Page 5 - C.A.L.L. #37 - Winter 2013/2014
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Biggs greets me warmly when I drop by the their cause and permitted their more
House of Commons. Friendly and relaxed, transient ways, approached them.
she is clearly comfortable with strangers
bombarding her living space. It’s part of Not surprisingly, it’s a modest home. All of
the deal: the Commons website advertises the living-room furnishings, from the
their free weekly community dinners, carpet to the lamps to the small wooden
monthly house concerts and daily “drop-in tables on which they stand, look
coffee” to anyone who happens to be in the secondhand. “We believe that what we
area and feels like visiting. “We do have have is not our own, so we give freely.
people who stop by during the day, which is That’s why we don’t have very many
what we’re here for. Many of our guests expensive things,” says Biggs.
are ‘habitat-challenged,’ and might be
hungry or thirsty. Sometimes people just “It isn’t to say that we haven’t been
want to talk,” explains Biggs, a 27-year-old robbed or stolen from, or that our
sales associate. Others are simply looking hospitality hasn’t been abused. In our
for old-fashioned neighbourliness, like the covenant (essentially a document that
man who knocked on their door earlier that outlines the commitments of those living in
day, looking to borrow a can opener. Up to the household) there’s a line that says that
12 people live in the rental house at any we hold to our possessions loosely.”
given time and currently they range in age
from 23 to 34. During my visit, one of the Covenants such as these, whether written
roommates settled in to play his guitar in or unwritten, set basic ground rules for
the relatively quiet confines of his those residing in very close quarters with
makeshift bedroom—literally a bed in the others.
entranceway closet (a big closet, yes, but a
very small room). Sharing food, household possessions and
vehicles sounds simple enough compared to
the strong commitment residents make
when it comes to the process of deciding
on everything from who cuts the grass to
The House of Commons began four years how to resolve roomie conflicts.
ago when a group of twenty-somethings
who were part of a local social-justice “Ideally, consensus is the way we go about
group decided they wanted to do every decision, but it’s not always possible,
something more “hands-on” to make a so we divide them up into small decisions
difference in the community around them. and big decisions. Smaller decisions would
Inspired by stories in the Bible of the be like moving the sofa to a different spot
devout who lived and prayed together, as in the house. We make smaller decisions by
well as other Christian community houses popular vote,” says Goodman of the
such as The Simple Way in Philadelphia, meeting process at the House of Commons.
the group set out to find a house in the
inner city that could support a lifestyle “Bigger decisions, like inviting someone to
with an open-door policy. While their quest live in our house, would have to be a
didn’t prove easy, the owner of their consensus. If someone isn’t okay with it, we
current house, a landlord who believed in can’t go through with it, because it’s a big
decision that affects everyone.
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