Co-housing: A Lifestyle with Community Spirit!

In days not so far past, people resided in villages or tight-knit communities where everyone took care of each other. For the most part, families had known each other for generations. Each families’ ancestry was common knowledge to all members of the community. They had potluck dinners, looked out for each other’s children, borrowed each other’s gardening and farming machinery, and lent each other food and groceries. Our lives have changed so much that a modern-day family would find it hard to survive daily life as it was only 50 years ago. We have begun to think that each home is its family’s castle. We have isolated ourselves in private houses.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to this kind of living: co-housing! The co-housing idea originated in Denmark in the 1960s. It has spread across Europe and the USA. Co-housing communities offer comfortable places where people of all ages grow and age well. This type of neighbourhood is composed of a collection of between 15 to 40 units. They range in size from 7 to 67 residences. They face each other around a courtyard on a pedestrian area with little traffic. Co-housing, like normal life, comes with significant responsibilities. Residents usually share chores and maintenance work. They participate in decision-making processes about common spaces and facilities.

There is a community-building called “common house”. It features public facilities such as a kitchen, dining area, sitting area, children’s playroom, and laundry. Residents use it as the setting for common dinners, afternoon tea, children’s games on rainy days, morning Yoga, kids’ music lessons, adult music jamming sessions, sitting by the fire and discussing the issues of the day, Friday night movies, Super Bowl parties, teens doing homework, guest-hosting, crafts workshops, and so on. Co-housing also makes it easy to form clubs, organise child and elder care, and carpool.

It is just starting to dawn on people that our future won’t be built around freeways, combustion-fuelled vehicles, and freestanding houses. They are looking for a different kind of community. Co-housing is a contemporary model for creating the nostalgic sense of neighbourhood that they miss. It offers a more social, cooperative, alternative to traditional housing.