Page 10 - C.A.L.L. #35 - Fall 2012

Is there an effort to provide affordable housing within these communities?

It depends on the group. At Jamaica Plain, in Massachusetts, the individual homeowners

actually pooled their money to create four permanently affordable units. In Cambridge,
they worked a deal with the city to make two units permanently affordable for people
with disabilities.

Another way we're working to make

cohousing units affordable is to build
them highly energy-efficient so the
long-term cost will be cheaper. And
mortgage instruments have been
created for people who live in energy-

efficient homes that are usually less
expensive than regular kinds of
mortgages.
Jamaica Plain Cohousing
What about privacy?

It’s a little bit of a fishbowl, yet sort of interesting how private things are. We’ve had
several divorces people didn’t know were coming. Sure, we gossip all the time. But if you
ask for things to be private, they are private. It’s just a sense of respect we have for

each other.

What do you see as the future for cohousing?

I think we’re going to see a lot of the principles of cohousing adapted in cohousing-like
communities. A developer might put together a community without a lot of input from

the future residents, yet provide training for them - to be a homeowners association,
training in conflict resolution, stuff like that.

What made you want to dedicate so much of your life to the cohousing movement?

I recognized right away that if we could develop a model of living together - one in
which people had to work out their differences - then we’d have a good chance of
bringing peace in the world. I don’t see how we’re going to do that if we can’t agree on
who’s going to take out the garbage and if we can’t work out our conflicts one-to-one.
Cohousing offers a place for big, serious discussions to happen over time.

Interview taken from Liberty Mutual’s The Responsibility Project

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