If you want to join a cohousing community, in my experience there are at least two ways to plan visits to likely existing communities and/or core groups of forming communities.

One way is to visit only those that seem like likely candidates — communities or groups you’re actually considering joining, given what you know at the moment. Another way — which I highly recommend — is to visit those you know you’re interested in as well as other cohousing communities, whenever possible.

The old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times” is upon us. For the cohousing movement it is as Charlie Dickens would have said the “best and the worst of times.” The housing market is at its worst and the economy is not doing well. It is a hard time to think about housing as a solution to life’s challenges let alone a way to “save the world one neighborhood at a time.” It is times like this that small splinter movements like cohousing can get lost and buried.

But it is the best of times for cohousing in that our awareness of the need to sustain our culture and our planet are at a high point. The economic downturn is forcing a break with the American addiction to materialism and a rethinking of values. Global warming and high gas prices are having significant impacts on our society, although it still isn’t a fast enough impact for some of us.

An acquaintance of mine, Chris Zimmerman, owns and operates a couple of assisted-care facilities in Alameda, California. He inherited one at age 23 and subsequently built a second one. He’s now 60, and despite the limitations of an assisted care environment, he has developed astute theories about seniors and elders.

Like many observers of the cultural scene, he agrees that seniors today are given little respect, but he also believes that they have to earn the respect that they’d like to command. He argues that seniors have abdicated their role as respected elders. Being an elder once meant earning respect by playing an active role in teaching younger generations, a role that’s seldom fulfilled today. He believes that seniors earn elderhood by helping younger generations understand how to be accountable.

What happens when a cohousing community changes in values, lifestyle, and “community culture” over time? And how might this affect you as an a new incoming member?

I have a good friend who lives with her young son in a cohousing community she helped to start. When she and the other founders started the community, food in common house meals was organic, with both omnivore and vegetarian options. The cooks bought organic vegetables and fruit; whole grain bread, cereals, and other grains; and organically raised eggs, chicken, fish, and meat. They used honey and other healthy sweeteners; never white sugar.

The original group also had a rudimentary knowledge of effective group process skills, and knew how to schedule and conduct mediations between members when necessary.

If you’re looking for a cohousing core group or existing community to join, you’re probably thinking about what you want. You may also be considering what personal characteristics tend to lead to enjoying —even thriving — in cohousing.

     Living in community myself, and having talked with many others who live in community (both cohousing and non-cohousing), here are the personal characteristics I think help a person thrive in cohousing.

     • Confidence, self-acceptance, self-esteem

     • Assertiveness

     • Humility, willingness to listen and learn

     • Willingness to serve, to contribute to something larger than yourself

“The results of this water test are enough to make the hair on the back of anyone’s neck stand up!” the scientist at the testing lab told my friend.

Soon after she bought a home in a brand-new cohousing community, the weather turned cold. She and her neighbors turned on the heat, and the water that came out of the hot water faucets smelled strongly like magic markers, and burned the eyes and skin. Lab reports revealed a situation that turned into a nightmare for her and this community.

While no one in my friend’s community had expected toxic water, they were all well aware that the core group’s decisions about the heating system had been contentious, and they made their choice despite strong warnings from a local heating specialist.

Cohousing is a hoot – it really is. When I walk onto the site after a hard day at work and chat with a couple of the 37 kids, or see cutie one-year-old August smiling in his mother’s arms, well, it makes my life worth living. When I walk into the common house an hour before dinner, and Dyann and Frank tell me they can easily accommodate my Danish guests (who fed us seven nights a week when we stayed in their cohousing), sometimes it seems just like one long party.

People interested in cohousing occasionally ask about the population who live in cohousing and how this population compares to the US population as a whole. I recently finished reading Graham Meltzer's book "Sustainable Community: Learning from the cohousing model." This valuable book, published in 2007, is based on Meltzer's research, much of it originally done for his Ph.D. dissertation in Australia. In this book he looks at a dozen cohousing communities around the Pacific Ocean, two in British Columbia, Canada, six in Washington state and California, one in New Zealand, two in Tasmania, Australia, and the last in Tokyo, Japan. The focus of the book is indeed on sustainability which the author examines in considerable detail.

More than 300 people have now enrolled as members of the cohousing.org website so they can visit the Members Area.

I know what a force 300 people can be. I saw it last at the 2008 Cohousing Conference in Boston. Lots of energy, enthusiasm, curiosity, wisdom, humor. Lots of it. It was thrilling.

So just as many people have now shown up for our Members Area. We're very interested in figuring out how to best serve those members. Last month we held a survey to see what your interests are for the area. The results are here. So that shows that a strong interest does exist.

If you’re looking for a forming cohousing community, learn to “read between the lines” in directory listings and websites.

• I observed in my book Creating a Life Together that only about 10 percent of forming intentional community groups succeed, and about 90 percent fail. And while the statistics for cohousing communities are better — Chuck Durrett estimates that about a third of all cohousing core groups succeed in building their community — many do fail, and sometimes this means people lose a great deal of money. So in order to join a group that has a good chance of success, I’d want you to know as much as possible ahead of time about the process of forming a cohousing community. And as much as possible about how successful core groups function.