Sparkling sunshine on a lake

It feels like the first shoe dropped: raising the debt ceiling at the stroke of midnight. It makes me wonder when the adults are coming back. Maybe they aren’t. That is how primal our fear is.

Politicians, business leaders and warlords the world over have no idea how to stop fighting, to put people to work and to ensure that they have homes to live in, enough food to eat, basic health care and education. At one time, not so long ago, we took these things for granted.

Get used to the new normal. Or don’t.

Please join the Transition Rogers Park Cooperative Study Group,where we will promote cooperatives as an ideal business model for today’s challenges. We will host guest speakers,  organize ongoing workshops, and a symposium before the end of the year. At each gathering, you will meet others who are committed to elevating the way that we live in the world.

Cooperatively, we have the potential to relate with each other in new and supportive ways and to remedy the  market’s profound failure to provide nourishing food, housing, health care and education, and the care of our most vulnerable populations: the young, the elderly, the disabled and veterans and all of those in the middle or on the  fringe.

Please visit and join Transition Rogers Park, a robust and lively community. We are deeply committed to creating community resilience to cope with peak oil, climate change and the resulting economic uncertainty. The cooperative model is a missing link that removes many barriers by creating and leveraging  synchronicities. 

Stock Exchange/Anxiety, Joana Croft

How nervous are you? Our polarized politics, and amnesia about prior debt ceilings, prohibits prohibits sane, reasoned debate about taxes, light bulbs (!#?!#) and everything in between. This has many people staring at their own ceiling (if they still have one) when they should be sleeping.

Clearly, neither our government, nor the corporations that actually call the shots, has a clue or a dime to get us out of the economic ditch.  We must do it ourselves. That’s okay because grass roots movements are pulsing with creative ideas and energy.

Our myriad crises beg for a new solutions and here’s one: Housing Mixers that introduce alternative housing models that may be more suitable than the solo option that is the norm today. The first mixer is on Tuesday, 7/26,  in collaboration with Transition Rogers Park and Mess Hall‘s X-in-Residence series. A sign language interpreter will be on hand. If you plan to bring children, please RSVP in advance with their age and gender to insure adequate arrangements.

On Thursday, July 28, Herb Fisher will talk about This Golden Moment, the potential to live an abundant and satisfying life by learning to live in cooperation with each other. His forty-plus years practicing real estate law and a extensive cooperative expertise, gives him the long view to see the profound impact of cooperative living. The legendary Jerry Voorhis, said that cooperatively, ordinary people have the ability to do great things.

The rubble of our collapsed economy exposes our brokenness. It presents an opening to live more consciously, responsibly, and responsively to each other. Now is indeed the golden moment to create new and durable systems to meet the real needs of actual people. This requires courage, imagination, and a generosity of spirit that lies within us and that, together, we can call forth.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Salted House

Stressed?  Need to make ends meet? 15.5 million Americans are doubling up, an increase of 11.7 percent since 2008, Living with others is the fastest way to trim your biggest budget item:  housing expense.

Moving in with family members is the most obvious choice, but it may not be the best one. Here are some tips to give you a wider range of options and ideas to help you make wise choices.

Choose from a pool of proven, reliable  candidates. Churches and community groups generally have a sense of who their members are. In short, those are not places where deviant people hang out. Online matching carries an inherent risk of the unknown.

Check references. This may sound obvious but don’t forget to do it. I nearly did.

Invite candidates over for a potluck. Sharing a potluck meal at your house, where everyone, including the children, meets each other will give everyone a lot of information. Sharing a meal with three to five candidates will give  you a good idea of who would be compatible and even fun to live with.

Put your cards on the table. Being upfront about  your finances sets the tone for a successful relationship. If you need a house mate to help cover the mortgage or the rent, saying that out loud will be a relief and this is important information for a potential sharer.

Most people feel embarrassed about money, especially when they are broke. It’s ironic that we don’t see it on the other end. Have you seen any bailed-out bankers or gazillionaire executives feeling embarrassed about getting paid multi-millions? But that’s a post for another day.

Relevant information: Candor about medical issues is important to know in advance. If challenging people are in your life you may want to share that as well. If they will be coming into your home, don’t wait until they are ringing the doorbell to announce this.

Splitting the expenses for groceries and utilities is just the bare-bones start. House sharing will be more satisfying if the arrangement is entered into in the spirit of working together to make the household successful, whether that is cooking, doing laundry, dishes, walking the dog, cleaning the litter box or picking up poop in the yard.

Beyond those basics, political views that are not diametrically opposed,  appreciating each other’s taste in music and media may also help.

Living harmoniously in a safe place, knowing that food will be on the table, and being able to pack actual food for lunch, will go some distance to quell the anxiety that pervades our society these days.

House with picket fence (Google)

Adequate housing is a huge issue for many people. Single parents, seniors, those living on social security, disabled people and young people starting out, are not typically well supported when living in single-person/single-family households.

Single-family living stretches budgets and responsibilities. Doubling up with others households frays nerves and relationships.

There is a better way: housing that is affordable, sociable and secure, such as cooperatives, cohousing, dormitory housing and shared homes.

My passion of many years, creating supportive, harmonious housing models, has spawned the  Transition Rogers Park Housing Group to explore alternatives that meet the real needs of real people.

My intention is to develop a template that will work anywhere. Even if you don’t live in Rogers Park, please feel welcome to join this group, or show up at a mixer and then let’s take this to your community. Joining this group, if you live anywhere in the Chicago area, is the fastest, most direct way to get housing mixers going in your neighborhood.

The Transition Town movement began in England in 2006 to respond to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the wrenching economic impact. It is now a worldwide movement and growing.

Stock Exchange/Danger

Two men drowning in a puddle of water is not an obscure dream. Walking along a sidewalk and reading, I glanced down and saw a large bird that had drowned in a puddle of water. Then I saw two black men, face down, each drowning in shallow puddles of fetid water on opposite sides of the sidewalk. The man on the right, near death, brushed the side of his head with his hand, as if to brush away a mosquito. Passersby took no notice.

I awakened with renewed conviction to continue my work of promoting housing alternatives that are affordable, sociable and secure. My vision grows stronger and clearer, needing a few more pieces to complete the jigsaw puzzle.

Although the collusion between Wall Street and Washington, which is brilliantly documented in the movie Inside Job and the new book, Winner -Take-All Politics, has hit every non-rich person, it has pummeled people of color. We must acknowledge that our government has no plan to remedy this crisis with enough speed, imagination or vigor to get people off the streets, much less out of shelters and into stable living arrangements. Therefore, it is up to us. We can and we must save each other and ourselves.

The raw material to fix this housing crisis already exists and, if we corral our resources and redeploy them in a new way, we have a shot at making significant headway on housing. Providing safe, secure housing will have profound ripple effects on health and education. People living in stable households will have better food and nutrition. Living without turmoil will have a positive effect on education.

These posts describe shared housing, how it would work, and its’ potential to substantially and positively impact the train wreck that is housing in this country.

• Sane Housing for an Insane World
• Social Workers: Your Valuable Skills Are Needed
• Housing Mixers

Feedback, comments, ideas and input are welcomed.

Google/Sock Hop

I awakened from a profoundly encouraging dream. I was at a gathering with a group of people who had gathered in exactly the same way many times. The affection of the group was palpable. The agenda was well established and the event was expertly facilitated, with the perfect balance of keeping the proceedings moving while allowing plenty of time for spontaneity and interaction. As the gathering ended and we formed a circle to say our goodbyes, three guys who brought their guitars broke into the famous Rolling Stones riff, I Used to Love Her. It was light-hearted, hilarious, and capped the evening with a glow of happy camaraderie.

What stood out in the dream was the humor, affection and obvious sense of ease that people felt. The dream was encouraging because I am working to promote housing mixers as a way out of our housing crisis.

I envision mixers at which people learn about housing alternatives and meet with others who are also considering their  options. The mixers will take place every month and be supported by social workers trained in the new specialty of housing coaching to screen, evaluate, match and coach people to live well with others.

As people gather month after month, they will find others with whom they feel comfortable and alliances will naturally form. As people get to know each other, housing coaches will facilitate the process by spotting potential mismatches and other pitfalls. Even compatible households may have misunderstandings and resentments that could benefit from skilled housing coaching.

Combining households to reduce living expenses is becoming more common. Living with people that you genuinely like can enrich your life and lead to very happy experiences. Choosing from an assortment of people with whom you feel comfortable and, most of all, understood dramatically increases the odds for happy living.

Moving in with family members, although it may seem the obvious choice, is often not the best choice. Being biologically related does not necessarily indicate compatibility.

Home sharing is a growing trend and an opportunity for a happy chapter in your life or one far less than that. Choosing wisely is the first important decision. Attending housing mixers and consulting a trained housing coach increases the odds in your favor.

To find out more about mixers, or to get them going in your community, contact Terry Edlin by phone (312.375.1423) or e-mail (terry@newcommunityvision.coop).

Stock Exchange/Reserved for Social Worker

States and cities responded to depleted coffers by slashing social service budgets. Regrettably, we need social service professionals even more in lean times than we did back in the mythical olden days when we had the luxury of pretending that things were OK. Alas, this is the way the world works. It is also the way Congress works, beholden as it is to its corporate clients.

What do laid off social workers do, apply for jobs at Wal-Mart? Presumably, social workers go into the field to fulfill a commitment to help others. When I think of highly trained social workers, domestic violence and child abuse counselors, unemployed and their skills untapped, my heart breaks a little.

Although I don’t have an answer, I do have a strategy: tackling our housing crisis. Creating stable households will have positive ripple effects on health, education, crime, the very thorny question of senior housing and more. It will also help us to eat more healthfully and to scale back consumption to more sustainable levels.

To cope with widespread unemployment, households are doubling up. Housing, the costliest budget item, is the obvious place to cut costs. Combining households with the possibility of improving your living circumstances would be a big win.

Housing mixers, monthly gatherings at which people learn about housing alternatives, and meet others who are interested in the same thing, delivers what people need today: solutions to the very real problem of affordable housing. That these housing alternatives also have the potential to be sociable and secure is icing on the cake.

To achieve the dream of successfully sharing living quarters requires the aid of trained housing coaches to screen, evaluate, match and coach people to live well together.Not everyone is cut out to live with others but, for some, it is a welcome possibility.

Since the field of housing coaching does not exist, it must be created from from the ground up. A training curriculum and certification of competence are logical places to start. Given that many thousands of social workers are unemployed we have a talented labor pool to draw from. The potential for joy makes this a particularly attractive specialty.

Looking to the past for answers to today’s wrenching social changes serves no one. We need new tools. Housing coaching is a specialty that meets the housing and social challenges of today and the foreseeable future.

Stock Exchange/Family Closeness

Starting from the premise that our single-household orientation–single family, single parent, single person–is not an ideal model for our most vulnerable populations, New Community Vision is promoting alternative housing arrangements such as cooperatives, cohousing, home sharing and even dormitory housing as viable options for consideration.

Plan to Crack our Housing Crisis describes this more fully. This is a modern update on the way communities and extended families used to live.

The four elements that must be in place to successfully share a living space include:
1.     members must be compatible and have the right chemistry;
2.     there must be a commitment to make it work;
3.     there must be enough space for privacy and a degree of autonomy;
4.     each adult must be on equal footing, either all renters or all owners.

Facilitating monthly housing mixers (without the teenage hormonal anxiety), at which people learn about alternative housing arrangements and meet others who are interested in a wider variety of housing options is one way to make headway on our housing challenges.  At the regular housing mixers, affinity groups will naturally form. The Tea Partiers will find each other, as will the NPR aficionados, and many groups in between.

As people find others with whom they may be interested in forming a community, trained housing coaches will be available to facilitate the process.

Housing Coaches

Social workers, who have taken training as housing coaches, will be available as a resource to screen, evaluate, match and coach people who are interested in exploring shared living arrangements.  HUD-approved housing counselors are concerned with the responsibility of home ownership and financial readiness for it. Housing coaching is much broader and addresses the social dynamic of sharing living spaces. In successful living environments, people feel safe and comforted. In stable, nurturing environments, they thrive.

Screening is both necessary and appropriate to provide a measure of assurance when considering sharing living quarters. Evaluating and matching for compatibility is another safeguard. Coaching in the skill of living with others increases the odds of successfully living in a joyful environment. Even existing households could benefit from coaching.

Housing Stock

Another key element is the availability of housing stock. Homeowners struggling to meet mortgage payments, or banks with a portfolio of foreclosed homes, would welcome the idea of renting or selling a house, or housing portfolio, to a reliable community. Cooperatives offer the sturdiest economic foundation, and potentially the most resilient social structure for housing.

An umbrella co-operative purchasing individual homes and apartment buildings,would be a sturdy foundation and could purchase and oversee many individual homes or apartment buildings. Chicago area co-ops, Stone Soup and Qumbaya on the south side, each own and operate three buildings as cooperatives. Similarly, clusters of homes would be branches of a  larger cooperative.

These links provide an overview of the approach to the housing crisis that makes logical sense.

• Families & Housing
• House Sharing Promise or Peril?
• Steps to Insure Successful House Sharing
• 11 Reasons Why House Sharing Works

If this interests you, or if you are a social worker interested in becoming a housing coach, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Photo: Stock Exchange/2-story Southern charm

That no long term emergency housing exists for people between the ages of 50 and 55 is just one reason why I wrack my brain to come up with alternatives to prevent housing strain from becoming a crisis. The Families & Housing page explains this in broad strokes.

Our three primary models—single family homes, single parent homes and single-person homes—don’t adequately meet the very real needs of people at various life stages such as…

• single parents
• grandparents raising grandchildren
• young people who can’t afford to move out from their family’s home
• parents who need to move in with their children
• seniors who would benefit from living with others, including other generations
• disabled people
• people who lost jobs, homes and retirement savings in this devastated economy
• people who didn’t save enough for retirement

Alternative housing models, such as cooperatives, cohousing, shared housing and even dormitory housing may be more suitable for many people. See the Table of Housing Alternatives for descriptions.

My vision is to facilitate regular monthly housing mixers at which hundreds of people learn about housing models that may be more appropriate for their stage in life. As people gather month after month, they will find others with whom they have a natural affinity. Those who love the Tea Party will find each other, as will those who love National Public Radio.

Housing coaches are a key element for this to work well. Training social workers to screen, evaluate, match and coach people to live successfully in a shared environment is a field we certainly need, although it does not currently exist.

As groups coalesce and want to form households, co-ops, or cohousing communities, New Community Vision will serve as a clearing house with information on …

• housing coaches to screen, evaluate, match and coach people to live successfully in cooperatives or shared homes;
• cooperatives, intentional communities, cohousing developments, and shared houses that have openings or are forming;
• agencies to help navigate government programs and financing;
• landlords who are interested in renting to a community of stable, supported and supportive people.

Although the field of housing coaching does not currently exist, tens of thousands of highly qualified social workers are unemployed as a result of budget cut backs at social service agencies. This pool of talent is a great place to look for a people who can be trained quickly to be housing coaches.

This idea has gnawed at me for well over a decade. Like a sliver irritating my consciousness, it has now worked its way onto these pages. I have come to terms with not knowing how to do this. I would rather do the difficult of work of breaking ground on a new solution than the more obvious, but less durable, work of putting a fresh coat of gloss on a rusted model. I am going forward with the belief that if this solution is viable, the resources for coaching and household formation will follow.

This model, and the resources mentioned above is not completely in place so I’m taking the build-it-and-they-will-come approach. Our country is awash in talented people who are eager to participate in the new society that we must get busy creating.

Photo: Courtesy of Stone Soup Ashland

What do you do with a former convent without the nuns to fill it? When the Archdiocese of Chicago wanted to rent its former convent at 4637 North Ashland in Chicago, a founding group of a dozen people wanted to live cooperatively. The Stone Soup Ashland Cooperative has been a going concern ever since, housing hundreds of leaders in Chicago’s vibrant social justice movement over its 12-year history. Nineteen members call it home, complete with six guest bedrooms. $485 per month gets you food, utilities, wi-fi Internet, subscriptions to the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, laundry facilities and local (not cable) television.

Stone Soup Ashland’s mission of social justice and joy attracts people who are out to leave the world a better place. Current residents include an attorney representing undocumented workers, a teacher at a low-income school, a person working on refugee resettlement, a web designer and a cartographer. Recent college graduates moving to Chicago for internships at small non-profit organizations, or in the social justice arena, are typical applicants. Many have never lived cooperatively before. People often stay for two or three years, although four or five residents have stayed longer.

Meetings and Household Harmony

Weekly meetings keep the household running smoothly. The agenda is posted near the mailroom so anyone can add to it. Meetings are conducted council style, with typically 10 to 15 attendees. To meet council-style means that everyone sits in a circle and speaks when the talking stick comes to them, ensuring that each person has the opportunity to be heard. The goal is to provide a safe space for sharing. Although the consensus process, in which a member can vote in favor, abstain or block, takes longer, it produces durable, often surprising, solutions. Meetings usually take two to three hours. In addition to the weekly meetings, twice-yearly retreats prevent resentments from festering. So far, the budget for training and mediation has been tapped only for training.

Chores

Photo: Dining Room, courtesy of Stone Soup Ashland

Each member is required to contribute four hours per week for assigned chores. The schedule, and the estimated time commitment, posted in the mail room clearly indicates each member’s assignment. If someone is not holding up their end of the agreement, a designee talks with slackers.

Shopping within a budget and cooking for 25 people in the big industrial kitchen are some of the chores. Dinner is served on Sunday and Monday nights; Tuesday is potluck night with the Stone Soup Leland house a block away. The Thursday potlucks are open to anyone. Each resident cooks their own breakfast and lunch from the larder or communal leftovers. There is also an area designated for residents’ personal food. Often when no dinner is scheduled, someone ends up cooking anyway.

Space

The bedrooms have the spare quality that one would expect of a former convent. About the size of a dorm room, they are not large and the closet isn’t either. Storage this limited is a powerful incentive to pare down to the essentials. A sink in each room alleviates competition for the bathrooms and waiting for a shower is rare.

Children and/or pets

Children have lived at Stone Soup on two separate occasions. One child was five-years old, the other seven-years old. The area near the kitchen has two bedrooms, which worked out well for the parent and their child. Each situation was a pleasant experience, partly because the parent set the tone, did not abdicate responsibility, and reined their child in when they became obnoxious. Stone Soup Ashland does not allow pets.

Intangible, substantial benefits

·         Connections: Among the many Stone Soup advantages is living among others committed to social justice. Especially because many of the residents’ employers typically operate on commitment, creativity, and a shoestring, being able to galvanize a community that supports your commitment, amplifies one’s effort beyond measure and adds welcome heft to worthy projects.
·         Flexibility: One resident studied in South America for six months and returned to her room when her sublet expired.

The ending:

Most members leave Stone Soup on good terms. Many alums stay in touch, but prefer more distance. Some leave to live alone and others to live with a partner. Some become weary of discussing so many issues and the inherent demands of living in a community. Although living with this many people is not without its challenges, the rewards are enormous as well. Living among a committed group of people in a community with a mission of social justice and joy works for many.

For more information, contact membershipashland@stonesoupcoop.org.