Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Background check Screening of Prospective Members

[Sarah Lesher (sarah.lesher]

As someone who lived in shared group houses most of my life before finding
a cohousing home, the real issue is what I'll call affective disorders,
that at least 25% of us suffer from.  There is almost no way to find out
whether someone has depression, is managing it well, or is self-medicating
with alcohol or drugs.  Or if a recovering alcoholic/drug user, if they've
slipped.  Or if one doctor has taken them off mood-stabilizers another
doctor was helping them do well on.  Or if they've had a psychotic break.
Suicidal tendencies.

These people are all human beings who deserve our sympathy.  But even
another housemate who was a trained crisis counselor failed to prevent a
suicide (as did I). And a housemate who became frankly manic when a surgeon
who distrusted medication took him off, I think lithium, could not be
helped by we who liked him.  Because, of course, even when we reached out
to his psychiatrist, that doctor wasn't allowed to admit he was a patient.
A medical student peeping tom spying on a tween girl, daughter of two
medical school professors, couldn't be referred by those professors for
help, though the med student was training to be either a gynecologist or
urologist.

I could go on and on and on, through a non-trivial portion of the table of
contents of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  I
suspect I've lived with more people with different severe affective
disorders than people who are professional counselors see, because they
treat mostly those who are stable enough to have decent mental health
insurance.

We wouldn't want privacy-invading databases on mental (I prefer "brain")
health issues.

But frankly, having had several hundred housemates, both as a fellow renter
and as "landlord," brain health and behavior issues have been much more of
a problem than the occasional charming deadbeat.  No criminal ever moved
in, though I almost never bothered with background checks.

However, a woman with a one year lease, and what I tentatively diagnosed as
borderline personality disorder, physically chased my dog out of the house
while I was out of town. I ended up depressed after losing that dog.
Impossible to evict; she kept getting Section 8 level assistance.  So I
went to month to month leases.

That's not an option when someone buys into your community.

Yes, clearly brain health issues reflect the terrible inequalities in our
society.

But it's a bit like having to decide when your community can no longer help
a long-standing member whose brain is slipping into dementia.  Or drug
addiction.

Communities do need to be support systems.  But even as families sometimes
decide that a troubled member, young or old, is tearing them apart,
communities must decide when someone is going to be too much for them.

The question is, how can you assess this in advance?  Let us all know if
you figure it out.

On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 10:58 AM Jim Bronson <jimbronsonashland [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks to others on this listserv for reflecting on their financial
> screening approach.  A similar, currently hot topic for us at River Song is
> screening for behavior history, so-called background checks.  We probably
> all have encountered the numerous websites that promise to find your person
> of interest, investigate their interactions with the law and government,
> and give you a report of their misdeeds, including arrests, convictions,
> fines, etc.  At RSC we wonder if these sites are accurate, and whether it
> is ethical and appropriate to use them to screen for prospective members.
>
> For reference, here is a link to a Seattle Weekly article that suggests 8
> sites they have investigated.
>
>
> https://www.seattleweekly.com/marketplace/top-8-background-checks-sites-to-search-criminal-records-social-media-accounts-educational-history-and-more/
>
> There are many more back-ground check sites advertising through Google
> which will pop up when you enter a name search.  I would love to hear from
> cohousing membership team folks about this topic.  Thanks.  Jim Bronson -
> River Song Cohousing, Eugene, OR
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