Page 23 - Communities Respond to COVID-19

Unnamed cohousing community, CA, USA

There are 13 of us living in one house as quaranteammates. We go our as little as possible, order our
groceries delivered, and spend a lot of time doing fun activities together, like cooking, watching movies,
board games, singing, family meals, etc. We're also getting a lot home improvement projects done. A lot
of Zoom activities as well.
Bright Morning Star, Washington, USA

Mostly staying and working from home, except for two frontline workers [food industry]
Providing emotional support for our frontline workers.

Jonathan Betz-Zall

MSU Student Housing Cooperative, Michigan, United States

We are taking a multi-faceted approach. A lot of what we're doing to support members during this time
can be found on www.msu.coop/covid-19

We are, at the Office level, planning on following recommendations for Office environments from the
CDC. We are, at the House levels, allowing houses to make their own decisions upon group/community
housing guidelines. We've been following what the North American Students of Cooperation is
recommending, as they're compiling resources of what specific Co-op Houses are doing during this time.
In short, it's quarantining, increased cleaning, emergency planning for if/when someone gets COVID, and
following CDC guidelines. We have been seeing conflicts in some of our houses in person differences of
how to manage mental and social health vs physical health. Co-op staff and leadership continue to guide
houses to follow CDC guidelines when these issues are brought up.

Nola Warner
The Goodenough Community, Washington, USA

There are 11 of us living at Sahale - our ecovillage and retreat center. We are unable to hold the usual
full summer of events, ours and those of other groups who use our center. This will create a very large
financial loss for us. Residents met and came up with a protocol about how we would stay safe, what
types of shopping and where, and what about other Goodenough Community members visiting as is
usually the case (many members live throughout the Seattle metropolitan area). We determined that
with one exception there would be no visitors until the guidelines change. Our county is mostly rural and
very few cases of COVID. King County/Seattle has had many cases.
With the recent relaxation of guidelines into Phase 2, we are able to visit other counties also in phase 2
which expands our shopping, medical and other trips but still mostly no visitors. The residents have had
a number of meetings and opinions vary from strictly following every single state guideline to looking for
ways we could vary some. We've had some contention about acting (example inviting a visitor) without
us all agreeing. This has led to good discussion, no perfect resolution but aware that even with our
current decision method of Sociocracy this is a unique situation. Do we all have to agree on everything;
if one or two disagree how does it feel if they choose to self-isolate in their home? No answers just the
impact of this situation. Generally we are being very cautious and careful with protocols to stay healthy.