This is a draft of text to go on Website2021.
The first thing to note is that, although we are a residential community, we have plenty of non-residents who are part of our community. Most of our members WANT to live together, but there are many reasons some may not. Living together certainly supports continuous engagement and connection, but its not critical. And we WANT, and usually insist, that new people get pretty engaged before moving in. We are not the right community for everyone who wants to be in community, and we find it is far less traumatic if we all figure that out BEFORE someone moves in. :)
Now... What does our 'residential' community look like?
Where we live: Right now the residential members live in two large houses in the Rainier Beach/Skyway neighborhood of Seattle. We have a 10 bedroom house (Ryan House) and an 8 bedroom house (Sky House) that we own, so in the moment we are limited to about 18 residential members, and we are full. We have a good bit of flexibility though. In the past we lived in rental houses, and if we reach a point of wanting to welcome a few more residential members, we would start by renting another house in the neighborhood, with the goal of eventually buying another house. So housing is not really a barrier. If people are involved and want to move in, there is a path.
What our houses look like: The houses we live in are not old run-down houses or anything like that. Interestingly, the cheapest way to house the most people was to buy "McMansions?", houses with a lot of excess space, and convert the excess space to bedrooms. So the houses we have now are pretty nice. Ryan has an amazing view of Lake Washington on two sides, a big fancy kitchen, that sort of stuff. Its style is modern. Sky doesn't have the view, but is similarly upscale with a more traditional style, and has a wonderful yard with lots of gardening space. We would kinda like to have an old craftsman too, more like our previous rental houses, but its hard to find one with the space for a lot of bedrooms. Looking at houses is a hobby for some of us, and we keep looking and dreaming.
A little history: We started out entirely in rental houses. We started out in 2014 with one rental in Greenlake (Star House), added other rentals, moved between several houses, spun off houses that became their own communities, and finally purchased our first owned house in June 2017. We purchased the second house in 2018, while still maintaining a couple of rental houses. (The house history is 'here' if you are interested.) This led to some degree of misery, because our new houses were centered in South Seattle while our rentals were in North Seattle. We loved our original Greenlake home, but the physical separation was painful. Then Covid happened, making that split even more painful. Early in Covid especially, (before we developed our risk mitigation strategy) it did not feel safe to go between houses, and our connections between houses became virtual. Also we lost some people, and struggled during Covid to rent out their rooms. But every trauma has a silver lining. We had always known we would probably consolidate in South Seattle, but the Greenlake contingent had strong connections to Star House and the Greenlake neighborhood (jobs, relationships, public transit, services), so it didn't happen quickly. Then came Covid, and a lot of those attachments disappeared. Public transit was off limits, and jobs and relationships became virtual anyway. It seemed like the right time. So in September 2020, we gave up our Greenlake rental and consolidated in the two South Seattle homes.
What does daily life look like? Well, to some extent it looks like normal suburban life. People get up in the morning and go to their jobs (or work from home), eat meals, play games, watch TV, do normal stuff. But we XXXXX Well, our model is in a gradual transition from more capitalist to more socialist. The two houses are actually owned by members of the community, not by some corporate legal entity. But the individuals who own them have an agreement to operate them not for profit, but for the benefit of the members. Everyone has a bedroom to themselves, which they pay rent for. The rents are set at a level sufficient to pay the mortgages and have reserves for maintenance/improvements, but no one is profiting. We try to minimize the cost for everyone by having houses with lots of bedrooms, and not an excess of common space. Rents between rooms are set roughly in alignment with their size and desirability, but we also adjust for people's ability to pay. When social needs arise, we occasionally negotiate moving people around between rooms.
Food - Food and household goods are treated as a utility. We buy and share the expense of food by house, buying mostly whatever people want, though with an effort to keep costs reasonable. Things like junk food and alcohol are personal purchases. There are two dinners a week that the whole community eats together. People volunteer to plan and cook those meals. Other meals are variable. Sky House usually makes and eats meals together. Ryan has more meals where people make their own. So we eat a lot of meals together, but there's no rule, and it can change. Schedule and diet considerations are a factor here.
Meetings, meetings, meetings.... We have lots of meetings. Most of these are not, however, about logistics. For household logistics, Ryan has a weekly meeting and Sky a bi-weekly meeting. We have occasional, as needed, joint house meetings for logistics. But most of our meetings are about values/mission type things. A typical week has meetings most every day, sometimes two a day, but obviously not everyone participates. It's by interest and choice. The most universal meetings we have are [[Forum?]] (in the style of ZeggForum?), and CommunityCircle?. Forum is twice weekly, one live and one Zoom. Community Circle is 3x per month. Most of the community attend Community Circle, and at least one Forum per week. Our other regular meetings (right now those are: Strategy, Spiritual Quest, Sacred Matrix, Stories Group, Uncomfortable Conversations, Sex and Intimacy Groups, Meditation, Possibility Management Group) and other irregular groups are all completely optional and by interest. You are invited to start your own interest group!
Chores - We do not have a chore chart. Sky house folks tend to be neatnicks and people do what they like most, when they have time. Ryan folks are mostly messy, and broad participation in cleanup is elicited through a kinda fun voluntary "one song cleanup" every day at 5:30. Ryan also sometimes has paid housecleaning which is shared as a utility. Maintenance, repair, and home improvement projects are taken on by the people who like them, or hired out if we hate it or don't have the skills.
Transportation - Being in a car dependent neighborhood, we do get around mostly in cars, but not everyone owns a car. Cars are owned by individuals but shared pretty freely. We are currently working on a socialization program, where the sharing is more formalized, so that the owners of cars do not bear all the burden for insurance and maintenance. We are hoping to get rid of some of our cars and make more efficient use of the ones we keep. Both houses are also on bus lines, and the Rainier Beach light rail station is close. As Covid ends we hope to go back to more use of public transit.
Other shared community benefits - We do a lot of little things to make life cheaper. We share subscriptions, streaming services, "family plans" for phones, and the like. We rent movies and watch them together. We share tools and appliances. We have an internal "stuff-exchange" for anything
Costs - Not that we want cost to be the reason people come to us, but of course inquiring minds want to know, right? For Seattle, we live pretty cheaply. The average room rent is about $700. Food and utilities including internet averaged $375/mo over a recent 4-month period. This level of costs allows even our members who work minimum wage jobs, or live on social security, to have a comfortable life.
Define external redirect: McMansions CommunityCircle ZeggForum Forum