Cohousing-L Mailing List: Debilitating Mental Illness in Cohousing & Society

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

on 10/2/2002 2:10 PM, Zev Paiss at zpaiss [at] attbi.com wrote:

> First, I am wondering if cohousing is attracting a disproportionate number
> of people in this situation, and secondly, and much more problematic, is how
> might a cohousing community in its development stage, openly have
> discussions about this as the future members are getting to know one
> another?

I added "debilitating" to the subject line because that is really what you
are talking about I think. An illness that prevents a person from
participating in the community or may disrupt community activities.

One of the reasons to have work shared equally from the start and to have
realistic estimations of what work is required in cohousing is to be
realistic about how much support a community can provide.

If a group is realistic about this, then things should proceed with
realistic expectations. The one reservation I have about the development of
cohousing groups becoming easier, is that it become too easy. If members
think they can move in and then sort things out, all kinds of difficult
imbalances will take place.

We were required to have 10% (right number Ann?) of our units built as
accessible. Presumably that number was reached by some association that
determined that 10% of the population would be physically challenged at some
point in their lives. (All our fire alarms have incredible flashing lights
and  very loud sirens that literally vibrate your ears. When they go off,
from the piazza we look like a Christmas Tree.)

With 50 adults in a community, that means 5 would need extraordinary
supports if the community was serving its proportion of society at large.

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


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