Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Addressing Conflicts as Community Issues [was Community Mediation in cohousing ?neighborly awareness? from becoming surveillance (with CPS calls)

[Kathryn Lowry (kathryn.lowry]

Hello Haida,

Thank you — I agree.

The purpose of my inquiry to this listserv was to fulfill a specific
request from involved parties for feedback and experience from other
Cohousing communities regarding how similar issues have been addressed
elsewhere.

An Ad Hoc Team, which was tasked with advising our community on these
issues, was directed during its Plenary presentation of the proposed
response to obtain precisely this sort of feedback from this listserv.

The inquiries posted here that were official acts of members of that team,
undertaken to gather the information our community requested received no
responses.

My intent in posting was simply to elicit input from other Cohousing
communities on how you have resolved comparable challenges, so that our Ad
Hoc Team can provide informed and constructive guidance to our own
community as it works toward resolution.

Thank you for your understanding and assistance.

Warm regards,

Kathryn Lowry

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 9:13 AM Hafidha Sofia <hafidhaao [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> How this first sounded to me: a neighbor is repeatedly calling CPS on a
> family.
> What it sounds like now: a dispute between current leadership and an
> undefined group within community
>
> I’m curious what the role of the listerv is in this dispute?
>
> Where there is no ask, there can be no answer.
> Stopping the CPS calls was a straightforward and high priority need, but
> now it seems the problem is something else that has not been well-defined.
>
> Generally speaking, when there are struggles within a community, the
> members of that community are the only ones who can settle it.
>
> Third parties can sometimes - for a fee - be helpful with reviewing and
> advising structures. They can also sometimes teach communication skills and
> provide tools for conflict resolution and governance. What they can’t do is
> serve as investigators, protectors, arbiters or judges. (Though a community
> could decide to have such roles within itself.)
>
> Cohousing communities are self-managing. Community members have to talk
> with each other, get very CLEAR about what it is they want or need, ensure
> alignment with the community’s ethos, and then take actions to get their
> needs met. This can be incredibly difficult work but it is also the heart
> of living and working in ANY community. It is NOT a failure of community to
> encounter these challenges. In these types of conflicts, all those involved
> will be stretched beyond their comfort zones.
>
> As much as possible, be organized, focused, and solution oriented.
>
>
> Hafidha
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Oct 17, 2025, at 8:05 AM, Kathryn Lowry via Cohousing-L <
> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> >
> > Sharon,
> >
> > What you’re describing is a sharp contrast to our community’s response.
> >
> > When parent concerns for safety were dismissed or delayed by our Steering
> > Team, the Team responsible for prioritizing topics of community concern
> for
> > our monthly Plenary meeting agenda, one of my neighbors who is a parent
> > initiated a coordinated walkthrough of our common house kitchen to
> identify
> > and mitigate safety hazards.
> >
> > When a neighbor parent independently initiated a coordinated walkthrough
> > through of the common house kitchen to identify and mitigate safety
> > hazards,  a long-term resident and Member of Steering Team dismissed this
> > effort as not possibly amounting to anything more than “speculation or
> > conspiracy mode” because we (parents and concerned neighbors) didn’t have
> > access to the policy work she had been doing to craft policies addressing
> > safety concerns by regulating the conduct of parents and children.
> >
> > Rather than identifying this as a major breach of community trust, other
> > Steering Team members applauded the effort to go around this team’s own
> > inaction and resistance to our efforts to improve safety for our children
> > and our neighbors.
> >
> > I’m utterly confused as to how this conduct is in any way an expression
> of
> > the ethos of Cohousing.
> >
> > Warmly,
> >
> > Kathryn Lowry
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
>