Cohousing-L Mailing List: NVC & Sociocracy [was Screening prospective members for sexual abuse in their background

[Maggie McGovern (mcgroovin2000]

 Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2022 10:22:33 -0500
From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: [C-L]_ NVC & Sociocracy [was Screening prospective members
   for sexual abuse in their background

Unless we apply the same cautions that we apply in our personal lives and 
develop skills at problem solving and knowing when to call in a professional, 
we will just repeat the same patterns. The solution is developing people skills 
and striving for understanding, not blame or correction or punishment 
(?fines?).”

“The melding of NVC and sociocracy in Step 3 was particularly insightful. By 
focusing on analyzing the ?essence,? not just the ?needs,? of the people, it 
asked the question what is really going on here? It placed the conflict in its 
social context which was particularly useful in the context of the the 
classroom and the larger context of the school. It analyzed the social context 
and the policies of the organization, not just individual needs.

The opportunity of cohousing is that this kind of people understanding will be 
developed and encouraged.

But it means everyone has to go into cohousing expecting to spend the time to 
understand each other, not to develop a process for being sure everyone is 
perfect or free of any possible ?pathologies? before they can join a developing 
group. 

I think some of these intentions are great especially when you are lucky enough 
to have a group of people on board with all you mentioned. But I also think 
this mindset is being blind to reality and is part of the problem. Everyone is 
not necessarily going to do or want what you said in this last paragraph. I’m 
curious if you really think “everyone has to go into cohousing expecting to 
spend the time to understand each other, not to develop a process for being 
sure everyone is perfect or free of any possible pathologies before they can 
join a developing group.”? Do all cohosting communities you’ve seen have that 
make up? That sounds wonderful. Mine didn’t, I know of others that don’t. So 
it’s just not reality for some. Nor does that dream solve anything for those 
who don’t have that right now. 

The reality is that not all cohousing members can or will try to understand 
each other as you long for. I too wish they did! But assuming everyone is like 
that is going to have you ignore major issues. When you have someone who won’t 
communicate, won’t meet with a professional, and continues to abuse someone 
else then you need more than this. There needs to be some accountability for 
those who chose actions that harm. There also needs to be a fair way to assess 
harm. The assumption that all problems in cohousing can be solved with good 
intentions or certain communication tools is enabling abuse and harm. Cohousing 
is more prone to this in my mind than other non-community focused HOAs because 
people assume the same, that all will follow or try to follow agreements and 
work to understand and do conflict resolution. Having agreements alone puts 
cohousing in a different category. If a new member is given agreements and told 
that the community has all agreed to those agreements that is misleading when 
some members do not at all agree to the agreements. The fact is some come in 
and don’t intend to live by the agreements or don’t realize they can’t or won’t 
until they’ve lived there for a bit. I’ve seen many cohousing members be blind 
to abuse because they are so attached to conflict resolution and the written 
agreements even when agreements aren’t being followed and harm is being done. 
At that point it’s no longer appropriate or safe to follow the conflict 
resolution guidelines if they say nothing about what to do if someone won’t 
follow the agreements. It’s a big hole and big assumption to assume and act as 
if all follow those agreements. And cohousing communities should be following 
the law. Harassment needs to be investigated when it is asked for. Sure we all 
hope it doesn’t come to that, but too often it does.

I teach NVC (Nonviolent Communication), many beginners think NVC is advocating 
to just talk and not to act. But there is a very important concept called 
protective use of force. As you get deeper into NVC communities you will find 
that this is a very complex thing. But it advocates for protection when 
protection is needed. It acknowledges that someone can harm another. NVC does 
not say to trust all humans and that all can be communicated with safely. 
Deciding when protection is needed is often a cause of much conflict within NVC 
circles. There is no easy fix. Harm, protection, violations are all tricky 
subjects and not easy to agree on at times. But listening and understanding 
does not alleviate all harm. A victim should not be asked to listen to and 
understand the perpetrator. I am a huge advocate of NVC AND I’m an advocate of 
reducing harm and protecting people. Ive worked with restorative justice and 
trauma healing and NVC for years. None of these will guarantee prevention of 
people moving to cohousing and causing harm. NVC doesn’t clarify how to use 
protective use of force fairly in a very biased, prejudiced, injured world. 
Like everyone, NVC folks also have implicit bias and I’ve seen that play out in 
cohousing in scary ways. People can use their concept of NVC in a way that 
harms. I would say they aren’t actually using the essence of it but some think 
they are, this includes some trainers so I think we need to be careful abut how 
we use NVC and there need to be guidelines beyond NVC.

When I share about being harassed and it not being investigated (as it legally 
should be) and that the person harassing me wouldn’t communicate with me or do 
mediations of any form and they have a history of targeting single women and 
you seem to say to talk it out and that people should come to cohousing wanting 
to develop understanding and look at their patterns, etc, it is a form of 
ignoring what I said and not addressing the problem. Which happens often when 
people (especially women and minorities) name harm and this response enables 
the harm. 

I think some cohousing communities could protect people and themselves by 
becoming more educated on violations in communities and power dynamics in 
communities (both are also online courses) as well as implicit bias (lots of 
courses on that). I also think having accurately written documents would help 
as well as having things written and in place for when agreements are not 
followed and for when violations do occur. Rules and Regulations seem like a 
basic necessity but my community doesn't have them so that too should be in 
place along with CC&Rs and by-laws. I also think there should be a harassment 
policy and procedure (in addition to a general violations guideline).

Another thing I thought of to help prospective members screen people and 
communities (not the original topic but I don’t think we have to be so linear) 
is if possible to show them some email threads from the community email. Ours 
is very telling and if someone asked and it was OK’d with the community I would 
share the problematic ones. I am not sure the legality of that. HOA emails seem 
like they could be accessed by the public legally but I don’t know.

I think screening prospective members (and their housemates, partners, friends 
that might chose to live there later) is very difficult, if even possible, and 
thus we need to have some of the above protections in place for when we get 
less than ideal ones and that’s why I mention it. 

Maggie


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