Cohousing-L Mailing List: Sharing in Cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharonvillines]

I suspect that there is a lot of income sharing and helping out that goes on
behind the scenes--or is so customary that people aren't aware of it.

--Inviting a family to dinner because you know it is the end of the week and
they haven't gotten paid yet.

--long term "loans" of computers, furniture, bicycles, etc.

--passing along baby furniture and clothing

--monetary loans, co-signing loans

Just living closely enough that you know when someone needs something brings
a response. But it comes without being institutionalized. The
institutionalization brings with it a lot of baggage that most people do not
want and which cohousing has done a good job of avoiding.

This is really a different subject, but we are enormously culturally
diverse. Much more that one would think and that is one reason why we avoid
institutionalization.

I'm on  a list where we do a lot of discussion of life in England--a small
country with one theater world, one film industry, one Queen. We tried to
play the Kevin Bacon game with Judi Dench and had to do it in reverse--It
was impossible to find any actor who was more than 3 degrees removed from
her--and there was only one of them. Everyone, young or old, had worked in a
production with her. That would never happen with an American actor.

I recently had the occasion to explain to "them" the differences between
life in California and life in Alabama. Santa Fe vs. Philadelphia or Cape
Cod. It was a very interesting discussion and one which pointed out how much
we believe that we are all alike because we watch the same TV stations. But
differ enormously.
--

Sharon Villines
MacGuffin Guide to Detective Fiction
http://www.macguffin.net
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington, DC
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~takomavillag/