It Takes A Village
Creating an old-fashioned neighborhood in a new way
Story by Hannah Quinton
Hannah joins the Bellingham Cohousing community for dinner. // Photo courtesy of Marie MacWhyte on Feb. 27, 2024
There was a time when you wouldn’t think twice about asking your neighbor for help, but today it’s common to not know your neighbor’s name. Thanks to apps like Facebook and Instagram, we can find information about anything and everyone, but many people feel more disconnected than ever from one another.
With tight-knit neighborhoods on the decline and working single family homes on the rise, the feeling of community is wilting away.
Bellingham resident Mary Swenson, 78, explained how in her youth, all of her friends lived on the same street. However, she’s noticed a decline in community-centric living as she’s aged. She attributes this to stay-at-home parenting being more popular in her childhood and the rise of working-class families since then.
Swenson is one of many individuals who have chosen to intentionally prioritize community through cohousing. Cohousing refers to an intentional community of private homes that surround a shared communal space. This is different from a commune, which resorts to 100% shared income and space. Living in cohousing preserves individualism while also creating a real sense of community.
The concept of “intentional living” goes beyond intentionally choosing community. According to Charles Durrett, an architect and pioneer of cohousing in America, every detail matters. From the orientation of house windows toward the common areas to strategically placing parking behind buildings to preserve pedestrian pathways, every element contributes to fostering a purposeful environment.
“Cohousing” was first coined as a term in 1964 by a Danish architect named Jan Gudmand-Hoyer, who attempted to prove his concept by gathering a group of friends with the intention of finding a way to live together while prioritizing sustainability and shared childcare. Although cohousing is a relatively new concept, other notable variations of communal housing have long existed, such as the Jewish kibbutz.
Durrett has helped to expand the original vision for cohousing by publishing several books on the subject, as well as working as architect on a large number of cohousing projects throughout the U.S.
Since 1964, over 200 cohousing communities have been built. In 1997, the wheels started to turn on the creation of Bellingham Cohousing. Dan Taylor, who has been a resident of Bellingham Cohousing for 24 years, was brought on when a friend invited him to be part of the project a year after the initial planning had begun.
“I had just retired,” Taylor said. “I was building a boat, but was happy to take something on. [The] whole thing interested me.”
According to Taylor, the hardest part about starting a cohousing community was getting enough people with similar vision to put enough money down to contribute toward the development. Initially, it started with six individuals who each put in $20,000 to purchase the land.
Fast forward 24 years after the completion of the development, and Bellingham Cohousing is thriving, with 33 units and over 70 people living in them.
As you walk through the community, flowers follow you. People are eager to wave and potentially even introduce themselves. Although this particular cohousing community has a large number of seniors, you can still see children of all ages playing together in the yards.
Current board president Barbara ten Hove has helped develop other cohousings in Washington, and feels that one of the reasons Bellingham Cohousing works so well is due to its size.
“It’s big enough you don’t need to do everything all the time. We are self-managed. We do our own finances. We only pay for contracted services, but generally we manage it ourselves,” ten Hove said. “Songaia only had 13 houses and it was a ton of work and not enough people. Here it is easier, and good folks that are committed come to general meetings to take on tasks.”
Under Bellingham Cohousing’s organizational structure, a new board of at least three leaders is elected every three years. Each leader holds a different role such as president, vice president and secretary. There are currently six board members, and they can also bring on officers if needed.
Within the Bellingham Cohousing community, all tasks are divided based on skills and interests, with a wide range of committees available for residents to join. Have a knack for cooking? You would most likely be fitted into the meals committee, which is responsible for cooking common dinner. If you’re better with numbers, the finance committee may be the place for you. In total, about 12 different committees help run the land.
The community also has some jobs that don’t require entire committees. For example, a beekeeper tends the wetlands and orchards, and a few people are responsible for the garden and facilitation of recycling.
Bellingham Cohousing is conscious of trying to reduce waste in many ways. They implement a monthly free Friday table where residents can leave unwanted items for others to pick up. There is also a comprehensive compost and recycling routine. Sustainability is huge for cohousers, as one of their guiding principles is to live lightly on the land. Some cohousers said that although community was important to them, sustainability was a driving force for the move from a single-family home into cohousing.
Big group meetings are typically led by a facilitator – typically someone who’s trained in running meetings effectively while making sure everyone’s voice is heard, even the quietest of the bunch.
During these meetings, Bellingham Cohousing makes decisions based on consensus, which can be difficult with the number of people who reside in the area. If somebody blocks consensus, the plan pivots toward a compromise until everybody agrees on a plan.
“I think utilizing consensus forces people to listen and compromise with each other. Those two things are hard for humans. Consensus forces us to get better at that,” ten Hove said.
What happens if you don’t always see eye to eye with someone, yet still need to find room to care about them? The cohousers have definitely reached consensus on the fact that they don’t all get along. They joked about it at coffee, as two cohousers who are notorious for butting heads managed to share a laugh. One of them noted that although the other frequently got on their nerves, one of their biscuits always makes it all better.
“It is the nature of community, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not get along with a few people,” ten Hove said.
Disagreements within the community can be about anything from pet regulations to landscape rules, but Taylor explains that there are “four p’s” that they most often struggle with: parents, pets, participation and parking.
Getting full participation, like attending meetings and events from all 33 households, can be difficult at Bellingham Cohousing. People are busy with lives, have families or are sometimes just not interested in participation. As ten Hove explained, “There is a difference between living in cohousing and doing cohousing.”
Cohousers throw a collection of events every month, from common meals to Friday happy hour. A popular one is 10 a.m. coffee, where anyone from mothers and their newborns to seasoned grandparents can meet in the common house to share both stories and sugar cookies. Sometimes, even the mailman will partake.
While the COVID-19 pandemic hit the rest of the world hard, residents believe that living in cohousing gave them a completely different experience because they still fostered a sense of community and care for one another while still maintaining social distance.
“We were not isolated. We stopped having group meetings – we had Zoom – but we were close enough to see each other,” Taylor said.
Throughout the pandemic, some cohousers continued to gather at a distance. During the wintertime, members would wrap up in toasty heated blankets outside to enjoy each others’ presence for morning coffee.
The allure of this kind of community is a big motivator for many people who choose to participate in cohousing. While cohousing brings conveniences such as easily getting a ride to the airport or not having to stress about borrowing a cup of sugar, communal living also tends to foster even deeper connections.
Taylor’s wife died while they were in cohousing, and he said that the support of his fellow cohousers made him feel less alone in the grieving process. He was especially grateful for invitations to dinner.
“People die and [people] don’t know what to say, so [they] avoid you. That didn’t happen here,” Taylor said.
Swenson also lost a loved one while living in cohousing during COVID-19. After living in cohousing for 20 of their 46 years of marriage, her husband went from healthy to ill in a matter of weeks.
The sudden shift was hard on Swenson, but she maintains that she was in good hands thanks to the help of her community.
“They helped install things in the house. You name it, and they did it. It was done with a whole lot of caring and requiring nothing of me,” Swenson said.
Part of the care Swenson received – and which all cohousers enjoy all the time – came in the form of group dinners, which take place once a month at the common house. For group dinners, the meal committee of 3-4 people takes charge of preparing a meal for up to 40 people.
At a recent group dinner, ten Hove shared a cherished family recipe, a Moroccan-style dish consisting of couscous and chicken stewed in vegetables. As she massaged the couscous, ten Hove pointed to a photograph of her late mother, explaining that her spirit was helping to bring out flavors in the food.
You might think a meal of that caliber would be difficult to manage, but the cohousers have developed a routine that leaves hardly a dirty dish in sight. With designated roles such as vegetable-chopping and dishwashing, dinner prep and cleanup are a breeze.
As 6 p.m. approached, the bell rang outside to let the community know that dinner was served. Residents wove through the doors of the common house and lined up with their plates like ants preparing to feast on sugar cubes. Jaco ten Hove, another resident of Bellingham Cohousing, explained that the communal meal offers more than just a good meal. It’s also an opportunity to work together and learn about one another.
In many ways, the grass truly is greener in cohousing. However, unless you were grandfathered in or very lucky, getting access to a cohousing utopia can be difficult – and expensive. So why should you care? Because if we as a society are able to overcome the obstacles, cohousing is a model that can provide parents with a unique kind of child support, while at the same time offering both physical and emotional support to senior citizens. It can support an eco-friendly way of life while keeping people’s social lives alive and thriving.
As we shape our future, it’s worth asking ourselves: How do we want to intentionally live? The answer could be right next door.