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

[Eileen McCourt (emccourt]

This person sent the same email to Oak Creek Commons info request email
address, which was then sent to all of Oak Creek Commons.  I think it was
very useful to have the Coho-l list serve discussion to put it in
perspective.  I appreciate the thoughtful responses from Raines and others
about how to work with negative energy.  This guy is not unique.  

Eileen McCourt
Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
Paso Robles, CA

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Joani Blank [mailto:joani [at] swansway.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 10:13 PM
To: Developing cohousing - collaborative housing communities
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Fwd: the failure of cohousing in the united states

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
>_________________________________________________________________
>Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
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Joani Blank
510-834-7399
Cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com
www.joaniblank.com 

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