Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Building Community

[Valerie Stuart (vstuart]

Valerie here.  I just want to say THANK YOU ZEV for your message.
YES! HO! and YES!  I can see a world where diversity is encouraged and 
celebrated.  A black African co-housing unit, a pagan co-housing project, 
a green-pepper lovers co-housing project.  I think it would be great to 
see people go all the way expressing their members uniqueness WHILE 
learning to appreciate and honor co-housing groups completely different 
from there own.  I have the sense as we really accept and enjoy each others' 
differences and allow them to flourish there will not be so much 
conflict.  While I wouldn't want to love in a Catholic co-housing project 
I might enjoy sitting in their meditation garden or enjoy helping them 
with a community project they want to facilitate.  I've come from 
flinching when I hear the word God to actually having friendships with 
Jehova's Witneses (as long as they stop trying to convert me).  We grow 
stronger in ourselves when we are surrounded with like-minded folks who 
understand us and can support us to be the person we want to be.  For 
some it will be "base model" co-housing, for others it will mean more 
exclusivity or more criteria for admittance - that's life.  I hope we 
move beyond this, personally as I would rather spend time discussing what 
fun or growthful realizations, experiences folks ARE having.  What IS 
helping you to get closer to living the life of your dreams?

Valerie Stuart, Eugene, OR

On Sat, 14 Oct 1995 BPaiss [at] aol.com wrote:

> Dear Friends bothe Old and New,
> 
> I have just pored through the weeks digests and am left with the profound
> feeling that we are stuck.  It is obious that the most significant thing that
> peole left the conferece with was what occured in the last 45 minutes of (for
> some of us) a 4 1/2 day event.  No doubt it was powerful and for that reason
> alone I would do it again...but please what did you think of the rest of the
> time we spent together? (Other than that Mrs. Lincoln what did you think of
> the play?) 
> 
> I would love to hear some discussion about the presentations, the networking,
> the food, the tours, the resource room, the tone of the time we spend
> together, the new connections which were made, the new insights which were
> gained.  From my perspective, a lot happened for alot of people and all we
> seem to be discussion is this and a new form of strawbale sheetrock!!!!!
> 
> Dan's suggest that we stick to "Base Model CoHousing" is ignoring the fact
> that group decision making and values (translated into specific options) are
> mutually exclusive.  I don't expect to see a coho commuinity with that kind
> of focus until a professional team creates a spec project and for one would
> think twice about wanting to live there.  
> 
> Rob commented that the reality is that "Every cohousing group is
> exclusionary.  You exclude those who do not want to live cooperatively.  You
> exclude those who are not interested in caring about their neighbors, you
> exclude those who are unwilling to give up total personal automony.
> 
> Gary from Broward Commons added that "If muslim or all catholic cohousing
> communities started popping up, the
> movement will be in trouble.  I would encourage all of us to review the four
> aspects Chuck and Katie layued out in the book as too what make something
> CoHousing.  Resident Participation, Design to encourage community, common
> facilities, and resident managed.  As long as a project has those factors it
> can be CoHousing.  It says noithing about diversity, affordability, energy
> efficiency, religious orientation and form of decision making.  We have added
> all that ourselves.  How can we possibly come to the conclusion that if a
> group of people want a non-diverse, religious community that it isn't
> cohousing?
> 
> I totally agree with Rob when he says, "I for one would be interested to see
> how a republican conservative christian group would make decisions.  I would
> love to learn how low income black woman would use a commonhouse and what
> sorts of sharing they did. The diversity within these groups can teach many
> things."
> 
> I ultimately expect that we will be able to use our differences to strengthen
> all of us a community which for me, is why I am doing this in the first
> place.
> 
> Just some thoughts...thanks for listening.
> 
> Zev
>