Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Seeking advice re mentally ill community member - CONCLUSION

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Diana Leafe Christian <christian_d1 [at] bellsouth.net>
is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Dear Cohousing_L folks,

I wanted to thank very much those of you who took the time to write
and offer kind words of support and advice for our dilemma at
Earthaven. And I apologize that I haven't been able to let people
know what happened until now.

We passed a proposal in our Sunday, April 1st community meeting about
our neighbor, which says, essentially, that she may not come onto our
property. (More about this, below).

I believe our decision about this was stronger and more
comprehensive than it would otherwise have been, partly because of
the insights and advice I received from over 100 other people
generous enough to share experiences and recommendations. (And partly
because by our neighbor had just taken two more members' cars and
trashed one of our other neighbor's houses. So the young people who
would have not wanted this agreement were now able to go along with it.)

So I wanted you to know what a difference people's advice made to the
decision we made at Earthaven.

Also, I wanted to acknowledge that in my haste to ask for help I
oversimplified and overstated the case about the two factions here. I
should have said that those who valued the community's well-being
over our neighbors' feelings and freedoms included many of the older,
more experienced, members, and those who primarily valued her
feelings and freedoms included many of the younger, less experienced
folks. But I wrote it as if it was more cut and dried than it really
was; my error!

Here's what we decided:

(1) To revoke our neighbor's Supporting Membership (a formality to
officially remove any rights she might have to visit us).

(2) Tell her she is not allowed to come onto our property for an
indefinite period of time.

(3) Reconsider this decision after two months with a new proposal
brought forward by a team of people consisting of the neighbor, her
mother, an outside caseworker, and three Earthaven members.

(4) Inform all our neighbors of this plan, and keep them updated when
necessary.

(5) Try to get our neighbor into a treatment plan, with the help of
an outside caseworker and if she's willing, our neighbor's mother.

(6) Get more information about mental illness for our community
members with a visiting mental health professional.

(7) Figure out how we'll escort her off the property if or when she
comes here again.

(8) Work out a plan about how to communicate with her and/or what to
do if she commits criminal acts (such as stealing cars or taking
things from people's houses, or trashing people's houses).

(9) Tell community members that they may not share sex, alcohol, or
other mind-changing substances with her (and perhaps with
consequences if they do) if she returns to our property, to protect
her vulnerable & fragile mental stability and our health and liability.

(10) Figure out a way to communicate this with work exchangers and
other shorter-term residents.

(11) Create guidelines for our members and residents who are her
friends for how to continue their relationship with her in a way that
honors their friendship, doesn't trigger her to act out more, and
protects the community's liability.

Thank you so much again, for reading my request, thanks so
much to the cohousers who helped us with invaluable advice.

Diana Christian

Communities Magazine: http://www.ic.org http://store.ic.org

Diana Leafe Christian: http://www.DianaLeafeChristian.org