Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fwd: the failure of cohousing in the united states

[Joani Blank (joani]

Raines,

I'm frankly disappointed to note that you took even one minute--never mind 
the 10 or 15 you probably took--to write your very thoughtful response to 
this obviously disturbed individual. The best response to a diatribe like 
this is, IMHO, no response at all, or a polite dismissal.

I am pleased that you did the research to find out that this individual has 
a history of disrupting listservs.  And now that he's tried to provoke and 
disrupt ours, I do hope that our excellent list manager Fred will agree 
that he should be summarily dismissed.

Joani

At 09:14 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote:
> On 11/15/04 8:06 PM, Chris ScottHanson <chris [at] cohousingresources.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Anyone know anything about this guy and his claims?
>
> When I see something provocative from somebody I don't know, the first
> thing I do is a web search to get some perspective - where is this person
> coming from? What's the context of the comment?
>
> A self-description in a message board he allegedly disrupted cited him as
> labeling himself: "Head prophet of the world; a future President of the 
> United States; a  Christian, a pacifist; professional musician/songwriter "
>
> You may find other terms to describe him; I'll leave that to anyone who
> cares to examine his record of disrupting other mailing lists and
> discussion boards:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22douglas+stambler%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
>
> He sent that same letter to many communities today - we all should feel
> free to discuss it here (where he can read what we have to say), but I
> don't see any actual facts to base a discussion on.
>
> He complains about "negative attitudes of people who are dominating the
> cohousing movement in america at this time", yet his is the most negative
> screed I've seen, and I've seen thousands of positive responses and
> attitudes, after visiting dozens of communities and serving on the
> national board for six years and coordinating a national cohousing
> conference and helping publish Cohousing magazine and seeing every single
> inquiry about cohousing for the past year. According to our database, he
> hasn't ever subscribed to Cohousing magazine or made any inquiry about
> Cohousing to the national association in the past decade, so he may be
> projecting some small subset that he's been exposed to.
>
> If his point on the failure rate were true, I'd certainly imagine we'd be
> hearing about it here... and we wouldn't have years-long waiting lists
> for openings in some communities and resale prices exceeding local market
> conditions across the board (except where intentionally capped).
>
> If his point on elitism were true, we wouldn't be seeing extensive
> partnerships between Cohousing professionals and affordable housing
> developers and government agencies to create permanently affordable
> housing in communities, or people in communities creatively finding
> solutions to help one another and break down the barriers. Please, go
> beyond the myths and stereotypes to see how we're leading the way in this
> area.
>
> His comment suggesting that we all set out at the beginning to achieve
> agricultural self-sufficiency gives me the impression that he's talking
> about something other than cohousing as we define it, because while most
> communities I know supplement their common meal larder with locally grown
> and raised produce, it is nowhere intended as a sole source... unlike
> some other ICs (intentional communities), most cohousing communities do
> not have a closed economy, people participate in the regional economy.
>
> At Swan's Market Cohousing (Oakland, CA) where I've lived, and other
> urban communities, you'd be hard pressed to say the group was trying to
> be "as far away from normal society as possible", given that the
> community is embedded within a mixed-use historic structure across from
> the convention center, a block from the subway nexus 12 minutes from
> downtown San Francisco, surrounded by shops, restaurants, an art museum,
> a farmer's market, and more. You wouldn't see Hearthstone Cohousing in
> Denver opening their doors to neighbors to help prevent a WalMart from
> going in nextdoor, and modeling how to run effective meetings and
> organize. Most communities I've visited are trying to be as connected as
> possible with their neighbors and the cities/regions they are part of.
>
> His allegations of fraud are ridiculous: nearly all the communities I'm
> familiar with that got any form of subsidy or assistance are dedicated to
> creating PERMANENT affordable housing, typically with "recapture"
> provisions that, in the event of a resale, redirect "profits" not to the
> community, nor the first-time buyer, but back to affordable housing in
> the area, if the resale price itself isn't capped and the unit kept
> affordable for the next buyer. I don't believe that market-rate cohousing
> has received the funding he alleges.
>
> And his comment about today's Coho-L comment from Sunward totally misses
> the point: people are using this list to share techniques for mutual
> support in community. The community is not having problems staying
> afloat, some members are, and the community is using this list to figure
> out how it can provide the internal, temporary support necessary. They
> did not ask other communities for money, but rather, for advice on how
> they can share their richness and provide for one another. How many
> conventional condos do you know where that kind of compassion and concern
> would even be considered?
>
> This movement is all about sharing, equipping each other to do things
> ourselves: creating a community where there was none before, doing
> collectively what we could not acheive individually. If the commenter
> wants to take the movement in a new direction, by all means, please do
> so: let us see your leadership in creating new communities. If they go
> further in the directions you envision, you will provide an example for
> us all to emulate.
>
> Raines Cohen
> boardmember, Cohousing Association of the United States (Coho/US)
> expressing personal opinions only
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Joani Blank
510-834-7399
Cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com
www.joaniblank.com