Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Are We Done with the Rental Issue?

[Wayne Tyson (landrest]

Coho:

These two parts of Craig's statement "jumped out" as I read it:

"We need new ways of seeing housing solutions as we face the daunting 
challenges . . ."

"My experience is that putting out messages and requests to Coho-L rarely 
results in action or clear deliverables - our discussions tend to wander and 
while "talking" is interesting to many, very few are prepared to move beyond 
the talk. This is quite reasonable as those of us on the list tend to be 
very busy people - many of us have full-time jobs and a good number of us 
also have rich community lives and/or major projects."

As a very interested, but absolute outsider who greatly appreciates being 
allowed to "participate," I find his statements to ring particularly true. 
Being an outsider, my view is probably somewhat to very different from that 
of an insider. I tend to be something of an outsider anyway, and my ideas 
are often outliers that don't fit in. This is probably due to my ignorance 
of the realities of which the insiders are acutely aware. When I ask a 
question or make a comment I don't expect agreement, and don't mind being 
told that the answer is obvious or that my comment is ridiculous--I learn a 
lot from that.

Believe it or not, I am keeping relatively quiet about many of my ideas, 
except when someone else brings up the subject--even when they're about "new 
ways." I fully expect many of my ideas to be defective, but exposing them to 
a knowledgeable group is one way of discovering those defects. I learn from 
that, and perhaps others do too. "Ego" is not part of the equation.

I share Craig's frustration, however ("My experience is that putting out 
messages and requests to Coho-L rarely  results in action or clear 
deliverables . . ."). I do not see a problem when there is no response to a 
post--that most likely means that those reading it are not interested or 
simply don't have the time to get involved. However, when a participant does 
respond, then does not respond to responses, that seems like the person does 
not want to continue to discuss the issue to a point of resolution--to 
"clear deliverables." Do you suppose that labeling "threads" clearly on the 
subject line as being only for those who are willing to commit to 
participation all the way through to resolution would help? "Wandering" 
could be permitted with an appropriately-labeled subordinate subject line?

Just some outside thoughts . . .

WT



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Ragland" <craigragland [at] gmail.com>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>; "Richard L. Kohlhaas" 
<rlkohl [at] earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Are We Done with the Rental Issue?


> Who is this "we" ? The 2000+ subscribers to this listserv?
>
> My experience is that putting out messages and requests to Coho-L rarely
> results in action or clear deliverables - our discussions tend to wander
> and while "talking" is interesting to many, very few are prepared to move
> beyond the talk. This is quite reasonable as those of us on the list tend 
> to
> be very busy people - many of us have full-time jobs and a good number of 
> us
> also have rich community lives and/or major projects.
>
> Coho/US is a "we" that is made up of 9 board members, 8 part-time paid
> contractors lead by one salaried Exec Director, and several key volunteers
> who are working on our Affordable Task Force advocacy team, Research Team,
> 2011 Conference team, 2012 Conference team, Professional Advisory team, 
> and
> others who volunteer in various individual capacities, such as Raines 
> Cohen
> and Joani Blank who tirelessly triage and help address our email and
> telephone inquiries. This is probably about 50 people and many have
> connected with us through Coho-L (partially thanks to Melanie Mindvin, our
> paid volunteer coordinator). On a resource level, we've gradually built 
> our
> budget to around 200K and are becoming increasingly effective at using the
> power of money to help focus our attention on what the board deems to be 
> of
> strategic importance. Its exciting to see many of these people take 
> concrete
> actions every week, some with direct financial support and all with 
> efforts
> to coordinate their work. While it is always unclear whether any specific
> short-term action will drive the positive change that so many of us yearn
> for, I am clear that many of us are doing the best we can given our many
> limitations.
>
> As for driving action, my view is that Coho-L can be very effective at
> drawing individuals to:
> - volunteer for specific, well-defined tasks
> - apply for paid positions
> - consider specific offers made by forming groups, communities and
> professionals
> - learn about specific resources offered by many, including Coho/US, MAC,
> and the numerous communities who freely offer their support in many ways
>
> Of course, there are many less visible actions, like the hundreds of 
> people
> who have gleaned wisdom from the many interesting and useful posts, then
> applied it to their own or their group's efforts
>
> To specificly address your question, I do not see it as feasible for
>
> "all of us who are interested in Rental Cohousing (to) join their 
> committee"
>
> and I doubt that Grace intended to make such a broad invitation - she's 
> too
> smart to grow a committee willy nilly with the quite large number of 
> people
> who are interested in talking about it - the Affordable Cohousing Team 
> (not
> a committee) is focused on action, not talk. It needs to remain small 
> enough
> to make decisions about the next steps.
>
> I am somewhat aware of future actions which will encourage larger numbers 
> to
> take positive action to help advance this specific cause. The team will 
> help
> coordinate such work by making specific appeals, some of which have 
> already
> been done on Coho-L.
>
> Of course, all are invited to join us at the 2011 Conference, where the
> Affordable Cohousing Team will kick off this broader, more public 
> efforts -
> I understand that the team hopes to harness some of the coho-people power 
> we
> will help concentrate in Washington, DC - where so much of policy is 
> defined
> and where most of our best prospective organizational allies are based.
> Another function of the conference is to invite new people into Coho/US
> leadership roles. At the 2010 Conference, we recruited 3 new board 
> members,
> Pam Gilchrist from ElderGrace Cohousing (Santa Fe, NM), Dick Kohlhaas from
> Casa Verde Commons (Colorado Springs, CO), and Laura Fitch, from Pioneer
> Village (Amherst, MA).
>
> While invitations to participate in our growing efforts by attending the
> conference is hardly satisfying to some, proximity matters - a lot. The
> board's recent experience meeting with 19 different housing organizations 
> in
> DC did strengthen our resolve that face-to-face contact is critical to
> complement our long-distance work. I hope to see many joining us in our
> expanding work - it is a real goodness. Unlike Zev, I'm not particularly
> pessimistic about the future, but this is probably because of my up-close
> view of so much great work.
>
> We are in dark times and they loom ahead, but my view is that cohousing 
> has
> a very robust future indeed and that our dark times will serve to
> dramatically expand our movement. As Zev and others have suggested,
> cohousing's future may well not primarily be about new-built construction
> using current standard practices. I strongly believe in retro-fit
> cohousing. I'm modeling this right now as I write this email from my 
> shared
> household. Members of my community, Songaia Cohousing (near Seattle) plan
> to retrofit this building to better serve the needs of our elders. It will
> be community housing that's integrated into a thriving cohousing 
> community.
> Cohousing's future is about this type of innovation. We need new ways of
> seeing housing solutions as we face the daunting challenges of climate
> change, inequalities, etc. Its a good thing that this can be so much fun,
> because it is also very hard work.
>
> Thanks for listening!
>
> Craig Ragland
> Coho/US Executive Director (2008-2011)
>
> P.S. Want to assume my position in July? The pay is $35-40K for a half 
> time
> role - while this may not be much for the professional we hope to recruit,
> it IS almost certainly the best paying Cohousing Movement leadership
> position available in the world. Check out this Classified Ad for more
> detail:
> http://www.cohousing.org/node/3926
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Zev Paiss <zpaiss [at] comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Friends,
> >
> > Just curious to know if Grace's suggestion that all of us who are
> > interested in Rental Cohousing join their committee has finished this
> > discussion? What we need is strong leadership to help adapt the
> > American cohousing model to address this pressing issue.  I am
> > concerned that with the constraints on home construction and purchase
> > for most people, cohousing will not have a very robust future.
> >
> > Zev
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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>
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