Community Works… Life in Cohousing

The other day we were at a birthday party for a young friend and one of the parents asked me, “So how’s life on the …kibbutz? Do you guys have to do all sorts of work all the time?”

Kibbutz, commune, cohousing, community… they all equal work, right? Or at least more work. Right?

Maybe.

It’s true that the work here happens differently, and that it’s all named and organized (something that we never did as homeowners). But to be honest, living in a 100-year-old house with sloped front and back yards and two side yards with two adults and two kids felt like a lot more work than we are responsible for now!

While I try to write posts that simply show our lives at any given moment, many of you have asked for details about how it all works…

So, without further ado, I bring you… Life on the Commune!

Just kidding! You all know we live in cohousing, right?

What work looks like around here

Okay, first… I have to say that things sound so official when written out, but the general atmosphere here is one of trust, encouragement, and self-regulation. There are responsibilities, suggestions and guidelines but no bureaucracy and no policing.

People here value communication, connection, and clarity — and have the skills to elicit those characteristics from each other — so practices and problem-solving in general are sensible and supportive. Which rocks!

And second… to say a bit more about cohousing. In cohousing communities, each household owns (or rents) their own private home. Our community is comprised of 23 town homes, situated in groups around three courtyards (upper, central, and lower). Homes are built with sustainability in mind and are smaller than the average American home. Each home faces inward, to encourage a sense of shared space, and are strategically placed so no one is staring into each other windows. Parking is off-site, to create a walkable neighborhood feel and to increase the opportunity to run into neighbors.

In the middle of all this is the common house: a 4,000 square-foot building that contains a living room (where we have our meetings, parties, talent show, movies, etc.), a dining room and big, industrial-size kitchen (where we cook and eat our community meals), two bathrooms, a mail-room, a game room, a kids’ playroom, a laundry room, a guest room, and a shop. Phew!

This is the heart of the community and, in addition to the common outdoor areas, where we share our lives together. This shared “third” space makes community make sense.

Okay, on to our responsibilities:

Community Meetings
The idea is that you come to meetings and participate in the consensus process. Meetings happen once a month and are three hours long (or shorter) on either Sunday or Saturday mornings. Childcare is provided, often by the older teens in our community. During the budget process, we sometimes meet twice a month.

Meetings include time to share joys and concerns from our personal lives, items from committees or individuals, short reflections on the meeting, and a closing circle. Example agenda items include developing our new work program, evaluating whether to have wood-fired oven on-site, approving our annual budget, receiving a CPR demonstration, and more.

Our community is run by consensus, so, for example, deciding to have a wood-fired oven on-site is something we will decide as a community. Not every meeting has a consensus item, but things are discussed at multiple meetings before being put up for consensus (that is, in fact, how consensus is reached), so coming to meetings is part of making an informed decision.

Does everybody come to every meeting? No. Do people make an effort to come? Yes. If they don’t come, most people catch up by reading the very thorough minutes or talking to others.

Committees
We are also expected to join a committee. There are many options — from landscaping to community life to computer network to finance. Committee work could be zero to three hours a week, it just depends on the committee but mostly the projects that are happening at that time.

I am on the community life committee, and we meet for 1-2 hours twice a month. We plan community events (talent shows, camping trips, etc.), do outreach and community building (right now we are actively trying to connect with another nearby cohousing community), organize childcare for community work parties and meetings, and are in charge of compiling the agenda for community meetings (though members/committees are responsible for sending in agenda items).

Work Parties
We are also expected to come to the work parties. There are three full-day and three half-day work parties a year and you can sign up for the stuff you want to do, even creating jobs for yourself as needed. After checking in with the common house committee, one woman culled and organized of all the toys in the play room.

You can pass on one work party a year. If you can’t make it to more than that, you can talk to the people on the maintenance and management committee and come up with a solution (most likely doing some work project on your own).

Our family missed one work party while we were on vacation, and we’ve attended one. At the one we attended, I spent the day deep-cleaning the common house furniture and rug with two other folks. Rom spent the day raking with an outdoor team.

Our kids spent the day being cared for by folks in the community — childcare was a job you could sign up for and so was cooking lunch.

Community Work (no one wants to call it chores
The last thing that we do is community work outside of work parties.

We used to have chore teams (people were assigned to a team and then to a week to clean the common house) but as a community we’ve recently changed things around and now have a way that you can sign up for two two-hour shifts every four months.

Tasks include mopping the common house floor, cleaning the common house kitchen, cleaning the other rooms of the common house, doing landscaping tasks, mowing the lawn, etc. Accommodations are made for anyone who has limited physical abilities.

I completed my work for January through April by mid-February. I spent two hours on a beautifully crisp winter morning spreading wood chips on our walking paths. And I cleaned the common house.

That job called for two people working two hours each, but my co-worker and I couldn’t find a time to do it together. I really don’t like cleaning alone, so Rom came and cleaned with me (we spent one hour instead of two since we had double the labor) and the other person did their portion at a later time.

That’s it for the required work. There is also some optional work, such as meals and the garden, which I’ll talk about in the next post.

Plus I’ll reflect on what all this work means.

Hint: It’s more than clean floors and raked leaves.