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Creating Cohousing

Articles in this Creating Cohousing section focus on the concerns of those in forming cohousing groups who are actively collaborating together to produce a cohousing community for themselves.

Budgeting for Development: Finding the Balance between Hope and Caution
by Chris ScottHanson, Cohousing Resources LLC

Having worked for cohousing groups over the years, creating budgets and schedules and cash flow plans, I have often been asked, “Why does our project have to cost so much? Why is our budget so high?” Recently the question was asked of me again in Brooklyn, so I thought it might be good to address this issue in writing and share it with the greater cohousing community.

“Solar Panel” Says it All
by Lorenzo Bassman, LaQuerencia/Fresno Cohousing

News Flash: Worst Downturn in Housing Market in Decades! Mortgage Crisis Forces Glut of Foreclosures! Too Many Homes For Sale – Nothing Selling! Fresno Cohousing Prices Locked in at Above-Market Rates! Fresno Cohousing Membership Votes to Increase Prices by $10K!

What’s wrong with this picture? Or, perhaps more significantly, what’s right with it?

A New Kind of Cohousing?
by Diana Leafe Christian

“I feel a little intimidated to say this,” the attractive older woman began hesitantly, “but living in senior cohousing next to Songaia was what drew me here in the first place. I don’t want to live in a community where children are the main focus. I do want this to be senior cohousing.”

Twenty Years Later: The State of Cohousing in America
by Brad Gunkel, Architect, McCamant & Durrett Architects

It is the eve of the 2008 Cohousing Conference. It has been 20 years since the concept of cohousing was introduced to an increasingly transient and anonymous American population. It therefore seems like a natural time to step back and survey the movement’s current state, as well as its trajectory – to measure our successes and to recognize the work that lies ahead.

Making cohousing affordable: Strategies and successes, part 3 of 3
by Renee Hart, a founding member of CoHo Ecovillage

There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that Mike Volpe, the president of CoHo Ecovillage, was meant to have a home there, in the cohousing community now being built in Corvallis, Oregon. Mike wasn’t nearly as optimistic. Owning a home would mean giving up his Medicaid benefits, and that simply wasn’t an option. Mike has had primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis since he was 23. This particular form of MS is relentless in its pursuit, and it pursued Mike’s health with a vengeance, gradually taking away his ability to walk, to move his hands, and to see clearly.

Other resources can be found in the Association section such as the free marketing brochures.

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