Sense of Purpose

Cohousing can be found in rural and urban areas. Some were formed from
warehouses retrofitted into apartments with common spaces. Some are
condos, and some are small attached or single-family homes. But most
communities follow the six core principles that distinguish cohousing
from other types of collaborative housing: the participatory process, a
neighborhood design, common facilities, resident management,
nonhierarchical structure and decision making, and no shared community
economy.

Each community has a common house, the centerpiece of cohousing. It’s
the community’s social center, with a dining room, kitchen, lounge,
recreational facilities, laundry facilities, guest rooms, and other
features. It’s where the group meals (prepared by the residents) are
served and the meetings are held. Neighbors also gather there for
celebrations. If you want to throw a party or put up guests, the common
house is equipped to do that. Having this larger common space allows
the individual homes to be built smaller, which helps hold down the
cost of utilities and maintenance.

Cohousing communities often have missions, which are determined by the
residents. “Some place the environmental ethic very high,” said Poley.
“Others place affordability and diversity very high.” At Winslow
Cohousing near Seattle, the aim is to have “a minimal impact on the
earth and create a place in which all residents are equally valued as
part of the community,” according to the Cohousing Association’s Web
site. Tierra Nueva Cohousing in Oceano, California, exists “because
each of us desires a greater sense of community, as well as strong
interaction with and support from our neighbors.” ElderSpirit Community
in Abingdon, Virginia, “is a participatory membership organization for
older adults that provides opportunities for growth through later life
spiritual programs and through the formation of communities and
residential centers.”

ElderSpirit, opened in 2006, is one of the three senior cohousing
communities. The first to open was Glacier Circle Community, in
December 2005, in Davis, California. Silver Sage Village opened in
Boulder, Colorado, in 2007. As of December 2009, two more senior
cohousing communities were nearing the construction phase: Washington
Village in Boulder, and Wolf Creek Lodge in Grass Valley, California.

Silver Sage Village’s design earned McCamant & Durrett Architects
the Silver Award for Best of Senior Living by the National Association
of Home Builders in 2008. Husband-wife architects Kathryn McCamant and
Charles Durrett introduced cohousing to the United States in 1988 in
their book Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves
after studying the concept in Denmark. Durrett applied the cohousing
model to senior communities in his 2005 book Senior Cohousing, A
Community Approach to Independent Living—The Handbook. One reviewer
called that book the “gold standard for anyone interested in this
subject.”

Though communal housing for the elderly is new, intergenerational
communities have been around since the early 1990s. Wonderland Hill
Development Company began its focus on cohousing at that time and has
since built 16 cohousing communities. Nationwide, the numbers are
inexact, but overall another 60 to 70 intergenerational communities are
in the talking stages.

The Cohousing Association, a nonprofit going on its 10th year, is a
place of networking, which Poley considers “vitally important” because
of the grassroots nature of the movement. It gives people the resources
and direction for starting their own cohousing communities and helps
raise awareness about cohousing “as a viable housing option.”