Photo: Stock Exchange/Argument

The idea of sharing a home strikes fear in many hearts. Privacy concerns, and the painful residue of having lived with others, eliminates it as an option for many people. There are hundreds of reasons for this, but it boils down to one: fear.

As the economic collapse grinds on, people will move in with roommates and family members they would not have chosen in fatter years. For some, it will be a great experience. Hellish for others. Rather than having living in hell, or eliminating a potentially rich and rewarding experience, an alternative is to figure out how to do it right.

Instead of retreating physically or emotionally, staying engaged and growing from the experience will serve you much better in life and for life. If you pluck out the people and situations that annoy you, your orbit becomes more limited and your life becomes smaller. It is axiomatic that, if your life is shrinking, you are headed toward a dead end and, sooner or later, you end up talking to yourself.

Learning to effectively communicate is the bedrock of successful living, whether alone or with others. Among the many tools, The Better Communication Technique, is one method to clarify communication and reduce misunderstanding. Other tools include listening circles in which you speak without interruption or judgment. In such an environment, you are able to hear yourself in a way that you couldn’t before. It changes your perspective.

We are in the midst of a economic crisis that affects our entire society, with the brunt of the burden borne by the poor and working class. The political divisiveness that is the new normal has rendered our local, state and federal government’s responses impotent. Even if your job and home are intact, watching anyone go down the chute of  unemployment, bankruptcy and homelessness takes a toll on each of us, whether we realize it or not.

This unprecedented jolt to our way of life requires a new strategy, which may contain the possibility of a more satisfying and sustainable way of living, as described in 11 Reasons Why House Sharing Works. Although living with others is challenging, the rewards can be enormous. An intangible reward is the opportunity to grow by interacting with others every day. It also keeps your neurons firing and your social skills well lubricated.

New Community Vision is committed to community building. In collaboration with organizations such as Transition Rogers Park, Sound ConneXions and Mindful Metropolis, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection we are all working diligently to support the shift to connected, sustainable lifestyles with inherent connection, support and neighborliness. Join with us in this worthy and exciting undertaking.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Fishing Hook

I met a hooker on the Irving Park bus the other night. As far as I know, I’ve never talked with one before. Her short black dress, neckline that never stopped plunging, and stiletto heels displayed her shapely legs and perky breasts to full advantage.

Wearing sunglasses, she could see my eyes but I couldn’t see hers. Loudly she challenged me to take a picture. I replied that I write a blog so I would like to take her picture. She blogs too. About what? She waived the question away saying “everything.”  Well, her blog is a porn site which I won’t legitimize with the link.

She anticipates getting engaged in a couple of months and obsessed about the ring, the point of which is to make others jealous. The gift of a Jeep Grand Cherokee is in her immediate future as well. The loud conversation left the opening for others to join in. Guys wanted to know why her boyfriend let her ride a bus.

An assignment for a personal growth class required that we experiment with many different kinds of power—masculine/feminine, passive/aggressive and other kinds as well. I loathe the women’s clothing brand, Bebe, whose mission is to provide fashion solutions for sexually active women between the ages of 18 and 35. Their photos of beautiful, very young women, dressed and posed to arouse an erection and open wallets are plastered everywhere. My mother was a prude. I am a prude. I detest the brand.

The assignment was my license to pick a fight with the staff at the Bebe store in Chicago’s Water Tower Place. When a woman asked if I needed help, I calmly stated that I hate their brand because it teaches millions of young women that the only thing they have to offer is their bodies. She was taken aback, of course, and explained their mission. We didn’t resolve anything, other than I practiced using a skill that I didn’t even know existed. After my Bebe spree, I practiced some more at Victoria’s Secret. Same result.

What do I have against these retailers? They are easy targets but my real angst is our culture that exalts the transient values of beauty and youth and devalues other qualities. This reptilian brain obsession dumbs down and short changes our society.

My issue is not with prostitution. It is the world’s oldest profession, after all, because the demand never goes out of style. If men want to pay and women want to perform, that is their business. In America, “family values” gets lip service while we routinely toss people aside. If they make it, we admire their tenacity and success. For those who don’t, we hope that they don’t bring down our neighborhood.  Many people, in all economic strata, live in unstable environments. Unfortunately, most women and men who go into the sex trade come from backgrounds that include some form of abuse—physical, sexual or emotional. Many teenage runaways end up in the “business”. Given our cultural poverty of imagination, creative ideas and resources, some choose prostitution, or gang affiliation, because they don’t perceive, and possibly do not have alternatives.

Some women feel that their power comes from their beauty and their bodies. I disagree. Real power comes from the ability to earn a decent living, enjoying good physical, mental and emotional health and living in a safe and secure environment that provides tangible support and intangible camaraderie.

New Community Vision is committed to community building. In collaboration with organizations such as Transition Rogers Park, Sound ConneXions and Mindful Metropolis, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection we are all working diligently to support the shift to connected, sustainable lifestyles with inherent connection, support and neighborliness. Join with us in this worthy and exciting undertaking.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Carrots in Plastic Bowl

Accepting job offers when I was afraid led me to the worst jobs of my life. I make bad decisions when I feel scared, vulnerable and lonely.

Other painful decisions included living with incompatible people in joyless households. At other times, living alone with my joyless self. Depending on the circumstances, bouncing back from regrettable decisions is possible.  Sometimes, however, people dig a deeper hole, leaving worse decisions in their wake. Feeling stuck and seeing few options is not an empowering stance.

Participating in an aware supportive community can inoculate against the isolation that is common for many and that sets the stage for loneliness and wacky behavior.

People talk a lot about community, and yearn for it too. For people who have not experienced it, “community” may as well be fairy dust. Some neighborhoods have figured out the light touch that creates it. A community garden and a dog park is the magic combination that transformed the neighborhood near Clark and Devon into one of friendly helpfulness.

A genuine community experience means knowing people well enough to be able to share a confidence, trusting that they will be compassionate, non-judgmental, and keep their mouths shut about your business. Time, trust and non-judgment are the key elements. First, you spend enough time together to share something important. Also, you trust the other person enough to be vulnerable. The willingness to be vulnerable is the pay dirt where relationships and souls thrive. Without it, people skate on the surface talking about sports, weather and politics.

Although community gardens and dog parks are splendid neighborhood anchors, we need tools and methods that we can replicate. Many people don’t garden and many don’t like dogs. I am beating the drum for community development initiatives for every community in which no one is left out. The Transition Town movement that began in England in 2006 and spread worldwide is alive and well in Rogers Park. Transition Rogers Park has one community garden in place and another one, including funding! on the drawing board. Hands-in-the-dirt gardeners, please dig in, so to speak. We need Transition Towns in every neighborhood and hamlet.

The point is: going through life without a support network that you can hug and hugs you back, can lead to serious trouble. As we deal with the external heart break of homeless adults begging for change, natural disasters from which we have not yet recovered—Katrina, Haiti, Pakistan, horrifying wars, and more—we also feel helpless seeing family members and friends suffer in this wretched economy. Now would be a good time for solace. The place to find it is in each other.

New Community Vision is collaborating with Transition Rogers Park, Sound ConneXions and Mindful Metropolis to support the shift to connected, sustainable lifestyles where we naturally comfort and connect with others and to our environment.

Photo: The Moderate Voice/George Carlin

Quick. Whom do you trust? A government institution? A corporation? How about a politician? If you came up empty, join the club. I’m writing in Illinois, where politics is done a bit differently.

George Carlin says it powerfully, but not delicately, in Words to the World, a rant with a chilling ring of truth.

Got that sinking feeling? The New York Times confirms it.

“New approaches are needed to address the fundamental and practical challenges of our financial, economic and social system,” a group of econophysicists wrote recently in an open letter to George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist.

Yes, we desperately need a new approach. The Open Letter stands as Exhibit A that the wealthy control the levers—corporations, the media, Congress, etc.—that run the world. For the rest of us, the cold reality is that we only have each other. The Institute for New Economic Thinking, the non-profit organization that Soros seeded with $50 million is engaging the world’s prominent economists to figure out how to get the world back on sound economic footing. It’s a good that they recognize the problem. The agendas that they end up backing will likely pose no threat to the existing power structure, however.

Addressing our needs at the community level is imperative. In Better Together, Robert Putnam and Lew Feldstein say that knowing your neighbor’s first name is a far more effective crime deterrent than extra cops on the beat. It’s a lot cheaper too.

“We must learn to view the world through a social capital lens,” said Lew Feldstein of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and co-chair of the Saguaro Seminar. “We need to look at front porches as crime fighting tools, treat picnics as public health efforts and see choral groups as occasions of democracy. We will become a better place when assessing social capital impact becomes a standard part of decision-making.”… (emphasis added)

Putnam and Lewis readily admit that fostering cohesive, diverse communities is a tall order. Groups organized for a specific purpose, such as a  bowling league, or a community choir are a good start. Though encouraging diverse community involvement where we live, work, go to school and shop is more difficult, the big pay off in healthier, happier residents and lower crime is well worth the effort.

Systemic change is fermenting. In the meantime, individuals, organizations and businesses need life support until that shift kicks in. The fastest life support is creating strong, healthy, resilient communities. Sound ConneXions, Transition Rogers Park, the Tutor/Mentor Connection, including Cabrini Connections, Mess Hall and many more are working to build the base that supports entire communities on secure foundations.

Photo: Let's Dance, Evanston, IL Shirley King and dancing girls/Terry Edlin

Liberating your spirit honors life. Taking a break from the real world is the pause that refreshes and replenishes your energy for your important work.

Celebrating summer with your friends at some of the numerous outdoor festivals is one way to do that. Chicago takes its festivals seriously and hosts dozens every year.  Evanston’s Let’s Dance Thursday dance series ends on August 19th.

I’m hitting my re-set button to re-think my approach to community building and  our housing emergency. I firmly believe that communities who are aware of and resourceful to each other offer more fulfilling, sustainable and economical lifestyles for seniors, children and everyone in between than we currently experience in our relative isolation.  The challenge is getting that message across in our internet-saturated, overwhelmed environment.

In a country as diverse as ours, choosing from only two predominant housing models—nuclear family or single-person households—is inadequate to our needs.  Shared housing is one possible model. Even though many people have moved in with relatives and friends to cope with job losses and mortgage foreclosures, it is not a suitable model for everyone. Choosing housemates after careful consideration and even third-party evaluation will give better results than decisions borne of obligation and desperation. Other models, as described in this table of housing alternatives, might be better.

Housing cooperatives can offer the most affordable route to home ownership. As a member of a housing co-op, you own a share in the corporation that owns the property and the right to participate democratically in the way the property is managed. Housing cooperatives run the gamut from extremely high-end to affordable. Even some Section 8 properties are co-ops.

Wrestling with the challenge of shifting the way that we think about communities, including housing, I’m figuring that dancing on summer nights will bring clarity to my quest.

For more info: New Community Vision is eager to work with individuals and groups, such as Sound ConneXions, to spawn a movement to think about our social and housing paradigms in a new context. Community gatherings to address our universal challenges are the fertile soil in which durable solutions take root. Stop by often to learn about the creative approaches to taking a whack at these issues that undermine our families and our culture. Please subscribe to this blog and contact us for more information.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Salted House

I’ve looked and looked. Maybe it’s out there and I just haven’t seen it. Where is the short term housing that we desperately need? The  safe, affordable, possibly short term, housing that gives people a breather. The number of people standing at the precipice of homelessness, and falling into it, numbs my mind!

A lot of innocent people are going to get hurt.

If this unprecedented collapse takes with it the shame and humiliation that is inherent in our views about money and success, then we can grow from the experience and reach a new plateau of wisdom.

A business man in an industry that has been turned on its head repaid his investors their guaranteed 20% return, though he is looking at financial ruin and considers himself a failure. So far, he does not feel successful because he measures success on the bottom line. As the smoke clears and the paradigm shift settles in, hind sight will surely show that integrity trumps money as a measure of worth. He’s got the integrity thing in spades. Nevertheless, people have to eat, wear shoes and live indoors.

Instead of yet another policy paper describing our housing crisis, let’s put together local coalitions of real estate mavens, city council representatives, housing cooperators and building trades people to locate buildings that can be quickly modified to function as short term housing to get people off the street, sleeping indoors, eating decent food and having a place to put at least some of their belongings. Then let’s help people process this devastating experience so that it doesn’t become an albatross leaching every shred of self esteem from their identity.

Tornadoes follow a twisting path, devastate most of a community, flatten houses to match sticks, while leaving a few buildings intact, sometimes right next door. This is sort of like that. The rug is being pulled from under people who played by the rules. The bankers that we tax payers bailed out lavished bonuses like it was 2007! Fairness – the illusion talks about unfairness that is inherent in life.

Although the sense of failure is humiliating, the pay dirt is in learning the lesson, healing, and growing from the experience. Shame not only doesn’t get us anywhere, given that the game is rigged, it is misplaced.  A lot of innocent people are going to get hurt.

A new approach

The severity of the problem and the paucity of ideas gives my imagination free rein. I envision “housing fairs” with innovative housing solutions on offer. This could include as many different varieties of housing as we can dream up: households with room mates, households functioning as families, dormitory-type housing, cooperative apartments and any other concept that works. A dormitory arrangement might appeal to people who want a comfortable place to stay and would welcome, and pay for, meal service and maintenance.

Orphanages, which met the needs of an earlier era, are obsolete due to the wide acceptance of birth control. At this moment in history, our only housing models are designed for nuclear families, which comprise only 25% of our population. The other alternative is mostly single-person housing. This doesn’t come close to meeting the needs of huge numbers of our population. The very fundamentals of our culture have shifted radically and we need housing models that reflect our changed landscape. We cannot solve this problem without new models and we need them immediately. See 11 Reasons Why House Sharing Works.

For more info: New Community Vision is eager to work with individuals and groups, such as Sound ConneXions, to spawn a movement to think about our social and housing paradigms in a new context. Community gatherings to address our universal challenges are the fertile soil in which durable solutions take root. Stop by often to learn about the creative approaches to taking a whack at these issues that undermine our families and our culture. Please subscribe to this blog and contact us for more information.

Photo: Stock Exchange/2-story Southern charm

Does the economic collapse have within it the seeds of social change that will set us on a path to a more stable society? Just as the seeds of certain pine trees are released only by the heat of a forest fire, this collapse is forcing many to consider alternatives they would not have considered in a more comfortable, secure time.

Housing, for example. How and where we live, and with whom, are all ripe for evaluation. The following list is intended to broaden your perspective by considering  eleven benefits of house sharing:

1. Better food: An essential element for life, food can be both a joy and a nuisance. Food runs the gamut from delicious and nourishing, to dull and uninteresting, to harmful and even toxic. How and what you eat has a direct impact on your health and your wallet. Living with people who enjoy food and  plan menus, shop for ingredients and prepare interesting, healthful meals dramatically increases your odds of eating well and enjoying better health.
2. Better stuff: Admit it. Wouldn’t it be great to be less attached to your stuff? Of all your possessions, probably only a few dozen are genuinely important to you.  Living with others is an opportunity to choose the best of the best. Put the rest in storage, have a garage sale and donate the remainder to charity. Sorting and deciding is the hardest part.
3. Live better for less money. Living in a household committed to thrifty, ecological living can keep money in your pocket. Imaginative and creative menu planning, taking your lunch and snacks is healthier for body and bank account. Clear-eyed budgeting and management, combined with a handy knack for fixing things can make a big difference. Even doing laundry at home puts money in your pocket.
4. Division of labor. If your idea of cooking is picking up a slice of pizza on the way home, perhaps your skills and interests run to cleaning, household repairs, household finances, gardening or car maintenance. In a well managed household, it all needs done. Children, who seem naturally conversant with electronics, can make valuable contributions too. Dividing the labor among more people increases the likelihood that you can do more of what you enjoy and fewer tasks that you detest.
5. The joy of generations. Living in an inter-generational household can be a grounding, rounding experience. Single people who have not changed enough diapers are missing an important part of life. Both children and adults benefit from elders’ wisdom. People living alone become accustomed to their routine, less adaptable and their social skills get rusty. The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
   
6. Livelier social life. The people who are inclined to this lifestyle are probably interesting and engaged with the world and this makes for a lively atmosphere.
7. Live better. Living in gracious surroundings, with a compatible group of people who choose each other wisely, show up on behalf of the household, work out their differences in a healthy, mature way can be delightful. This arrangement brings amenities such porches, gardens, yards, and vintage homes within affordable reach.
8. Have your friends come to your house. Opening your home to others is one of the joys of having one. Being a guest in home has a different quality than gatherings at restaurants or hotels. In a large home, you could host holiday festivities. Providing that household members agree, being the home base for family reunions is conceivable. Household members may choose to take a trip themselves, giving you and your guests more accommodations and privacy.
9. Healthier lifestyle. Although many are shy and private, healthy humans are naturally social beings. The independent lifestyle that we take so much pride in, for many is isolating to an unhealthy degree. Many seniors contemplate assisted living arrangements when they mostly need to be around people. Even a grade schooler or a teenager could qualify. Many children go to an empty home until their parents arrive from work. A healthier environment for everyone would be one with people that they are attached to and rely on. Nurturing those bonds takes time, attention and care.
10. Help when you need it. How comforted would you feel knowing that a responsible adult was there if your child had to stay home from school? For serious illness, caregivers for chronically ill people burn out quickly, in part because too few people share the load. If round the clock nursing is required, converting a spare bedroom may be a better choice than a nursing home. The Census Bureau reports that there were 2.4 million registered nurses in 2005. A considerable number have let their licenses expire, although they still have the knowledge and skills. Keeping people who need care at home and having a nurse stop by makes sense.
11. Experience a deeper connection to others. If households form wisely, and consciously work through their issues, connecting with others is a natural consequence. The experience of living with others can bring great joy. The other side of that coin is that it can bring great sorrow as well. You can’t be open to one and not the other.

Connecting with others, for many, is the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about. It is perfectly conceivable to have no meaningful contact with others in the course of a day, week, month or year. This reality spawns misfits and violence that are all too familiar. Although we tsk tsk that things have gone to hell, the dysfunction that is embedded within our culture is not going away until we replace it with healthier customs.

Change is banging on our door and calling us to a new lifestyle. It is within the capability of some to make this leap. New Community Vision will be working with community groups to host gatherings to discuss the potential of alternative housing. Please visit Alternative Housing Models to see the varieties of housing that are possible in our new world that is on its way to becoming brave.

For more info: New Community Vision is eager to work with individuals and groups, such as Sound ConneXions, to spawn a movement to think about our social and housing paradigms in a new context. Community gatherings to address our universal challenges are the fertile soil in which durable solutions take root. Stop by often to learn about the creative approaches to taking a whack at these issues that undermine our families and our culture. Please subscribe to this blog and contact us for more information.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Screw it!

Learn how to lower your costs for utilities, mortgage payments, transportation, and food.

Co-presented with CUB, I-Go Car Sharing & Growing Home

·      Citizens Utility Board

·      I-Go Car Sharing

·      Growing Home

DATE:       Wednesday, July 28

TIME:        5:45PM to 7:45PM

LOCATION:  Illinois Action for Children | 1340 S. Damen | Chicago, IL 60608 | Free parking next to building

REGISTER:  Call Jennifer @ 773-769-5800, ext 224

Presented by

North Side Community Federal Credit Union, HUD-Certified Housing Counseling department

Photo: Sound ConneXions, Seattle

At the first Sound ConneXions Chicago Forum, on Saturday June 26th, participants with passionate ideas to fill some of the holes that gape everywhere in this economy brainstormed together. Many of the old systems didn’t work too well for lots of folks in the first place. Now, some of them don’t work at all. That sets the stage for social innovation.

Sound ConneXions recognizes social problems as opportunities to use entrepreneurial principles and community assets to release the potential for collaborations that cross traditional boundaries.  Our vision is the creation of scalable, sustainable social enterprises to empower communities while providing  social, ecological and economic benefits in the following areas:

~ Arts and Culture
~ Health and Wellness
~ Education and Development
~ Ecology and Environment

We were honored to have Dan Bassill of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, our spotlight presenter, explain the organization’s impressive work.

The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) is to provide an organized framework that empowers and encourages adult volunteers to contribute their time, effort, ideas and advocacy toward creating life-changing solutions for children in educationally and economically disadvantaged areas.

Tutor/Mentor Connection’s leverage of other organizations and Sound ConneXions’ mission of supporting social innovators dovetails perfectly, i.e., connects the dots.

Using the powerful Open Space format for brainstorming, other ideas explored included:

• Greg Vaughan and Autumn Franger explored funding possibilities for the co-officing business that they plan for Rogers Park.
• Wendy Balman gained insight about inviting a consulting organization that innovates complex social systems worldwide to locate in Chicago. This is such an exciting city, with so much creative energy, of course they need a location here!
• Cheryl Jekiel is passionate about exploring new ways to celebrate the end of life

The Sound ConneXions model powerfully supports social innovation that 1) fills a need that the market has failed to meet; 2) is environmentally sustainable; 3) scalable; and 4) meets the triple bottom line principle of profit, planet and people. The triple bottom line means that a business has to make a profit while not harming the planet and benefits people with good working conditions and living wages.

Photo: Stock Exchange / Blackboard

I don’t know anything about children. I often feel incompetent and that I miss the point. As one of the youngest in my family, I wasn’t around younger children until I started baby sitting as a teenager, the first job I ever hated.

Failing as a 13-year-old, assigned to keep the third and fourth graders quiet during lunch time, may have set the tone. In Stockton, Illinois, the Holy Cross Catholic School policy was to assign a pair of eighth grade girls to eat lunch in various classrooms while the nuns ate their lunch together in the convent. Although we didn’t have to teach anything, we did have to keep them quiet.

Clueless, but taking my responsibility seriously, I devised a brilliant plan: I wrote a dot on the blackboard which I instructed them to look at while they ate. Obviously, if they had to stare at a dot, they couldn’t turn around in their seats, and would, of course, be quiet.

Not knowing what to do, I made up a cockamamie rule and clung to it like dying man. With no guidance, intuition or perspective, the futility of it did not deter me from my approach. My family, of course, found this endlessly amusing. It’s a painful, embarrassing memory. A friend and gifted Montessori administrator was astonished that a 13-year-old girl was put in that position in the first place.

National Public Radio aired a poignant story in which a bilingual nurse interpreted by telephone for non-English speaking patients and English-speaking doctors. A Mexican couple brought their fevered infant wrapped up in a blanket to see a doctor. When told that the child was too hot, they were confused and said that all pictures of Baby Jesus show him wrapped in blankets…

Walking down the street tonight in Logan Square, a young father watched his toddler race outdoors and seemed surprised that the kid just wanted to GO! Not knowing what what to expect, he will probably try to control the child, although a watchful eye in a safe area may far better for the child’s overall development.

If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.

Jackie Kennedy

The point of these stories and a tale of two mothers, is that not knowing, you punt. In many areas, the stakes are low. With children, however, the stakes are very high indeed. One consequence of our relative social isolation is that the people who have experience raising healthy, confident children don’t have enough interaction with the people who need their wisdom. Our culture is full of people in every economic strata who care for children with only the dimmest idea of what to do. At the same time, loads of people know a lot about children and how to care for them are everywhere! They would be not just willing to help, but feel honored to do so.

Tackling the thorny conundrum of social isolation on two fronts makes sense: 1) nurturing communities that are aware of and resourceful to each other and 2) exploring housing models that are appropriate for various demographic groups. We base our housing aspirations on the nuclear family model, even though only 25 percent of our population lives that way! Single family homes are not ideal for single parents, young adults who have aged out of the foster care system, older people, disabled people, families and many other groups as well.

For more info: New Community Vision is eager to work with individuals and groups, such as Sound ConneXions, to spawn a movement to think about our social and housing paradigms in a new context. Community gatherings to address our universal challenges are the fertile soil in which durable solutions take root. Stop by often to learn about the creative approaches to taking a whack at these issues that undermine our families and our culture. Please subscribe to this blog and contact us for more information.