Each home has traditional components, including a private kitchen. Shared amenities typically feature a Common House, which may include a large kitchen and dining area, laundry, rich landscapes, and recreational spaces. Shared outdoor space may include parking, walkways, open space, and gardens. Neighbors also share resources like tools, lawn mowers, or a woodshop.
Households have independent incomes and private lives, but neighbors collaboratively plan and manage community activities and shared spaces. Community activities feature regularly scheduled shared meals, meetings, and workdays. Neighbors gather for parties, games, movies, or other events. Cohousing makes it easy to form clubs, organize child and elder care, and carpool.
People who live in cohousing often do so out of a desire to belong to something larger than themselves, to give and receive support, to live rich lives, to live lighter on the planet, to avoid modern isolation and loneliness, to increase the depth and quality of their relationships, to have a sense of purpose, and to ground themselves in community so they can go out in to the world and do amazing things.
Cohousing is a part of the solution to global challenges including climate change, poor urbanization patterns, rising cost of living, and social isolation. People benefit by living in an environment that supports their health and improves their well-being.
