Recording Library - Diversity
Most communities adopt a value of diversity early on. Creating a diverse community is surprisingly challenging. These sessions name those challenges and strategize solutions.
Addressing Racism and Working for Racial Equality
This workshop focuses on anti-racism work white folks can do in cohousing community and is open to everyone. We will share some of the struggles we’ve had in our own community and how we’ve addressed them. There will be time to share other communities’ experiences and time to brainstorm strategies together.
Anyone can aspire to, and become an ally; through consistent self-inquiry, research, egoless listening, and selfless service. Yet, allyship cannot be self-proclaimed. We’ll cover what allyship is, and isn’t; the do’s and don’ts, the A-Z’s, and why it’s an imperative part of any individual’s, community’s, and country’s enlightenment and healing.
Cultural Awareness Menu
Invoking and acknowledging the importance of the beauty and diversity in nature we’ll reflect on ‘us’ as a product of its brilliance. Looking at ways our culture is richer because of the diversity of people who contribute to it, we’ll learn to welcome our similarities, and honor are differences as opportunities for growth.
AUGUST 9 BRIDGES TO COHOUSING: HOUSING THAT CARES
Virtual Roundtable Exploring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Cohousing featuring Crystal Byrd Farmer, Pedro Silva, and Charles Durrett
Cohousing supports a culture of caring and sharing. Join diversity, equity and inclusion advocates to learn about trends in supporting greater social inclusion in cohousing.
For more than a decade, cohousers have been interested in having conversations about race – maybe even more so now. But cohousers, like many progressive liberals, are often triggered by the naming of White Supremacy, White privilege, Racist behaviors. Confusion about intent and impact often arise.
While many of us have started on a journey towards being anti-racist, what does it mean to make cohousing anti-racist? This session will be a primer – a baby step towards making cohousing anti-racist.
We will take a brief look at how class and classism affect our attempts to create functional communities. Class differences and tensions are present in almost every community project, and when unaddressed, this creates a number of barriers for getting the culture we want, and to one of the most common community goals: affordability. Yana will offer some tips and exercises for getting into a productive conversation about class.
As an introduction to our upcoming Community for All online conference (on August 23), Daisy will be guiding us in how white allies can engage productively and profoundly in anti-racism work, in ways that can be life-changing. The program for the evening will include a short video followed by small group discussions and an informative (sometimes entertaining)
For some, buying a home in cohousing is a real-estate transaction. They weigh the “value” of the home relative to price, square footage, neighborhood comps, and resale value. Three urban communities (one completed, one starting construction, and one forming) share their experiences of who shows up you prioritize community and diversity, over selling homes. Our session will pose a series of questions around embracing income diversity in cohousing to panelists from each of the three communities. There will also be time set aside at the end of the panel for audience questions.
Chat Notes
Location is a huge factor in recruiting people to a cohousing community. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of discriminating against home buyers based on race. We’ll discuss this history and how your site search may unintentionally leave out people of color.
How do you build a diverse cohousing community? What do people from marginalized groups (different races, disability status, sexuality, and more) experience in community, and how do we change our words, actions, and policies so they feel more welcome? This workshop is based on the book The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization coming out in October 2020.
Looking for land? Take a look at history first! Red-lining and other forms of housing segregation continue to impact where people of different races and ethnicities live. If you want to create a diverse community, you might have to change your idea of what makes a “good neighborhood.” This workshop will give you tools to look at your potential properties with an understanding of history and eye for social justice.
The presenters will share their different experiences, one living in a multigenerational community, the other having lived both in a multigenerational and a senior community. Session about living within not just a variety of ages, but also life stages. They’ll share their experience of what needs can be filled and what challenges can arise.
Living in community means recognizing and accommodating diversity. Neurodiversity covers autistic people and people with ADHD, personality disorders, and others. These people appear typical on the outside but struggle with everyday life in ways that may make living in community difficult. However, they can also be creative, out of the box thinkers and dedicated volunteers. In this workshop, we’ll cover how communities can benefit from and support neurodivergent people.
Material inequality is a primordial source of oppression. Classism is a set of behaviors, attitudes, and cultural characteristics that normalize material inequality. Classism undermines efforts to build successful intentional communities, cohousing communities, and cooperative organizations. This program will do the following: 1. Frame socioeconomic insecurity as a source of social differentiation and personal trauma. 2. Utilize anecdotes from intentional community experiences to illustrate unintentional and intentional classism; provide important metrics, statistics, and empirical data on socioeconomic insecurity and class. 3. Discuss why some attempted solutions to classism fail and what effective responses to classism do.
Most cohousing communities value inclusion and diversity yet are uncertain of how to accomplish this within their community. And often don’t understand how welcoming people with diverse abilities, incomes, and backgrounds can positively impact their community. Join us in a candid conversation where we will discuss the benefits, challenges and misconceptions of what it means to live in an intentionally diverse and inclusive community. This will be a panel discussion with founders of cohousing communities that will be inclusive to households of all abilities. These founders have family members with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
This talk explores how cohousing communities activate a sense of interdependence which cultivates a way of living where disabled and non-disabled individuals alike co-create a system of accessibility which organically and reciprocally meets the needs of community members.
Avi Kruley, Co-Director of Community Well-being at Mount Madonna Center, will explore the role of belonging in community. What is responsibility of the community? What is responsibility of individual? And what are some actions that can be taken by both to cultivate a greater sense of belonging for all?
Helena Cragg, Joi Faison, Rosemary Linares and Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom will share their experiences of cohousing as women of color. Moderator, Crystal Bryd Farmer, will guide the conversation and take your questions. Bring your curiosity, you might just hear something that surprises you.
At this point, many people want to be taking concrete steps to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy in cohousing, but many, especially white allies, struggle to know where and how to start. This session convenes a panel and invites participants to suggest specific steps that cohousing groups can take.
Ty Albright, a Cohousing USA Board Member and Texan – will share guidance on how to integrate into and best get along with “non-liberal big city” people. This would include most of Texas – and much of the mid-west “fly over” country. Do you want a bubba Trump Supporter as a neighbor? Maybe an opportunity has you moving to Trump Land and you don’t speak the language.
That’s right you’re not from Texas – Lyle Lovett
Why identify LGBTQI as an Intentional community?
For individuals who desire a greater understanding of why LGBTQI elders may desire a co-housing community dedicated to providing an authentic experience of safety and freedom to express oneself in relationship and identity. Currently, 31 states do not provide protection in employment and housing for LGBTQI people. Even people who support LGBTQI rights often unknowingly marginalize people who are not heterosexual through policies, marketing and language. A look at inherent societal heterosexual bias will cover why LGBTQI elders feel social isolation to a greater extent than their heterosexual peers, why they fear getting older and how an intentional co-housing community for 55 + LGBTQI people and allies is making a difference in their lives.
How a shift in values from diversity to racial equity guided a community name change process, while revealing that we still have a long way to go to overcome racism in ourselves and in our mostly white community. We’ll talk strategies for expanding racial awareness, addressing racism and white privilege, and building resilience for the path ahead.