Page 18 - C.A.L.L. #45 - Summer 2019

Committee as a policy advocacy coordinator and contributes mostly income-generating labor.

She joined Compersia in the early spring of 2017.

“Since I work full-time [outside] the home, it‟s been really nice to have other people take
care of the domestic stuff,” she said. “I do less domestic stuff, but still sometimes cook and
clean at dinner. I‟m not home that much.”

Vital to the success of Compersia and
happiness of its members is
its Clearness Process, which members
consider to be a cornerstone of the
community. All members must, at
different points throughout the year,
have conversations with every other
member to air grievances and
brainstorm solutions to communal
problems.

“Instead of letting things kind
of build up, we actually have a time to Compersia‟s shared living space.
sit down and discuss with each other
the experience of living together,” Johnson said.

In addition to the Clearness Process, the entire community meets once a week to discuss
smaller issues that affect everyone.

“[It] is kind of like a business meeting,” Telos said. “We talk about projects we‟d like to do
and things we‟d like to spend money on, those decisions that we make together as a
community.”

A frequent topic of discussion is their progress toward saving enough money to make a down
payment on a house that could fit up to 15 community members, which is one

of Compersia‟s “savings goals” right now.

Both Telos and Johnson said the practice of “deep sharing” does not come without
controversy.

“We‟ve all been raised a certain way with certain values, and when we tell people we share our

money, they‟re like, „Whoa, that‟s weird. I could never do that,‟” Telos said. “Sharing this
deeply is not a value that we see reflected in many places in our society. It‟s not like we all
move in and we start sharing our paychecks hunky-dory. There‟s resentment. There‟s
sometimes conflict between the people who make more money and the people who make less
money.”