Times are challenging. People are lonely. Families are looking for solutions for affordable housing and communities they actually want to live in and be a part of. There are many ways intentional communities can help including shared resources, ideas, chores and responsibilities.
This is why we have taken the time to create this free introduction to intentional communities. We see intentional communities as a good and valid option to inflated housing prices and the isolation that so many people are experiencing.
Transparency– We have not lived in any of large intentional communities, partially for economic reasons, but we have participated in their common meals, workshops, homeschool co-ops celebrations, bulk buying clubs and more. We have lived in co-housing for almost all of our 30 years together and Marilene has lived in co-housing most of her life. She also helped to update the print edition of the Community Directory which included calling and speaking with hundreds of intentional communities across the country and email others across the globe. Her job including updating information about how they were organized, how many people lived there, what ages, what their common focus (if any) was, and if they were still open. By nature, she heard many stories of how communities were formed, what held them together and why they disbanded.
When the term intentional community comes to mind, people either thing of the communes of the 1960’s or planned communities which are often homes centered around a community pool and housing development.
This informational course is not about either of these examples. Intentional communities take many forms. They can be in rural settings on acreage centered around a common community garden with a large community “common house” where members share meals, meetings and celebrations. They can also be urban homes or apartment complexes organized in a cooperative way where utilities, groceries and chores are all shared. They can share a common interest, purpose or goal such as spirituality, vegetarianism, farming, homesteading, gender, queer, or any number of other things. Our family has the most personal experience with Ecovillages – and while we are tiny, that is the example we model ourself after. Ecovillages include living light on the land and self-sufficiency.
Intentional Communities can handle things like finances and ownership differently depending on their model. – Assets like homes and land can be owned in common through legal structures like trusts and business agreements. Or there can be a structure where you own your own home and pay dues for common use areas. Or variations on these structures. – Finances can be cut and dry with each person paying for their membership, land, financial share of investments and expenses. However, there are groups who are willing to take into account the resources of incoming members and allow for members to join who have less monetary resources. – Time investmests also vary. A community can require members to put in a set number of hours of work, take on various roles, or the agreements may be looser.
Intentional communities can be as different from each other as any relationship. The commonality is that they typically include more people, and they typically require more structure than a normal household in order to be successful. With more people it is more important to be clear about your structure and agreements, and it is important to put things in writing that impact people financially, regardless of the structures and agreements you choose.
With so many possibilities it is not possible to cover them all in one week, but I can also provide some resources for additional research. If you are interested in knowing more about intentional communities, please take some time to watch the video of the panel discussion and check out the link to the communities I have placed here for you.
If you have lived in a community and would like to add to this conversation, please comment below.
In Community, Marilene and Brian
