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

[Sarah Lesher (sarah.lesher]

Maybe in this era, a search of all social media posts might give some
clues?  Membership in various organizations?

On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 12:10 PM Sarah Lesher <sarah.lesher [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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