Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Screening prospective members for sexual abuse in their background

[Maggie McGovern (mcgroovin2000]

I believe some cohousing communities are sitting ducks for predators, abuse and 
bullies. I lived in cohousing for over two years and bought my unit before 
realizing the danger. I have since researched this and violations in community 
and Ive found it isn’t that unusual. Basically there are often a lot of 
compassionate, well intended people and sometimes there are not good 
boundaries. For instance in my community there are no Rules and Regulations. 
There was no accountability for if someone crossed lines including legal lines. 
I was harassed for two years. I told the community. We (the HOA) are then 
legally required to investigate. I asked for it to be investigated as is 
required. No one did. When the person harassing me refused to do any of the 
written suggested steps we all have agreed to, mediation, professional 
mediation, but instead escalated his harassment most people did not know what 
to do. Those who wanted accountability were single women with less voice and 
power and were ignored. So nothing was done to stop it. I got care and 
compassion at first. But no real protection or legal action that is required. I 
get it, many were scared, many confused, many just not good at boundaries and 
conflict avoidant, many tired. But the behavior was not new. I was not the 
first single woman to be targeted. I got more abuse than anyone previously 
partially because I spoke up and partially because as a single mom I was the 
one outside for most of the time with the children. This made me an easy 
target. So I left after trying very hard to help improve things not only for 
myself but for other new people and women. I was one of the most active members 
of this community. But the lack of accountability and following legal rules is 
a real problem. There was scape goating and a lot of group shaming and power 
plays (founders supporting/enabling founders despite violations). And it 
continues in other ways towards other single women. 

It also left me with a dilemma on selling. My neighbor has the history of 
harassing single women, the community isn’t following legal obligations and 
isn’t protecting women. I was left in a very hard moral place. 

I have since spoken to other cohousing members in other communities and ex 
members of my community as well as experts on community violations and abuse 
and this is not that unusual a problem in communities it just shows up in 
various ways. When I left I thought they should have a “welcome predators and 
bullies!” sign. 

I believe for my old community there needs to be accountability, rules and 
regulations, grievance policies and people educated on what the HOA is required 
to do and how. I shared all of this with them so there’s also some lack of 
interest in that from those who have the most power that I don’t know how to 
address. I imagine other communities have a better balance of boundaries and 
empathy. It’s very unfortunate for those women left who wanted to improve this.

I think if people are looking into cohousing they should try to ask the people 
not participating, people who left, not just the most vocal and those that jump 
forward about their positive experiences. The face of each cohousing does not 
always show the underbelly. Those writing the most emails and speaking the most 
might be blind to the abuse (even on this list serve). I also suggest people 
read the meeting notes. Some of the scape goating and inappropriate behavior in 
our community is recorded in notes (without the labels of course but there is 
clearly bad process and triangulation and scape goating). I’m unsure if one can 
ask police departments if there are reports on certain HOAs but I’d ask 
cohousing members if they know of any police reports. Ours has multiple. 

I still have hope for this community. With so many moving and some founders 
leaving there is a great opportunity to restructure. But there is still a great 
weakness that any community can be prone to in my mind.

Unfortunately, those expressing this view on this list serv will be a minority 
as most won’t be on here anymore and many won’t want to share. The violations 
have such a big impact but the enabling can be just as damaging and many are 
silenced. 

Thanks for pondering and bringing this issue up,
Maggie

Sent from my iPhone