Cohousing-L Mailing List: The "Next Home"

[Sarah Kerr (skerr]

I am interested to know if anyone has tried using a labour credit system in
trying to equalize the work and responsibilities of daily maintainance.  I
know that some of the more 'traditional' intentional communities (is that an
oxymoron?) like Twin Oaks use something like that,but I don't know much about
it.

In my non-cohousing life I co-ordinate The Bow Chinook Barter Community, a
non-profit community economic development project that helps people use their
skills to meet thier needs.  We have printed a local currency and publish a
bulliten that lists (classified style) the goods and services that members
are offering or requesting. There is a similar system in Ithaca and I wonder
is anyone there has made the connection between the two ideas? 

I wouldn't think it would be that much of a stretch to use a 'local currency'
concept to manage the contributions people make around a cohousing community.
 Maybe the group could come to an agreement on how many credit units each
family must contribute each month, and also calculate what various jobs are
worth and then track how much each family "earns".  I'm sure it would be more
complicated than that,but it seems like there should be some way to do it. We
at Wholelife Housing are nowhere near even being built, but we hope to use
such a system eventually. Has anyone tried anything like it? 

Cheers
Sarah
Wholelife Housing in Calgary, Alberta
...where we are very excited about trying to purchase an empty 2 acre lot on
the recently closed 500 acre military base close to downtown.  The army is
under pressure not to demolish the old (but well maintained) houses, and so
we are considering the price and possiblity of moving the existing military
houses onto this land in a configuration we like.  It might make things very
recycled, affordable and relatively fast, but we would sacrifice energy
efficiency and 90's design know-how.  We are also considering building from
the ground up and using th eNext Hme design.