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

[Crystal Farmer (crystalbyrdfarmer]

Maggie,

I'm so sorry that happened to you and that your community was not
supportive. I have found that communities do often try to avoid conflict,
especially when it deals with people with less power. You deserved to have
people speaking up for you instead of doing it on your own. I have seen
other communities experiment with Transformative/Restorative Justice as
well as the NVC process already mentioned. I personally love the New
Culture tools like ZEGG Forum. All of these should be considered and
implemented in communities from the beginning!

Crystal

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 13:19:28 -0800
From: Maggie McGovern <mcgroovin2000 [at] yahoo.com>
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Screening prospective members for sexual abuse in
        their background
Message-ID: <A78F6E50-4B62-48E8-853C-FAC42C22B867 [at] yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

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 ig
 nored. 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