Cohousing-L Mailing List: Sweat Equity

(continued)

I am a recent fan of cohousing -- as soon as I discovered its concept, etc. 
less than a year ago.  Co-housing seemed an answer to my growing concerns about 
sustainability, putting one's money where one's mouth is vis-a-vis activism, 
and community.  I joined the co-housing network, subscribed to this list serv, 
and have been trying to do as much reading as possible on the subject.

But as I read people's messages, I began to be afraid that co-housing was less successful 
at addressing the big gap between the haves and havenots -- it seemed to me that at 
worst, co-housing was just a new way for middle class people to secure their own piece of 
the pie.  That's when I became interested in the possibility of finding a group of people 
who'd be interested in working for Habitat for Humanity a couple seasons, not only for 
the sake of activism, but also to learn how to build our own houses in community.  This 
would make mortgages something less than a lifetime commitment (or jail term), and it 
would also make for housing affordable to people "less fortunate" than the 
middle class.  I'll be almost 60 by the time I will be able to commit to Habitat for 
Humanity (I hear there are special groups of housebuilders made up of women!), but I 
think it is something I really want to do.  I hope I'll be able to find others who put 
special emphasis on sustainability, economic diversity, and activism; who want to live in 
the same geographic whereabouts (I'm undecided:  I think about Canada, upper state NY, 
northern Arizona, North Carolina, Russia!).

I also see co-housing as a way to develop the ability to visualize a society that is 
non-hierarchic.  We are indoctrinated at every level to believe that a system needs 
someone on top to make the decisions, to lead the way, to prevent chaos.  And really, the 
scale of present-day society is so huge (huge corporations, huge cities, huge 
populations) that anything other than hierarchy seems hopeless and wishful thinking.  But 
in co-community, people practice consensus every day.  People practice living out a 
non-hierarchical way of life in relatively small groups.  It seems to me that our 
co-communities, springing up all over the world, with emphasis on sustainability, human 
relations, activism, might well be the precursor to a badly needed new way of life, our 
"new story."

What do you think, readers?

Liza Cobb

Message: 3
From: Sue Pniewski <SPniewski [at] Habijax.com>
To: "'cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org'" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: RE: [C-L]_Sweat Equity and affordable housing
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 16:44:06 -0400
Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org

This sounds similar to Habitat for Humanity, which has also worked together
with a couple of cohousing groups.  We require 300 hours of sweat equity in
the homeowner's and other people's houses.  It gives the people a real
feeling of ownership and pride in their homes and allows many people who
would otherwise be unable to afford homeownership

Sweat Equity	<– Date –> <– Thread –>
From: Elizabeth Cobb (lizacobbearthlink.net)
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2003 12:25:04 -0600 (MDT)