Shared Housing for Activist Communities
Are you passionate about a cause and looking for ways to devote more time to it? Shared housing for activist communities can help free up time.
Co-housing groups based on shared convictions, activist communities, can enable community activists to lower their cost of living in order to spend more time and resources on their projects.
Searching ICmatch profiles for others who indicate an interest in a cause-based IC can help you create a core team. Even if you don’t start off sharing a specific project, the interactions that happen as you simply share space can be opportunities for inspiration or bouncing ideas off each other. Co-living is an intense way to practice your core values with like-minded others.
You might also want to check the group types page titled “shelter or treatment for underserved,” another type of cause-based ICmatch group.
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Steps to create a coliving group within an activist community
- Advertise your shared housing plan and your mission on sites where your cause is discussed. Invite others to check out your profile and sign up for free with ICmatch. Create your core leadership team then post a group profile.
- See the resources section of the college housing page of ICmatch.org for details on finding and securing a small group residence.
- Add to your leadership team or advisory board someone who has worked in a related non-profit or other cause-based organization.
- Use our search function and profile matching to find other values-aligned volunteers. Your volunteer events could serve as team building events where more recruits could be vetted and potentially create additional teams with co-housing.
- Create your business plan and grant proposals. Consider working with a registered non-profit and eventually applying for non-profit status yourselves, to be eligible for more grant funding. You might team up with a university department that works on issues you are interested in. Universities could also be an umbrella recipient of funding for your projects.
- Meet regularly as a team to make sure each member feels supported with their responsibilities.
Examples
- The Red Door Commune in Ottowa consists of six roommates whose ages span four decades, tied together through their politics and work.
- The Red Victorian in San Francisco is a large activist-based commune that shares meals and also operates as a hostel.
Consultants for Activist Coliving
Members Interested in an Activist Coliving
Resources
- Project Regeneration: a wide-ranging call to action for a variety of topics affecting climate crisis, with ideas for individual and small group effective action.
- Effective activism: discusses multiple tactics and avoiding illegal methods, which research shows can backfire by reducing public support.
- Shaming is a bad tactic: from an author with an ecological engineering background asserts that attempts at shaming tend to shut down dialogue and destroy discourse, weakening your capacity to gain support. Shaming language appeals to only a narrow segment of already like-minded allies.
- Shared-house rules: adapt for your own use this example of an intentional community agreement for shared spaces, refined over a decade.
- Social justice work: inspiration and important perspectives for caregivers and the helping professions.
- Leading intentional community: encouraging your participation in this movement.