Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: harassment in cohousing “neighborly awareness” from becoming surveillance (with CPS calls)

[Kathryn Lowry (kathryn.lowry]

Thank you for naming this Hafidha,

Yes.  I have considered this.

I’ve been seeking external support for some time.  Most recently I was
informed by the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, after reviewing
documentation I submitted, that they are declining to take my case not
because they don’t believe it has merit, but because they believe I am too
well organized and too well versed in Fair Housing law to be an appropriate
allocation of their resources.

But having submitted a complaint form and a pending six month wait before
the administrative body is estimated to review doesn’t help my situation
now…

On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 2:23 PM Hafidha Acuay <hafidhaao [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> Kathryn,
>
> Having myself been through a heartbreaking and prolonged neighbor conflict
> where children were involved, I suggest asking yourself whether you and
> your family are being *harassed*.
>
> This situation could be resolved within a community that has a sound
> foundation of trust, good relationships, skillful communication, and
> *courage*.  However, even a really lovely community may not have the
> capacity, structures, or tools to hold this. Waiting for them to figure it
> out is a recipe for protracted distress. If the community isn't equipped,
> they can't take the lead or offer protection to anyone being harmed.
>
> Without knowing all the sides of your story, I will say that if my
> neighbors called CPS on me multiple times in bad faith, I would consider it
> harassment and proceed accordingly.
>
> Also: As much as I love community life and processes, trying to usher the
> community into better processes is not a role I should ever play *while
> I'm being actively harmed.* Maybe later, long after the situation is
> resolved, I could support the community by helping to come up with better
> conflict resolution protocols, but for the moment, my focus must be on
> protecting my family and myself from false reports of abuse or neglect that
> could lead to state intervention or worse.
>
> The biggest lesson I learned from my experience was that I have to stick
> up for myself. A lot of pain I felt was in asking why my neighbors weren't
> sticking up for me or resolving this. The simplest answer is that they
> weren't any braver than I was!
>
>
> Hafidha
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 1:19 PM Kathryn Lowry <
> kathryn.lowry [at] daybreakcohousing.org> wrote:
>
>> I requested mediation with each individual involved in March after
>> attempts at in-person conversation became unilateral criticisms of my
>> parenting.  The first CPS call was made three days later.
>>
>> There’s now a pretense that mediation is happening being presented by the
>> specific Team constituted by these neighbors, the Team responsible for
>> setting meeting agendas, ensuring effective governance, educating residents
>> about our governance structures.
>>
>> But what’s really happening is a lot of discussion of scheduling
>> mediation, scope, and restrictions on who may participate.
>>
>>
>>
>>