals and affordable housing 
developers and government agencies to create permanently affordable 
housing in communities, or people in communities creatively finding 
solutions to help one another and break down the barriers. Please, go 
beyond the myths and stereotypes to see how we're leading the way in this 
area.

His comment suggesting that we all set out at the beginning to achieve 
agricultural self-sufficiency gives me the impression that he's talking 
about something other than cohousing as we define it, because while most 
communities I know supplement their common meal larder with locally grown 
and raised produce, it is nowhere intended as a sole source... unlike 
some other ICs (intentional communities), most cohousing communities do 
not have a closed economy, people participate in the regional economy.

At Swan's Market Cohousing (Oakland, CA) where I've lived, and other 
urban communities, you'd be hard pressed to say the group was trying to 
be "as far away from normal society as possible", given that the 
community is embedded within a mixed-use historic structure across from 
the convention center, a block from the subway nexus 12 minutes from 
downtown San Francisco, surrounded by shops, restaurants, an art museum, 
a farmer's market, and more. You wouldn't see Hearthstone Cohousing in 
Denver opening their doors to neighbors to help prevent a WalMart from 
going in nextdoor, and modeling how to run effective meetings and 
organize. Most communities I've visited are trying to be as connected as 
possible with their neighbors and the cities/regions they are part of.

His allegations of fraud are ridiculous: nearly all the communities I'm 
familiar with that got any form of subsidy or assistance are dedicated to 
creating PERMANENT affordable housing, typically with "recapture" 
provisions that, in the event of a resale, redirect "profits" not to the 
community, nor the first-time buyer, but back to affordable housing in 
the area, if the resale price itself isn't capped and the unit kept 
affordable for the next buyer. I don't believe that market-rate cohousing 
has received the funding he alleges.

And his comment about today's Coho-L comment from Sunward totally misses 
the point: people are using this list to share techniques for mutual 
support in community. The community is not having problems staying 
afloat, some members are, and the community is using this list to figure 
out how it can provide the internal, temporary support necessary. They 
did not ask other communities for money, but rather, for advice on how 
they can share their richness and provide for one another. How many 
conventional condos do you know where that kind of compassion and concern 
would even be considered?

This movement is all about sharing, equipping each other to do things 
ourselves: creating a community where there was none before, doing 
collectively what we could not acheive individually. If the commenter 
wants to take the movement in a new direction, by all means, please do 
so: let us see your leadership in creating new communities. If they go 
further in the directions you envision, you will provide an example for 
us all to emulate.

Raines Cohen
boardmember, Cohousing Association of the United States (Coho/US)
expressing personal opinions only