Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: dealing with difficult conversations

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Sep 13, 2022, at 5:05 PM, Fiona Frank <fionafrank [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all, a request from Lancaster Cohousing
> How do you-all deal with 'difficult conversations'?  We tried to engage a
> facilitator to help us to think about these things but they've gone off
> with long covid and we're a bit stuck.

I promise to do a longer blog post on this at some point but I’ll send the 
outlines now as people are asking about difficult conversations. One of the 
first things people ask about cohousing after privacy is that they don’t want 
to deal with all the drama of arguments.

“The High Life” is a history of condominiums and other housing associations. As 
part of the union movement in the early 20th century there were many very large 
neighborhoods that functioned just like cohousing. Unions often supported them 
and designed them for their members. Little known is that private libraries and 
night classes were started by business owners and unions for the benefit of 
workers so they could learn to speak English and become educated. 

One of the very large communities in NY City had everything — parks, support 
groups, classes, meal sharing, etc. They were also known as very argumentative. 
They were famous amongst the people who lived there and the people who didn’t 
move there for the arguments over everything from the length of the grass to 
the time of quiet hours to the color of the doors. The man who did the research 
said he found this complaint everywhere. Legendary.

But when he looked at the residency records — and public housing has many 
records and there were inhouse newsletters — he found that no one moved out. 
Some people said they wouldn’t move in but many others did. The community kept 
growing and developing and adding other amenities like swimming pools and 
preschools. People stayed. 

The place thrived because everyone was engaged. 

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