I The Cohousing Association welcomes blog posts from anyone in the cohousing movement

“Cost of living” refers to all the expenses sustained by a household in the ordinary course of life. It includes, not just the cost of housing, but also the cost of food and clothing, furniture, transportation, medical and child care, and so on. Traditionally, “cost of housing” has referred to the specific shelter expenses of… Read More

We hear advice on how to live “green” tossed around a lot these days. “Sustainability” is equated with so many different products and actions, it’s hard to wade through the noise to figure out what’s most doable, and has an impact that truly matters in our communities. It can be a challenge to separate green-washing… Read More

Cohousing can be a lab for trying out the latest innovations to help us live lighter on the planet. The goal of this year’s National Cohousing Conference was ambitious – building resilient, sustainable communities – yet I felt a universal reaching; so many of us wanting desperately to learn how to be even more climate… Read More

I had a phone conversation with a good friend the other day, who needed someone to vent with about a frustrating experience she’d recently had as an outside facilitator. The group had been struggling with a delicate issue that brought out the more strident and challenging sides of a handful of members and my friend… Read More

Bringing Back the Village – Interview with Charles Durrett via Common Groundinghttp://www.cohousingco.com/blog/2017/5/15/bringing-back-the-village

It’s been almost a decade (seven years) since we traveled to the National Cohousing Conference in Boulder Colorado to learn about how to build our own community in Nashville, Tennessee. We’ve come full circle now with the Conference to be held in Nashville this week. Back then two of us traveled to Boulder and met… Read More

A few days ago, to my amusement, I learned that cohousing shares a lot of principles with many African cultures. This happened over (way too many) drinks with a filmmaker called Alan O’Hashi following a dinner party at a cohousing community in the small town of Memel, amidst the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. In… Read More

While tackling the long and sometimes daunting list of tasks required to start a cohousing group, I draw daily upon every prayer, affirmation and inner trick I know to keep the faith and grow the vision. As our core group grows closer, steadily inching toward this goal, we fine-tune ways to share the vision with… Read More

Several PDX Commoners are attending the National Cohousing Conference in Nashville. Here’s what’s motivating them to attend: “I plan to concentrate on sessions related to creating caring, supportive cohousing communities. In PDX Cohousing, I hope to help create a framework where any of us can ask for and receive support during short term illness, some… Read More

“We at Silver Sage strive to age-in-place. Given the caring support of our community, we can do so a lot longer than in many other aging care models,” says Art Okner. “Getting older is a long, fulfilling journey for most—you have a caring family, a good job, activities that you enjoy, and friends to share… Read More

Grace Farm is a group of friends, with an average age of about 35, who have been exposed to community living through a few different experiences and have been motivated to potentially start our own cohousing community. The 10 founding members of Grace Farm have experienced community living most notably from our time at Bethlehem… Read More