Today I was on the Cohousing site and I noticed that the one cohousing group that’s been trying to form in Illinois has now officially disbanded, leaving Illinois as one of only 14 states without an officially noticed cohousing site. And – worse yet (for me, at least) we are one of only 3 ‘blue states’ to be cohousing-less (the other laggards are Nevada – which really is more ‘purple’ if you ask me, and Rhode Island – which we can give a pass to for being tiny).
Seriously, Illinois?
So if you’re interested in the possibility of changing that dynamic, stick around!
As I noted in my last post on cohousing, my small group is considering starting a cohousing community in northern Illinois (for the record, we’re also talking about Madison, WI and Asheville, NC). We’ll be doing a website (and I’ll move posts about cohousing there once it’s up and running) and a Facebook page, but for now this is our initial ‘mouthpiece.’
So what I really want to know is simple:
- Do you have any interest in this topic at all?
- If so, what questions do you have or what topics germane to cohousing would you like to know more about?
- Do you have any interest at all in actually moving into a cohousing community in the next 3-5 years?
And if you have ZERO interest in cohousing, tell me about that too. Now – over to you! Click on comments and add to the conversation!
Hi Diane,
I admire you so much for taking this on. Yes, I’m very interested in this topic. No, I have no questions about cohousing (only about specific communities). Yes, I have a great interest in joining a community. I’d be choosing it by place, values and affordability (in that order). I’ve searched a lot (New England and Colorado, for now), and haven’t come up with any real options yet. Good luck, and keep the posts coming!
Eleanor
Hi Eleanor! Nice to hear from you again. I agree that new England and Colorado are nice choices – were it not for all of my particulars those are places I’d consider as well. I like your choice criteria – place, values, affordability. Thanks for putting that out there as I think that sums it up for me, too! Always appreciate your contributions to the conversation – Diane
Wow, there are so many fewer sites than I expected! Would love to know more about AZ.
Hi Tammy! Looks like there are 4 completed cohousing communities in Arizona (1 in Prescott, 3 in Tucson) with 1 forming in Phoenix! check out http://www.cohousing.org and click on ‘directory’ in the left navigation column. Seems right up your alley!
I have lived in cohousing for 8 years now. It has been a dream come true. I only wish I could have joined when my kids were smaller. Good luck!
Jeanne – thanks for joining in! What do you like best about cohousing? What have the biggest challenges been for you? What would you advise someone starting out? Thanks so much for joining in the conversation!
What do I like best about cohousing? Staying out on the patio far too late on a summer evening while listening to music and pretending to make an effort to go home. I love built-in trusted pet and child sitters. I love being able to help my neighbor to make sure they didn’t leave the iron on or accepting a package. It’s having people around me that I like and trust who support each other, but I’ve only scratched the surface.
As far as advice for starting out — there are SO many things that we learned from how to raise the first $10,000, $50,000 and $100,000 of money, to marketing tips, to things to decide when the community had 3 households vs 30 households. Things to decide before you move in vs after. I think, if I were to pick the top three tips:
* Adopt the mantra, “Failure is not an option” and back that up by fearlessly putting money on the line.
* Recognize that not everyone will be able to participate equally due to time constraints. The entire community has to support those working hardest to minimize inevitable burn-out and hard feelings.
* When new people arrive to your meetings, develop protocols to make them feel included without wasting precious meeting time, be absolutely certain to follow up and strike a good balance between outreach and smothering.
I love to talk about this stuff so often new communities contact me as the contact for JP Cohousing in Massachusetts to discuss this.
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