We regret Cambridge Cohousing has ceased to operate and the Society will be dissolved. This website and resources will remain public until June 2023 to share information.
What did we value?
To promote our wellbeing by living in an intentionally harmonious and diverse community that actively nurtures the local environment. We shared this fundamental goal in our vision of how to live well. This goal oriented and motivated our other goals and actions related to housing.
Community values
Our cohousing values were the things about housing that were important to us and gave us reasons to live in a cohousing community. We acknowledged that these values could be better achieved by an intentional community than by family groups living in traditional housing. These were:
- Social connection
- Diversity
- Environmental stewardship
Housing values
Our housing values were things about housing that were important to us and that we aspired to in our cohousing community. However, our housing values were not reasons to live in a cohousing community because we could easily secure them in traditional housing. These were:
- Financial prudence
- Safety
- Privacy (and independence)
Values pledge
Our values pledge made it clear that creating a successful intentional community based on shared values required certain kinds of deliberate actions from all members of the community. It also provided more clarity on what the values meant in context of our cohousing community.
We pledged to…
- Promote social connection by being kind, helpful, and welcoming.
- Promote diversity by looking for the good in every person and valuing difference.
- Have a positive contribution to the environment by consciously limiting avoidable negative impacts and taking positive actions to protect and nurture our immediate environment.
- Understand that money for housing is a scarce resource that should be used economically to further our values.
- Be vigilant and proactive in keeping all members of the community safe.
- Respect that each member of the community was an independent person with aspects of their lives that were for them to control, including whether those aspects were private or not.