What does affordable housing look like?

[caption id="attachment_541" align="aligncenter" width="700" caption="Petaluma Avenue Homes"][/caption] When I was in architecture school at Washington State University, architect Michael Pyatok came to do a lecture on affordable housing and mentioned that he had experienced comments in public hearings that his proposed project "didn't look like affordable housing" - and this was perceived as a bad thing by the commenter.  That's a poor reflection on our society - when design for poor people (the people who have the least means and face the most social inequity) should be inferior.  Luckily that was almost 20 years ago and a lot has changed in the arena of affordable housing.

I'm proud to be a participant in Washington State's affordable housing industry during a period of time when HUD is making significant structural changes through it's Sustainable Communities Initiative.  Finally, the silos of our federal government are being dismantled to recognize the synergies between housing, the environment, and transportation systems.  And the possibility for education and food (nutrition) to be added to that mix is even more revolutionary (for government, not reality).

Washington State is home/host to an amazing annual conference called Housing Washington.  It brings together 700-800 people that work to create and manage affordable housing in the state - bankers, developers, social service providers, housing authorities, attorneys, government entities, and of course a handful of architects. (I'm sure I missed someone in there).  http://www.wshfc.org/conf/

And cohousing can be a part of that solution.  As a board member for the Cohousing Association of the United States, I have been chairing the Affordable Cohousing Task Group.  We are developing/implementing an advocacy plan that will reach out to allied organizations and policy makers to share how cohousing can be a solution to creating healthy mixed-income neighborhoods that provide moderate income families with positive role models for achieving financial independence. 

The photo pictured above is a Petaluma Avenue Homes, a 45 unit cohousing-inspired community developed by Affordable Housing Associates in Sebastapol, CA.  The rental community was designed by McCamant & Durrett Architects - the architects who coined the term cohousing and introduced cohousing to North America after extensively researching it Denmark.  Petaluma Avenue Homes is a great example of how cohousing principles can inform the physical design to be an armature for building community.  It doesn't hurt that the architects convinced the developer to provide funding for a community facilitator to help develop community norms and structure during the first 2 years of occupancy. 

This will be one of many examples Mike and I will share during our presentation tomorrow at the 2010 Housing Washington Conference entitled Affordable Cohousing - Making it Work for Low Income Families.  Please come by and say hi!  To see what other sessions are being offered, visit http://www.wshfc.org/conf/HW2010.Glance.pdf.

Transparency, Curiosity, and Compassion

I live at Daybreak Cohousing (http://www.daybreakcohousing.org/). Daybreak is an intentional community of neighbors who want to know each other and interact with each other on a daily basis. See our website or the national cohousing website: if you want to know more about us or cohousing in general. As with most communities, we have adopted a process/guide to help us effectively communicate with one another. We have adopted the “Mutual Learning Model”.

Transparency, Curiosity, and Compassion are the three key elements in the “Mutual Learning Model”. I find them to be invaluable in having clear, useful and productive conversations. They are particularly useful when having difficult conversations, which all of us have in life – be it with your partner, your family, your neighbors, or your colleagues.

Tuesday night, Emily Newberry with Wizense, Inc. (http://www.wizense.com/Wizense/Welcome.html), came and talked to our community about these concepts. She helped to make this way of communication more present for us once again as it has been quite awhile since our community has focused on how we communicate. I found it to be a wonderful  reminder of how to be together and what is important to us.

These are the guiding principles underlying Roger Shwarz’ 9 ground rules (http://www.schwarzassociates.com/content/products/1708), which we have also adopted. Ground rules are ways of talking and communicating with each other that are mutually agreed upon. They help groups talk in a way that supports each other and furthers communication to get to joint decisions.

“Transparency is being fully who you are and being honest about what you know and believe and how you see things.”

“Curiosity is being genuinely interested in what others have to say and what they know.”

“Compassion is temporarily suspending the belief that you have the right answer and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes to get what it is like to know what they know and reason the way they do.”

When you do all this, you can ‘play in the sandbox’ together. You begin by inviting the person/people you want to have a conversation to join you. This is much more effective than arm wrestling and being in the place of the “Unilateral Control Model”.

Thank you Emily and Daybreak for a great presentation and reminder! May we all continue to learn together!

Curious about Cohousing?

  [caption id="attachment_433" align="alignleft" width="700" caption="Dinner in Common House"][/caption]

You may have read previous blog posts about cohousing and wondered, "What is cohousing?"  If you have, you may have googled cohousing and found the website for the Cohousing Association of the United States (or CohoUS).    Good for you! 

If you haven't, then in a nutshell, cohousing is a type of collaborative neighborhood in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own community.  A central aspect of living in cohousing is a balance between private and community life.  Neighborhood physical design encourages walkability and social contact while preserving resident needs for private space.  Homes are conventional and privately owned or rented but residents have access to numerous shared facilities such as a community house, common green spaces, and play spaces.

Great, now you have a definition!  But you might still have many questions about what they look/feel like and why people choose to live in cohousing communities.  Perhaps because you wonder, "Would I like to live in a cohousing community?"

If you are interested in:

• Living lightly on the earth.
• Knowing and working cooperatively with your neighbors.
• Reducing your household chores (cooking, cleaning, yardwork).
• Sharing resources (woodshop, bikeshop, art space, kids play area).
• Having people check in on you when you are old, alone, sick, lonely, sad, ....(fill in the blank).
• Celebrating life's accomplishments and milestones with a group of people who care about you and want to celebrate with you.
• Living your values and having others encourage you to realize your full potential.

then you probably should be interested in learning more about cohousing.

If you’re looking for an alternative to how you live, I would encourage you to attend an informational session on cohousing – community oriented, cooperatively managed, but independently owned housing.

Who:      Open to renters and homeowners, children welcome

Where:   First United Methodist Church (Fellowship Hall) - 180 Denny Way, Seattle, WA

When:    Saturday, October 23, 2010 10:00am-12:00pm

Cost:      FREE but RVSP required        

RSVP:    http://cohousing1023.eventbrite.com

Permaculture in Seattle

[caption id="attachment_268" align="alignleft" width="700" caption="Permaculture Gardens at Daybreak Cohousing"][/caption] While designing Daybreak Cohousing in Portland, we were first introduced to the term "permaculture."  At the time, I imagined it was a radical and complicated way to plant and grow food.  However, in the past 4 years, I've come to learn that a lot of what I believe in relative to urban gardening/farming is actually imbedded in the principles of permaculture.  How did I find this out?  After numerous people I'd be talking to would say "hey, what you are describing sounds like permaculture."  So after the last person who said this to me, Jason Niebler - Program Director for Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAgE) Program at Seattle Central Community College, I bought the book Gaia's Garden...and so starts my journey.

The journey includes creating an urban farm on the rooftop of our future cohousing development on Capitol Hill.  Based on early conversations with Jason, it sounds like we can grow food for the 10 families who will reside in the community as well as enough to sell to local restaurants and possibly to neighbors at the Farmer's Market.  That is still a few years off, so till then, we will dream and plan.  And when we move in, our 3000sf rooftop farm will be open to the public - for tours and general information.  No more food deserts - we want to grow hyper local food that is nutritious, organic, and sustainable.

Until that time, you can learn more about permaculture at the 2010 Northwest Permaculture Convergence.  Since the meeting is taking place in an urban setting this year, the focus of the Convergence is on Urban Permaculture and the Invisible Structures that weave our lives together as part of the city commons.

Mark Lakeman of Portland's City Repair is the keynote speaker - and he's quite an inspiring!  After hearing from him, you will want to create your own community tea house adorned with butterfly wings and paint a magnificent mandala in your neighborhood intersection.

The event takes place this weekend - September 17-19 at South Seattle Community College, Seattle, WA.  More info can be found at  http://www.washingtonstatepermaculture.org/wordpress/?page_id=7