Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: bylaws: active/inactive status

[Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

What’s this thing about “allowing”?  At Cornerstone in Cambridge, MA, we have 
several homeowners who were active a decade ago, but for a complexity of 
reasons (none related to absence or infirmity), have chosen to go hermit.  To 
the community, they contribute little or nothing, and from the community, they 
ask little or nothing.  We don’t have any way of “disallowing” this, nor do we 
have any penalties or punishments for those who now choose to stand away from 
participation.  What are we missing?

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Thanks, RPD

On December 15, 2023 at 8:31:31 AM, lienjud--- via Cohousing-L (cohousing-l 
[at] cohousing.org) wrote:

Hi David:
thanks for your input! I am wondering if your community has something in your 
bylaws regarding allowing members to go inactive due to age, illness, etc. 
Thanks,
Judith LienhardCascadia Commons, Portland Oregon



Hello Nancy and others,

    We have a similar work requirement (attend General Meetings, be
active on at least one committee, and do 4 hours of work per adult
resident per month).  In the beginning of our time we kept detailed
records of the hours each person put in and exerted pressure -- social,
financial, legal, or otherwise on those coming up short.  However, a lot
of resentment came up about the heaviness of the accounting process --
the phrase "cohousing police" was often used.  Over the course of a
number of General Meetings and community conversations, it became clear
that we could have fairness/accountability or a flexible and light
process, but not both.  At this point the community decided to go with
the light process -- if some people did much more work than others, they
could either accept that without resentment or cut back their extra
participation -- if that meant that some required work wasn't getting
done we would either find someone else to step up to the plate or we
would hire out the work (with everyone understanding the budgetary and
condo fee implications of that).  Since then this flexible arrangement
has worked very well, with many members putting in extra work because
they felt they could and wanted to or because they felt it necessary to
get work done to their standards, without their resenting the situation
because they could (and sometimes did) at any time unload some of their
extra burden.  Of course, the rest of us made sure that they know that
we appreciated their extra level of involvement and we made sure to help
them out when they had requests!

We also have periodic work dates through the year when a given
committee, e.g., outdoor, indoor, Community Life, etc., had a set of
periodic tasks that needed doing.  The committee posted task lists,
people either signed up to do them or paid a fee to bypass it, and if
some tasks weren't taken the committee chair would urge us to sign up
for them or would use the fee money or other budget money to hire out
the work.  In the beginning these hours did not count towards the 4
hours per month, but since we went on our light process, this became
moot.

It works!

Regards,
David Heimann
JP Cohousing
Jamaica Plain (Boston), MA
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