Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Sweat Equity

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

My point to Elizabeth (?I think that was her name) was intended to encourage
her to check out other options in addition to cohousing, since she seemed
new to the concept. I have visited many non-cohousing communities that have
done exactly what she seemed to be asking for, build your own house at low
cost. I have been to wonderful communities where there is no cost, or little
cost to live there in dollars, only sweat equity and work. I have slept in
wonderful, custom hand made homes that were  delightful and inspiring, and
done entirely without mortgages. I have been to several workshops about how
to do such things, many of which were hosted by communities and were
attended by community seeking people. These workshops go on all over and
communities magazine often has listings of them.

 I have not yet heard of an entire build it yourself cohousing development
yet, although there are some partial build it yourself cohousing groups,
Sharingwood where I live being one. The Lot development model of cohousing
seems to allow for this concept, although lots can be quite expensive and
each community has its own set of expectations and agreements about what
owner builders can build. It seems reasonable to include non-cohousing ideas
as a response to a request for low income, build it yourself community
housing, since this is obviously not a strong suit of the cohousing model.

In my community travels I have met many well intentioned people with
wonderful community dreams. 95% of them, never go anywhere with their dreams
and this is sad. I think finding a community and living in it for a year,
even if its NOT cohousing, will help anybody with community dreams
understand many of the realities of community life and then be able to
compare these realities with their dreams. Visiting as many communities as
you can also will help community dreamers see and learn what has, and is
being done in the world. I see regular ads for cohousing rentals, heck
there's currently one available in my own community. There are dozens, if
not hundreds of opportunities outside of cohousing to live in a community.

Sorry if all this comes off as "attitude", but my perspective is much
broader than just cohousing. If having a larger perspective than cohousing
is not useful for a cohousing list, I can easily stop providing such.



Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


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