Building Raised Beds for TRP's Community Garden

As we lurch forward in the throes of worldwide economic and political upheaval, the writing is on the wall: the consumer driven economy is over. R.I.P. Ultimately, this will be better for the planet and everything that breathes, but getting there is more painful than a root canal without Novocain.

Fortunately, combining the cooperative movement with the Transition Town movement offers a template that is durable, flexible and exquisitely tailored to each community’s needs. This alignment – cooperatives and Transition Towns – is ideally suited to create the economic and social structures that we need in this new frontier.

Cooperatives

As John Restakis wrote in Humanizing the Economy:

With over 800 million members in 85 countries, the cooperative movement is by far the most durable and powerful grassroots movement in the world. Cooperatives employ more people in democratically run enterprises than all the world’s multinational companies combined. Although the forms co-ops take, and the uses to which they are put, display an astounding variety, their essential structure remains what it was when they were first organized in the mid-1800s – enterprises that are collectively owned and democratically controlled by their members for their mutual benefit. As the global economic crisis continues to take its toll, cooperatives continue to provide livelihoods and essential services in the very places where established multinationals are shedding workers and shuttering plants. In its own quiet way, the cooperative vision continues to thrive and hold the keys to the emergence of an economic model that is capable of remaking and humanizing the current capitalist system.

A few statistics gleaned from the International Cooperative Alliance’s website illustrate cooperatives’ potential:

• Co-operatives provide over 100 million jobs around the world, 20% more than multinational enterprises.
• In the United States, 4 in 10 individuals is a member of a co-operative (25%).
• In the United States, 30,000 co-operatives operate 73,000 places of business, provide over 2 million jobs, which generate $25 billion in wages and $500 billion in revenue. Together, US cooperatives own more than $3 trillion in assets. (Source: National Co-operative Business Association www.ncba.coop/ncba/about-co-ops/research-economic-impact)

Transition Towns

Rob Hopkins, a Permaculture educator, conceived the Transition Town Movement to proactively prepare for the seismic shifts caused by peak oil, climate change and the resulting economic fallout. Totnes England was the first Transition Town and the movement has since gone viral with over 111 official initiatives in 32 states in the US; 415 initiatives in 34 countries throughout the world and 13 languages.

Where to start? Our economy is in such a deep ditch that starting with Maslow’s Higher Order of Needs is appropriate but this paper is limited to shelter and food.

Housing

Consider these chilling statistics: Realtytrac reports 1,349,486 homes in foreclosure nationwide. Interest rates are at an historic low and the Federal Reserve anticipates that they will remain near zero through late 2014.

Economic analysts widely predict that our economy won’t recover until our frozen housing market thaws. It is richly ironic that, even with a glut of housing inventory and interest rates near zero, neither the banks, nor the fraudulent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, nor HUD can connect the dots. They must not have the imagination to figure out how to put people to work repairing homes that are sitting vacant, and to devise a plan for people who have been defrauded and have lost their homes, their life savings and pensions, to live in decent homes. Cooperatively, we can and we must create the housing that we need. I don’t believe for a moment that there is no money for this, but it is obviously in the wrong pockets.

Umbrella cooperatives of single family homes and small flats

Organizing single family homes and flats (2 to 6-flats) under a cooperative umbrella could be the equivalent of grand slam. Co-op technicians who have legal expertise and access to resources to acquire multiple properties could negotiate with banks to bundle properties by neighborhood for purchase.
The umbrella co-op could also provide the member households with access to resources such as home maintenance and repair, bulk purchasing and an array of talent. Providing social services, such as social workers or organization development professionals would lay the foundation for harmonious household formation.
Ongoing training would go a long way to ensure that resentments don’t fester and that households stay on the right track and thrive and could be a requirement for eligibility.

Dormitory Housing

Some people may find a modern housing dormitory appealing. Each person would have their own room, and the common areas would be comfortable, attractive and appealing. Each dorm would have its own culture. Responsibilities could be shared, rotated or limited. The advantage of a social environment, while reserving the privacy of your own quarters, could be great.

The design would have a huge impact on the nature and atmosphere of the building and, for probably not much more money than building it cheaply to warehouse people, it could be designed to house them well with ample space, light and air and furnishings that soothe rather than jangle.

Repurpose big box stores

Big box stores that blight many neighborhoods could be repurposed into little villages that are highly functional and create neighborly interaction. The center could be cut out for air, light and landscaping and even a vegetable garden. The utilities – electric, plumbing, water, and gas are already in place. These buildings could be adapted for apartments, stores, schools, health clinics, day care centers for both children and seniors.

Food

The Transition Town movement is committed to reclaiming our food from the industrial agricultural complex and promotes everything to ensure a healthful and sustainable food supply, including Permaculture, organic and urban gardening, food preserving, and foraging.

Cooperative support for local and organic food would help tremendously. Walking past empty lots with weeds growing through concrete, while people are hungry and some think McDonald’s is “food” shows how out of sync we are as a society. If property owners could get a tax break, a liability waiver, and a promise to vacate if a property is sold, urban gardening with raised beds and composted soil would be an infinitely more productive use of an empty lot.

How much land fill space is filled with food and yard waste that could have become nutrient rich soil? My highly uneducated guess is that a mere ten percent of compostable material is returned to the earth while our soils continue to become leached of nutrients.

Conclusion

So steeped in our consumer culture, we cannot even imagine any organizing economic principle other than consuming, although we desperately need one. Try this one on for size: How can you contribute to the wellbeing of your community – whether you get paid for it or not?

Neither movement – not cooperatives nor Transition Towns – has leaders to summon to a meeting and emerge with a board of directors, a budget, an army and lieutenants to carry out their bidding. Because that structure does not exist, the solutions must emerge from the ground up. It is beyond obvious that bold new solutions won’t be coming from Washington or Wall Street any time soon. Their hay day is over. It is up to us to create the communities in which we want to live. This is a call for every person no matter how old or how young to join the effort to create the communities in which we want to live. This movement requires every skill and shoulder to the wheel. We must make this happen and together we can.

Photo: Randy L Rasmussen, The Oregonian

Occupy Wall Street is a game changer. The old guard–Congress, and the lobbyists who pull their  strings–reminds me of the old guy in Jurassic Park who neglected to control the weather. Although the big money appears to own the levers of government, they haven’t corralled the spirit of democracy and are as out of step with the times as the British Red Coats who marched in formation to fight American Revolutionaries hiding in bushes.

This video of the movement’s 2-month anniversary illustrates the brilliant strategy, and groundswell support that assures our victory. This guide to group dynamics in general assemblies shows the rigorous discipline of democracy and commitment to civility that our Congress would not recognize.

We are laying the foundation for the new world that is unfolding before us. “Buy local” has become a mantra and questioning where food came from, how were animals treated, and what is in our food is becoming mainstream. These changes are the result of the tireless work of many. John Robbins’ book, Food Revolution is a highly readable eye-0pener. He neatly lays out the connection between cancer and the food that we eat, including who owns the rights to the breast cancer campaign. What a surprise, the people who benefit from cancer treatment are the very ones who own the campaign. Who would have thunk? The  movie Food, Inc. superbly documents our corrupt food chain and how it got that way.

I received the news that Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general, filed a suit against the five largest banks, and MERS, the electronic mortgage record keeper, for fraudulent foreclosure practices, like a transfusion of hope. The banks, negotiating with all fifty states, had hoped for a modest settlement and a cursory review of their criminal wrong doing. The lawsuit requires much deeper scrutiny of the records.

The concerted effort to undermine voting rights is well under way with 38 states passing voter suppression laws. The Brave New Foundation is on the case as this video, We Will Stand: Defending Voting Rights, shows. It is puzzling why the Federal Election Commission seems to be asleep while the safeguards for a fair election are being undermined at the state and county level. Eric Holder, the US attorney general finally addressed the issue in a speech this week.

As Stalin put it: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. If we’ve learned anything, I hope that the importance of voting in free and fair elections is among them.

We are finally awake and pushing back in a big way. It’s hard to say how long it will take to return this country to its people but there will be no “mission accomplished” until the playing field is level enough to ensure that everyone has food in their children’s bellies and their own, everyone who wants it has a roof over their head, and everyone has a fair shot at an education and at getting ahead in life.  We have a long way to go but we are definitely making progress.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Who's Turn is It?

She’d had it with people on food stamps and public aid!  Those people have lived that way for generations and she thinks they have it pretty good. She works hard. Why should her taxes go to help them? People who have done well financially should be rewarded, not punished by higher taxes.

I was hiking and camping with a convivial group of women, ranging in age from 50 to 80, and this was our first day. Judging by her friends, my guess is that this is a blind spot and, other than this, she is a kind, interesting person. Surely she, and everyone on that trip, is a member of the 99%, and would be unaffected by a tax increase on incomes exceeding $250,000. I tried to explain that poverty is a complex problem but, sensing that her views were hardened, and the friendly nature of the group, I didn’t invite rancor by trying to get her to see the flaw in her analysis and the logic of mine.

After a delicious dinner and a pleasant evening around the campfire, she packed up her stuff to take to her campsite about 40 feet away. Saying that she couldn’t carry everything, she asked for help, which I happily gave. She didn’t catch the irony: unable to carry everything on her own, she needed a bit of help, a leg up so to speak.

We bleed poor neighborhoods of every kind of resource–safe, affordable housing, good schools,  nourishing food and jobs–and then punish them for being poor. We don’t provide the building blocks so that they can create productive lives but we are quick to condemn them for being poor and lazy.

Poverty and despair toss a net of hopelessness over a person, a family or even an entire neighborhood. Bolstering families and supporting programs that improve education are two ideas that can help to turn the tide toward stability and a brighter future.

The surest way to break the cycle of poverty is education and catching children early casts the die for achievement. Supporting schools so that they can deliver the ticket to success in life is smart and a good investment in human capital. Not enough schools meet this standard. Head Start, and Early Head Start, do a terrific job of getting children, and their parents, ready for kindergarten so that they show up ready to learn. These programs pay for themselves many times over.

Once children are in school, a solid reading foundation is the building block that sets the stage for everything else. Reading in Motion, a not-for-profit program operating in inner-city schools, uses the arts to teach reading to children in the first through the third grades. RIM achieves impressive results. One study showed that 75 percent of kindergartners achieved grade-level reading compared with a mere 17 percent at a comparable, but non-RIM participating, Chicago Public School. (Disclosure: Karl Androes, the executive director who founded RIM with two other artists 28 years ago, is a friend.)

Bolstering families and communities is the work of New Community Vision. Many people don’t have nearby families, church affiliation or responsive neighborhoods to lean on for encouragement and support. Creating stronger, more resilient communities is a worthwhile undertaking. Facilitated, monthly community mixers provide the occasion for people to meet, mingle, socialize and brainstorm for solutions that can improve their lives. Facilitated housing mixers are gatherings where people can explore a broad range of housing options that may be more appropriate and satisfying for various life stages, whether that is just starting out or winding down.

The social and economic problems that are tearing the fabric of our culture require new approaches. Bolstering families and neighborhoods and making sure that children have solid reading skills are good places to start.

If you are in Chicago and want to explore your housing options in a wider context, join us for the housing mixers at the United Church of Rogers Park on the second Monday of the month.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Urban Poverty

The scrawny old gimpy black guy hustling for change in the intersection with his Dunkin’ Donuts cup  last night  in the cold jolted my awareness, yet again, that we will look back on this era as the second dark age. Seeing suffering diminishes us, whether it is our fellow human beings or animals. It is pervasive and we are steeped in it.

We are on the cusp of a break through and, when we finally pierce the veil of corruption, ignorance and fear, nothing will be the same. Surely our perception of money will be turned on its head.

Our thinking is limited and impoverished because we measure life in currency. The bizarre, tragic disconnect is that millions of people need housing while millions of foreclosed homes sit vacant. The real estate market is frozen by fear, a lack of liquidity, and an inability to imagine any other economic model.

Once we get past the mind set that something only has value if it can be bought or sold, a new world opens up, as Dmitry Orlov explains in this interesting video. Regrettably, many people don’t pursue their passion because they can’t get paid for it. Integrating the gift economy into our mix broadens our horizon.

Instead of millions of people and trillions in assets sitting idle, in a more equitable system, people will give their gifts and receive payment in ways that are far more life giving and profoundly satisfying than currency. Native American Indians  puzzled at the concept of property ownership altogether.

Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.                                                                                                                                                                      Cree saying

Only humans could waste as wantonly as we do. Constrained by concepts of ownership and liability, we are impoverished in what could truly be Eden. Walking past empty lots with weeds growing through concrete, while people are hungry and some think McDonald’s is “food” shows how out of sync we are as a society. If property owners could get a tax break, a liability waiver, and a promise to vacate if a property is sold, urban gardening with raised beds and composted soil would be an infinitely more productive use of an empty lot. How much land fill space is filled with food and yard waste that could have become nutrient rich soil? My highly uneducated guess is that a mere ten percent of compostable material is returned to the earth while our soils continue to become leached of nutrients.

In this inspiring video, Lynne Twist, one of the founders of  FourYears.Go, the worldwide call to save our planet, explains that a mere 200 people, empowered by the printing press, spawned the Renaissance. Imagine that – 200 people! Today, millions of us, empowered by the Internet, are spawning a new Renaissance.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is gaining ground and continues to grow to over 1,000 cities in the US and over 150 cities world wide.  So much corruption–college athletics, professional sports, religion, politics of course, but even medicine!–is exposed every day.

Although we can’t see it from here because it doesn’t yet exist, I imagine a vibrant society that transcends money. Maybe John Lennon was right, just way ahead of his time.

Photo: Facebook / Occupy Wall Street

Thanks, Occupy Wall Street! This long overdue movement is gaining ground as thousands work tirelessly to expose the playing field skewed at a 99-degree angle.

Change is upon us and it is critically important that we tip toward the light. That OWS is largely peaceful and rigorously democratic gives us good reason to believe that we will choose light.

The problem always is that the radical fringe can hijack anything. Let’s hope that we get this one right.

During the 2000 and 2004 elections, my friend Weyler noted that 225 million of our countrymen, sound asleep, took Fox News at face value. We’re awake now. We don’t have bags of of time to get this right but, thanks to the Internet and rising consciousness, the trend is inexorably in our favor. Tuesday’s election results show that lots of people don’t buy into the GOP”s stingy vision. Apparently we are ready for change.

Tools that empower us to help ourselves by helping each other are what we need to create a new version of the world. Fortunately, the cooperative model is exactly the tool for getting the fundamentals right. This excellent video for the global launch of the UN International Year of Cooperatives tells the story: worldwide one billion people are members of co-operatives; the 300 largest cooperatives worldwide account for combined sales of $1 trillion dollars.  Cooperatives provide one million jobs.

Cooperatively, no upper echelon is going to get really, really i.e., filthy rich. That’s a good thing. The good news is that this resource renews at the community level, an inexhaustible supply, as reliable as the sun.

Cooperatively we have the potential for affordable housing, child care, elder care, health care and nutritious food. All work is dignified.

Monthly community mixers and housing mixers are the settings where the spark for creative solutions will ignite. We will tell the cooperative story and brainstorm to create jobs by re-claiming housing and creating businesses that serve the community.

At housing mixers, you gather with others to explore a broader range of housing options, including home sharing, cohousing, dormitory housing, and co-op housing.  Housing mixers are set for the second Monday of the month at the United Church of  Rogers Park, 1545 West Morse Ave in Chicago. The event is free and snacks will be provided. Space is reserved for the second Monday of the month through January, after which we will evaluate the program.

Photo: Stock Exchange / Renovations / Horton Group

Alan Grayson’s take on Occupy Wall Street on Bill Maher’s Real Time© hit home. I gave him a standing ovation in front of my laptop.

Our political system has become so toxic that  the conditions to provide people with jobs, much less ones that pay enough to live in decent housing, buy nourishing food, care for their children, their elders and their health,  no longer exist.

Capitalism has become so corrupt that the market synergy required for first world living standards has unraveled beyond recognition. Cooperatively we can create businesses and housing units that begin to solve some of these issues, starting at the neighborhood level.

Here’s an approach that could house thousands of people while sopping up thousands of foreclosed homes and providing jobs in the process.

Gather with your friends and neighbors at housing mixers to learn about home sharing, cohousing, dormitory housing and cooperative housing. These alternatives may be more appropriate, satisfying, affordable and healthy than living alone as a single parent, a senior, young person, or anyone who enjoys the company of others, and/or doesn’t have much of a cushion and/or prefers to share the responsibility for every morsel of food and every chore in the house.

New Community Vision facilitates housing mixers where people gather monthly to consider a broad range of housing options. Over the months, people will connect with others and may wish to form a non-familial, inter-generational household – an NFIGH.

An umbrella co-op serving a dozen or more neighborhood NFIGHs would have the advantage of an organizational structure including financial management and access to people and equipment for routine maintenance and repair. Perhaps the co-op could own vehicles for members’ use. How handy would it be to have access to a car or a truck only when you need it?

Participating in regular household sessions to promote harmony and effective communication would function as a safety valve to prevent misunderstandings from festering. Professional facilitators may be a useful resource for occasional or regular meetings.

Living in a NFIGH that is part of a large community would anchor a person in a world that sometimes feels like a tilt-a-whirl. Knowing your housemates and neighbors provides a sturdy foundation to navigate an unpredictable world with a full belly and a sense of belonging.

The Myth of No Money

Photo: Stock Exchange/2-story Southern charm

Could you use a little comfort right now?  In this harsh, austere time, home as a haven of comfort would bolster us with the well being that comes from living graciously with people who know you and like you anyway. If you would like to live in a more supportive environment, cooperatives may be your best shot.

Margaret Mead observed that “Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is a very old human need.” Belonging to a household that provides for and nourishes its members with healthy social interaction and nourishing food in a gracious environment is a great place to start.

Facilitating monthly housing mixers, settings in which people  explore their housing options, is the work of New Community Vision. As people gather month after month, some may form affinity groups and wish to explore forming a household. NCV will connect aspiring households with cooperative experts to advise and guide on site selection, financial and legal requirements, and financing.

At the first housing mixer, one person observed that living with others requires a level of emotional maturity that is beyond some people’s capacity. Listening circles can be an affordable and accessible remedy for the depressingly familiar phenomenon of chronic failed communication.

Listening circles, led by trained facilitators, provide a safe setting in which every participant is welcome to say whatever is on their mind and heart, knowing that no one is permitted to comment, intervene, or attempt to fix anything. The opportunity to hear yourself can be profoundly therapeutic. A listening circle is non-invasive because no one is required to speak. It is private because nothing that was said leaves the room. It can be affordable. It will be up to the facilitator and the circle participants to work out the fee, where to meet, how often and for how long.

Umbrella Co-op of Single Family Homes

Re-purposing single family homes into inter-generational, non-familial households, under the umbrella of a neighborhood co-op can sop up the glut of housing inventory. The umbrella co-op would have the skill, the leverage and the negotiating savvy to work effectively with lenders. Banks would far rather deal with experts who can help them unload hundreds of foreclosed homes.

Households that are branches of a single family home co-op will have access to a wide range of experts in many areas ranging from maintenance and repair, car repair, computer expertise, the fine art of homemaking, gardening and much more. Well managed co-ops set aside funds for maintenance and improvements. You can kiss your nagging to do list good bye because as a co-op member, someone probably actually likes to do chores for which you have neither the skill nor the interest. When spending most of the day repairing a kitchen faucet for my sisters one Christmas, the hardware store guy observed that for most people, that project is a three-trip endeavor. It still leaked when I “finished” it.

To find out more about this new approach to housing, join us at the Better Together – Cooperative Symposium, on Saturday, October 29th at Loyola’s Kasbeer Hall (Chicago downtown campus) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Join the Transition Rogers Park Housing Group and attend the monthly housing mixers at the United Church of Rogers Park.

Photo: The Rochdale Cooperative Pioneers courtesy of the ICA

How often does anyone get to witness an historic revolution from within? This is breathtaking. The Occupy Wall Street protests, vocal but largely peaceful, may indicate that we are breaking through to a higher level of consciousness. I think we can do it.

Momentum is building and consciousness is rising, except in Washington of course. The best news is that terrific models–cooperatives and the Transition Town movement–are already in place. These models provide us the tools to create businesses, housing, healthful food, better options for transportation, child care, elder care and health care.  It is absolutely possible to create these conditions for all of us, not just the well off.  These models are the tools with which we we can build bridges to not merely ride out this storm, but to prosper as well.

Co-ops are getting some well-deserved, noteworthy buzz.

Photo: The Cleaver Family/public domain

Back in (mythical) golden olden days, when Father Knew Best and June Cleaver waxed her floor wearing high heels, we had one thing going for us: households were mostly stable. Women were certainly repressed but the roles were clear and dinner was on the table at 6 o’clock.

Although the far-flung family has replaced the nuclear family, the need for that social structure remains because it is fundamentally human. Fortunately, the GLBT movement and huge numbers of adoptive families have broadened our notion of “family.” This is healthy. The Cleavers were a myth anyway.

The challenge is that lots of people need healthy “family units” to contribute to and to receive from. Inter-generational, non-familial house sharing has the potential to fill a social void and make a dent in our seemingly intractable Medicare and education problems.

Stability and predictability especially help children get their bearings to safely navigate the world that is so new to them. It also helps older people who easily become confused.

Home Sharing May Reduce Our Need for Medicare

Some people who “need” Medicare might benefit more by being with people who care about them. Regrettably, a significant segment of medical care today is geared toward quantity over quality. When my feisty brother-in-law recovered from surgery for his new aortic valve, the entire medical team flunked because their mind set was geared to care for the equivalent of a drugged vegetable. Fortunately, when he wore out the nursing home welcome and they recommended discharging him to a psychiatric hospital, my savvy, devoted sister had none of it and took him home.

With help from family members and hospice care he came around, “graduated” from hospice and is now functional enough to drive. Eliminating the drugs that messed up his mind and showering him with attentive, loving care made the difference and saved tens of thousands of Medicare dollars.

It was, and is, difficult but the outcome is a triumph of love and care over “modern” medicine which has morphed into the nightmare of the medical/industrial complex.

Home Sharing Can Lead to Better School Performance

Children benefit from good nutrition, consistent parenting and a predictable routine that includes nourishing meals at home, homework, and a good night’s sleep. Not all children are lucky enough to have this, although their parents would love nothing more than to provide it, if they had the wherewithal. Living within a harmonious environment with people who genuinely like each other is one way to achieve a stable foundation.

These posts and many others talk about the struggles that many families face.

• The Education Problem is Not What You Think, Neither is the Solution 
•  Emergency – Who Watches the Children?
• Single Parents’ Dilemma

Inter-generational, non-familial house sharing is a timely concept because a) living with a range of generations has the potential for an inherently rich experience; b) establishing your own identity, separate from your family of origin, is a necessary step into a healthy adulthood; and c) the right situation can be healthy, affordable, supportive and even fun.

Attending a housing mixer is one way to explore your options, to consider the pitfalls and the possibilities, and to find others who are interested in exploring their options too.

The first housing mixer was a success and I’m close to finalizing a location for regular monthly gatherings in Rogers Park. Watch this space for more details. Please contact me if you would like to have a housing mixer in your community.