One of the future needs for all cohousing communities is to continue generating support for CoHoUS for developing and training the next generation of cohousing leaders. Just moving in to your new home is not the completion of the community, it is merely the beginning.
We are all mere mortals. Every conference I attend gives me additional insights into what cohousing is all about, how it may be better managed, better designed, and become more sustainable.
One of the convictions I brought away from Durham is that there are three levels of sustainability that are critical to our communities:
1. Sustainability of our facilities: community scale of design, adequate repairs, replacements, and reserve funding;
2. Sustainability of our natural environment; protection of our resources for our enjoyment and for later generations; we do not own the land, we hold it in trust for future generations, including plans for sustainably harvesting renewable resources like timber;
3. Sustainability of our social culture: living by agreement rather than by rules; what that means to us; how we do it; how we pass it on;
I think a critical part of our sustainability is to sustain support for CoHoUS to pass on our lessons learned to our next generations.
Tom Lofft
Liberty Village, MD