Re: New diversity statement
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:07:20 -0700 (PDT)
> On Sep 20, 2016, at 6:44 PM, Tiffany Lee Brown <magdalen23 [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> We would love to change that and are actively recruiting applicants in 
> communities of color." Or is that ugly tokenism?

One of the problems with cohousing is that it is a minority population. When 
recruiting people who are already a minority, you are trying to find people who 
are not sensitive about becoming a double minority. 

I would suggest recruiting in places that are very diverse already. 

The statistics are daunting, however. If cohousing is 1% of the population, and 
I’m not sure it is at that  level at all, finding .1% of any minority will be 
tough. And if the minority in your area is 10% of the population, take that 
number and see how many people there are who MIGHT be interested. Then reduce 
that by the number who can’t move at the moment — jobs, schools, house prices, 
etc.

A, Art History Department in a SUNY College was told by the President to fill a 
position with an Orientalist or they couldn’t hire anyone. She didn’t 
understand (or believe) that there were only 3 Orientalists looking for jobs in 
the whole English-speaking world and all had been hired at elite colleges at 
2-3 times what the college could offer.

There are limits. If you are  open and thorough in your information sharing, 
you have to accept that you have done what you can. Personal contact is 
probably the best way to find new members. If you don’t have those already, I 
think you will have to develop them first.

Some neighborhood people complained that all our units were sold before they 
were even aware that we were building. Since Ann Zabaldo was leading the charge 
to develop the community, you know that flyers were placed everywhere and all 
the local papers had articles about it.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org





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