Category Archives: Intentional Communities

Businessman Igor Shekhelev, who is currently a co-owner of the Piebalga brewery in Latvia and has been investing significant sums in the development of the yacht port in Ventspils for several years, resolutely refutes the rumours that he has personally got into the sanction lists.

Recently, business communities around the world are increasingly forced to reckon with the new phenomenon of economic reality various interstate sanctions and restrictions.

Information about persons under similar sanctions and restrictions of the USA is published for public inspection on the official website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/sdn-list/pages /default.aspx, that is, it is public, easily accessible and well-known.

This means that today anyone can independently and without any effort check and make sure that the name of Igor Shekhelev is not on any sanction lists.

This also means that any allegations that Igor Shekhelev is under sanctions are an intentional dissemination of knowingly false information that discredits his business reputation.

Defamation of this kind can be a consequence of media negligence, as well as a form of an unfair competition.

At present, we are considering a possibility of suing for compensation of possible moral, material and business reputation damage to the media resources, which disseminate knowingly false information about Igor Shekhelev.

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J. Duklavs's business partner for the brewing business is not on the sanction lists - Baltic Times

The upcoming transformation of a long-abandoned car dealership on Cummins Highway into 76 units of affordable housing just steps from a new commuter rail station on the Fairmount Line in Mattapan was greeted with the adage that many hands make light work during a groundbreaking ceremony at the site last Wednesday.

The project Cote Village was hailed as a milestone by Mayor Martin Walsh, who initiated the effort in 2014 when he directed the citys Department of Neighborhood Development to seek private partners to redevelop the property. Walsh was joined at the groundbreaking by other city and state leaders, including Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito.

Today were breaking ground on projects that mean so much to the Mattapan community and for the entire city of Boston. Were creating affordable homes at a variety of income levels, something that we strive to do every day. Were adding commercial space that will bring economic opportunities to the neighborhood, when you think about a complete development, thats what this is, said the mayor. The city of Boston is proud to support these new developments as part of our commitment to keeping housing affordable and keeping neighborhoods strong.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) originally approved the project in 2016, putting its cost at $31.2 million. After a number of community comment sessions, final approvals were given last July.

The development is a collaboration of the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, Inc. (POUA) and the Caribbean Integration Community Development (CICD) group. The non-profit agencies worked in a unique partnership, with design services added by Davis Square Architects.

The units will be available to residents at a range of incomes, including 12 units for residents with incomes at or below 30 percent of the area median income (AMI) people earning less than $27,900 for a household of three). Of these units, 8 will be set aside for formerly homeless individuals and families.

Two units will be reserved for residents with incomes at or below 50 percent of AMI; 42 units for residents with incomes at or below 60 percent of AMI; 12 units for residents with incomes at or below 80 percent AMI; and 8 units for residents with incomes at or below 100 percent of AMI.

Cardinal Sen OMalley was on hand and offered a prayer after saying a few words about the moral significance of affordable housing.Being the wealthiest country in the world with half a million homeless people, no one can deny the great challenge that is before us providing decent housing for our people, this is one more effort along those lines. This is an ongoing challenge in building a more just society, so Im very grateful for all of you who do so much.

Mayor Martin Walsh, left, spoke with residents who gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at the future site of Cote Village in Mattapan on Wed., Dec. 18. Isabel Leon photo/Mayors OfficeWe have a full house today and that really speaks to the commitment for this site, said Donald Alexis, President of CICD. I want to thank the many members of the community who worked for this community asset. Our goal was to create housing that reflects the needs of the working-class residents in Mattapan and I believe weve accomplished that here.

Along the way it has been tough. Weve had many community meetings. In Haitian-Creole we have a saying, Men Anpil, Chay Pa Lou, meaning many hands make light work. A lot of people here were involved, and we did it, added Alexis.

Rep. Dan Cullinane called the groundbreaking an incredible celebration for so many people. This building has been decaying and sitting empty for over 30 years. Its been a public safety risk, its been an eye-sore, and today we couldnt be happier to say that this has been an intentional investment in affordable housing right here in Mattapan.

He added: On days like this when were breaking ground or cutting a ribbon, it can seem like it was simple to get this done. But as so many of the people sitting here know, thats never the case. We know as a delegation, under Mayor Walshs leadership and under this administrations leadership, Rep. [Russell] Holmes, Sen. [Nick] Collins, and former Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, who deserves tremendous recognition for making this a reality, that this doesnt happen by accident, said Cullinane.

The city and state helped to finance the development through a combination of tax credits and loans, as well as a $750,000 award from the Neighborhood Housing Trust and $4.8 million from the Inclusionary Development Policy fund.

The creation of new affordable and workforce housing options is a moral imperative and critical to maintaining the city of Boston and the Commonwealth as a vibrant community and a place to live, said William Grogan, president of the Planning Office for Urban Affairs at the Archdiocese of Boston, co-developer of the project.

We are especially grateful to the Commonwealth, the city, our funders and supporters who have made the development of Cote Village possible, especially to our partners at the Caribbean Integration CDC, he said. The groundbreaking represents an important step in our collective efforts to address the housing need in communities like Mattapan.

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With shovels in the ground, start of Cote Village hailed as a milestone for Mattapan - Dorchester Reporter

At a time of partisanship, polarization and rancor, Christmas comes along to smooth the hard edges of our divisions.

Acts of kindness somehow come more naturally this time of year.

But by the time February rolls around, everybodys grouchy again.

Does kindness have any staying power?

Perhaps because kindness may not come naturally to humans, a growing number of initiatives across Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond are trying to make that particular virtue more a part of daily life.

We have to remind ourselves to act that way, said Rabbi Ron Symons, director of the Center for Loving Kindness at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

The center, founded in 2017, carries out its mission by focusing not so much on random acts of kindness but on kindness as a way of life.

Theres nothing random about the way we live our lives, Symons said. We believe in random acts of kindness, and we also believe that we need to be intentional about our kindness.

The center does that by building relationships among people and communities where there are divisions, fostering conversations about critical issues and, since the October 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Squirrel Hill, helping people heal from trauma, he said.

The guiding principle is that neighbor is a moral concept, not a geographic term a quote from Rabbi Joachim Prinzs speech at the 1963 March on Washington. Prinz was a Polish-born rabbi who emigrated to the United States in 1937 and later became involved in the American civil rights movement.

In addition to the Center for Loving Kindness, Pittsburgh also is home to the Pittsburgh Kindness Initiative founded in 2013 as a way to promote World Kindness Day. The organization now hosts regular events designed to encourage random acts of kindness.

The good neighbor

In the city where Fred Rogers demonstrated neighborliness from a television studio, Jon Potter of Green Tree is putting legs on the concept.

Potter, 29, founded Pittsburgh Good Deeds, through which he helps people on a pro bono basis and does handyman work for a donation.

The paid work subsidizes his free good deeds, which have earned him glowing coverage on the CBS Evening News On the Road with Steve Hartman and other media outlets.

Potter, a former paragliding instructor, started his nonprofit in 2015 after seeing repeated requests for help on the Reddit Pittsburgh social media site. He now has his own subreddit (PittsburghGoodDeeds) through which he solicits requests for help and volunteer support.

Its all about being a good neighbor, just like Fred taught us. Theres no agenda behind it, other than being a good neighbor, he said.

Requests for help are accepted from anyone who lives within 10 miles of Downtown Pittsburgh, who cannot afford to pay for the work and who needs help with something that Potter can do everything from pet sitting to car repairs, from moving to snow removal, from tutoring to computer repairs.

Potter went above and beyond the call when he donated a kidney to a stranger named Michael Moore, a dialysis patient from Upper St. Clair. The surgery took place at UPMC Montefiore in August.

Potter said his actions, in addition to earning him praise and news coverage, also attracted some criticism from people who wondered about his motives and his mental health. I think pathological altruism is one of the things they called it, he said.

Studying kindness

Daniel Fessler, a UCLA anthropology professor and director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, calls Potters actions inspiring and remarkable.

Obviously, these kinds of actions are beyond the norm but theyre unusual in their degree, not their kind, Fessler said. Its not the same thing as holding the door open for someone or other small acts performed for the benefit of total strangers.

Such actions can inspire others to be kind because kindness is contagious, he said.

Although Fessler studies peoples propensity for kindness, altruism and cooperation from an evolutionary perspective, the Bedari Kindness Institute includes 27 researchers from multiple disciplines including psychology, sociology, medicine, business and the arts.

The institutes first study, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE, found that witnessing pro-social acts leads to feelings of elevation, which in turn leads to the performance of more pro-social acts. The emotion of elevation is often accompanied by tears and a feeling of warmth.

When people see the kind acts they report being moved, and that mediates their act of generosity, he said.

Kindness as social contagion is not surprising among humans, even though the species is often defined as self-interested, selfish and even cruel. Compared to other species, humans are remarkably cooperative, Fessler said.

This time of year, you cant turn on the TV or a social media feed without some kind of campaign asking you to open your wallet to help total strangers, he said. We are extremely kind and cooperative, compared to any other species on the planet.

Teens respond

As an example of demonstrations of kindness, the typical American high school hallway is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But at Penn-Trafford High School, students last year were surprised to find Post-It notes with affirmations stuck to their lockers.

The positive quotes from the likes of Helen Keller, Mary Lou Retton and Dr. Robert Schuller were distributed by members of the schools Acts of Random Kindness Club, which now boasts 40 members.

It was just a way to spread kindness around the school, said junior Janine Picklo, 16, of Penn Borough.

She was taking a class called Family Dynamics at the time of the mass shooting Valentines Day 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

A substitute teacher for the course suggested forming the ARK Club as a response to the massacre.

After the sub left at the end of the school year, teachers Jennifer Henney and Brooke Hack became the clubs faculty advisers. The club tries to do one project per quarter.

In the first quarter of this school year, the club assembled welcome kits for new students. The kits contain Penn-Trafford Warrior gear for transfer students who may not have anything to wear at pep rallies and sporting events.

In the second quarter, the club raised money for the Westmoreland County Food Bank by collecting donations during lunch in gallon milk jugs decorated as turkeys. In the third quarter, the club plans to place more positive messages on 1,640 lockers.

Normally, things in the hall dont always stay up. Somehow they find their way to the floor, Hack said. The first year they did the Post-It notes, the kids left them up. The kids liked them.

Stephen Huba is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Stephen at 724-850-1280, [emailprotected] or via Twitter .

Positive quotes distributed by the Penn-Trafford High School Acts of Random Kindness Club:"Tough times never last, but tough people do." Dr. Robert Schuller"Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you." Mary Lou Retton"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye." Helen Keller

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Kindness comeback: Acting like Fred Rogers in his neighborhood and beyond - TribLIVE

As homelessness surged to crisis levels in California in 2019, so did the violent attacks on people living in tents and on sidewalks and the political and law enforcement efforts to keep homeless encampments off the streets.

Physical assaults and criminalization efforts combined have made 2019 a particularly grim and terrifying year for many Californians struggling to survive without a roof over their head.

They are trying to shove us underneath the carpet, and its just not fair, said Shanna Couper Orona, 46, who is currently living out of an RV in San Francisco. San Francisco is supposed to be progressive, a place where you love everyone, take care of everyone But theyve turned their backs on us just because were unhoused. They are leaving us with nothing.

In a state with the worlds fifth largest economy, an IPO tech boom and some of the richest people on earth, Californias severe affordable housing shortage has become what advocates describe as a moral failing and public health emergency.

Los Angeles experienced a 16% increase in homelessness this year, with a total of 36,000 people now homeless across the city, including 27,000 without shelter. San Franciscos homeless count surged 17% to more than 8,000 people. There was a 42% increase in San Jose, a 47% increase in Oakland, a 52% increase in Sacramento county and increases in the Central Valley agricultural region and wealthy suburbs of Orange county.

There were patterns across cities: huge numbers of people experiencing homelessness for the first time, evictions and unaffordable rents leading people to the streets, families and seniors increasingly homeless, and higher rates of the homeless not getting shelter.

Homeless people are everywhere now, and they are becoming more and more desperate, said Stephen Cue Jn-Marie, an LA pastor who was formerly homeless and now works with people living on Skid Row, known for its massive encampments. All of these people are human beings. We need to respond to this as if its an earthquake.

The growing visibility has led to an increase in complaints, news coverage focused on housed people who reside near encampments, and intense media attention on the rare cases of violence perpetuated by people living on the streets.

Communities have largely declined to treat the crisis like a natural disaster that demands humanitarian aid. In many places, what followed instead was a backlash, and in some cases overt attacks.

There were at least eight incidents in LA where people threw flammable liquids or makeshift explosives at homeless people or their tents this year, according to authorities and the Los Angeles Times.

A 62-year-old beloved musicians tent was set on fire in Skid Row in August, killing him in what police say was an intentional killing. That month, two men also allegedly threw a firework at an encampment, causing a blaze that grew into a major brush fire just outside of the city. One of the men arrested was the son of a local chamber of commerce president. Police said this fire was intentional. In a separate attack, a molotov cocktail destroyed tents and donations.

In San Francisco, a man was caught on video appearing to dump a bucket of water on a homeless woman and her belongings on the sidewalk in June. Witnesses said it seemed to be a deliberate attack.

Three months later, San Franciscans who said they were upset with homeless people in their neighborhood paid to install two-dozen knee-high boulders along a sidewalk in an effort to stop them from living on the streets.

In neighboring Oakland, a resident recently put up an unauthorized concrete barrier in the middle of the street to deter homeless people from parking RVs. A real estate developer taunted homeless people by shouting free money at them and offering to pay them to leave their encampment in Oakland.

Residents repeatedly organized against proposed homeless shelters in their neighborhoods, most notably in a wealthy San Francisco area where locals crowdfunded $70,000 to hire an attorney to fight a shelter project.

A lot of it is brought out by this fear of the other as if their homeless neighbors are not neighbors at all, or not even people for that matter, said TJ Johnston, who is currently staying in shelters in San Francisco and is an editor with Street Sheet, a local homelessness publication. Hearing wealthy residents complain this year was like watching angry online comment sections come to life, he said: Its very dehumanizing to be looked upon as a nuisance.

As the crisis has worsened, local governments have spent billions to create new housing and provide services, but the scale of the response has been inadequate. Cities have increasingly looked to law enforcement and legal maneuvers to tackle the problem.

Those political efforts to further criminalize the homeless in turn have sparked intense anger and fear among the homeless population and their advocates.

LA leaders fought to ban people from sleeping on streets and sidewalks throughout the city. In Lancaster, a desert city north of LA, the mayor has pushed a proposal to ban groups that provide food to homeless people and suggested people should buy firearms to protect themselves from violent people on the streets.

This month, in a case closely watched by many west coast cities, the US supreme court dealt a victory to homeless advocates by allowing an existing ruling to stand that states governments cannot ban people from living on the street if they dont offer enough shelter beds.

Officials in Oakland have proposed a new policy to cite homeless people in parks while some have suggested setting up a shelter in a defunct jail. Law enforcement leaders in Bakersfield in the Central Valley pushed a plan to throw homeless people in jail for misdemeanor offenses. A state taskforce has also suggested a similar system of forcibly placing homeless people into shelters.

These efforts ignore the overwhelming evidence that criminalization and locking people up are costly and harmful responses that fail to fix the crisis, said Eve Garrow, homelessness policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Theres a dangerous and disturbing movement in California to address homelessness not by expanding access to safe, affordable and permanent housing but by jailing people, she said. Its a terrifying prospect of a world in which we segregate, incarcerate and restrict the civil liberties of people just because they have disabilities and they are too poor to afford a home in our skyrocketing private rental market.

Fears and unfounded stereotypes about people experiencing homelessness seem to be driving these policy pushes to jail those in need, she said.

The Trump administration has created further anxiety by repeatedly suggesting he might pursue some kind of police crackdown in California to clear the streets of encampments.

The president has used the crisis to attack Democratic leaders in the state, and has complained about homeless people in LA and San Francisco taking up space on the best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings where people in those buildings pay tremendous taxes, where they went to those locations because of the prestige.

Its a huge concern are they just going to take people to jail? said Kat Doherty, an LA woman who became homeless this year and is living at a shelter at Skid Row. Trumps talk has terrified her and others, she said. Its horrendous. It sounds like a death camp situation.

With the president promoting criminalization, it could inspire some anti-Trump Democrats in California to push back, said Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director for the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco. Theres some hopefulness that it will force the local municipalities to shift in opposition to Trump and talk about how criminalization doesnt work.

But some are not optimistic about 2020, especially since the crisis is on track to continue escalating, with people falling into homelessness at rates that far outpace governments ability to find housing for those on the street.

Conditions are going to get worse and the responses are going to get worse, said Jn-Marie.

If the political attacks continue next year, some said they hoped to see more communities fighting to stand up for the homeless.

I want people to give a fuck and help. Dont just ignore it, Orona said. Just because were unhoused doesnt mean were not San Francisco residents. We still have a heartbeat. We still buy food. We still exist.

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Theyve turned their backs on us: California's homeless crisis grows in numbers and violence - The Guardian

For two full hours yesterday afternoon, Los Angeles Grand Park reverberated with the simultaneously furious and joyous roars of Azadi! (Freedom!) and Inquilab Zindabad! (Love Live the Revolution!). Indians, South Asians, and Americans from various backgrounds came together to demonstrate their opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and Indias deepening authoritarian nightmare as a whole. Since the calamitous signing of the CAA into law on December 13, similar rallies have been held all across North America and many other corners of the globe, from Chicago to Sydney to Abu Dhabi.

As a political organizer and budding activist-scholar, I often despair at the lack of Stateside awareness, concern, and action with respect to India and South Asia, even within leftist circles. As such, I was heartened by the LA rallys sizable and diverse turnout, its warm but defiant spirit, and its broadly anti-fascist consensus.

Attendees read key passages from the Indian Constitution that the Modi regime has flagrantly, gleefully contravened with its recent measures, such as Article 14, which guarantees the right to equality before the law. They condemned not only the CAB and the NRC but the sadistic brutality and internet blackout inflicted upon Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University students and the residents of Uttar Pradesh, as well the ongoing crackdown in Kashmir that has left eight million people to scream, suffer, and die in darkness. They raised placards displaying some pretty ingenious slogans and graphics (fellow South Asian kids who grew up eating Amul dairy products will particularly appreciate Utterly Butterly Barbaric, placed over an image of Modi as the Amul girl holding the CAB and NRC). They recited poems, led chants, and even sang songs in English and Hindi. They passed around cashew nuts and Parle-G biscuits to keep everyone going.

I came away more convinced than ever that India and South Asia can only pull back from the precipice at which they currently find themselves through concerted mass action. Not by the whims and dictates of self-serving politicians, businesspeople, spiritual gurus, and civil society professionals, but through the sheer, audacious, organized willpower of everyday people. By militantly securing and cultivating autonomy, dignity, equity, justice, and resilience at every level of society, in every corner of the country and the region, and in solidarity with every single individual, community, and movement in the cross-hairs of the ruthless and shameless neoliberal capitalist Hindu chauvinist Indian state.

Merely demanding our freedom is insufficient: we have to seize it from the blood-soaked hands of our oppressors and refuse to let it go. Asking a proto-fascist government and its collaborators, apologists, and assassins to respect our rights is nothing short of suicidal. We are the only ones who can protect each other, which behooves us to stand with the most vulnerable among our ranks: Muslims, Dalits, Bahujans, Christians, Kashmiris, adivasis, peasants, migrants, women, and LGBTQ+ people. Agitating for political, religious, and cultural freedom is also meaningless to the extent that we fail to grapple with the economic and ecological underpinnings of the Hindu nationalist project and its positioning within the global neoliberal capitalist order. After all, fascism, as Lenin famously asserted, is capitalism in decay.

We can no longer satisfy our consciences with half-measures. Grudging, tenuous, and even entirely illusory top-down concessions that ultimately insult and degrade the emancipatory spirit of our mobilizations simply wont suffice any more. The national, regional, and transnational political, social, economic, and ecological, threats we face are frighteningly existential, and we will not get a second chance to overcome them. Our righteous rage must thus be more than a flash in the pan. Rather, it must be the fire that reduces the entire extractivist, majoritarian, and totalitarian saffron state apparatus to ash, fertilizing the soil for truly egalitarian, cooperative, and redistributive self-determination. This is to say that our organizing cannot be a temporary diversion, a mere flirtation with direct action that is quickly subsumed by our more humdrum, cynical, and ultimately self-defeating impulses. Rather, it has to become a defining force in our lives, an essential part of our individual being that ripples outward to build coalitions, reconstitute communities, and advance movements. School is not important, and work is not important, as Black Panther icon Fred Hampton famously said. Nothings more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.

Who, if not us? When, if not now? Where, if not here?

And by here, I dont just mean India, and Im not only talking about Indians, because we shouldnt have to fight alone. Now more than ever, we need politically engaged people of goodwill in the United States the foul stench of Hindu nationalism festering under their very noses. We need them we need you to recognize that Hindutva has wrapped its tentacles around many political figureheads, educational institutions, and cultural associations and programs in the United States. Furthermore, it influences and even seeks connections with burgeoning white supremacist activity and relentless capitalist accumulation in this part of the world, on top of drawing inspiration and purchasing resources from Israels settler colonial project and military-industrial complex. Stateside anti-authoritarians and anti-fascists have the opportunity and thus the responsibility to tear down the saffron flag that is firmly planted on American soil. Please dont ignore, sideline, or abandon us in our time of need. Im begging you.

At the same time, Indians and South Asians studying, working, and living in the United States must join Americas most urgent popular struggles if expect our American counterparts to care about our woes and dreams. The model minority status that South Asians and South Asian Americans are accorded is a bone thrown to us by the American state. It aims to make us accomplices to its white supremacist capitalist patriarchy by pitting us against Black, migrant, and other marginalized populations and even the more marginalized members of our own communities. We must thus reject it entirely and reclaim the promise of intergroup, internationalist solidarity foregrounded by the likes of the Black Panther Party, the Third World Liberation Front, and the (real) Rainbow Coalition.

We have to condemn the Los Angeles and New York Police Departments for lynching people of color at the same time as we decry the Delhi Police and the Central Reserve Police Force for their state-endorsed malice. We have to burn down the concentration camps and prison plantations of California, Arizona, and Texas at the same time as we burn down the concentration camps of Assam. We have to chop off the many heads of Jeff Bezos capitalist hydra as the same time as we bring the vampiric Ambani, Birla, and Tata corporate dynasties to a long-overdue end. Beyond the US, we have to join the ongoing battles against injustice, inequity, and tyranny unfolding in Bolivia, Iraq, France, Haiti, and so many other parts of the world at the same time as we stand with our courageous comrades who have taken back streets, squares, and campuses in Mumbai, Chennai, and Srinagar.

India was born through rebellion, and it must be reborn the same way and not as a sham (neo)liberal social democracy, begging for yet another inevitable descent into authoritarian hell. It must be reborn through intentional, well-planned collaboration between the regions myriad populations and popular movements. It must obliterate the last remnants of feudalism, enable workers to enjoy the fruits of their own labor, and finally finally allow its many persons and peoples to take their fates into their own hands.

The war will continue, as Bhagat Singh famously declared, for the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. We are once again fighting a war for our souls and the soul of the land that binds us together in all of our complexity and contradiction.

To invoke Assata Shakurs immortal chant, with the most widely, deeply liberatory intent, It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Power and love to everyone who came out yesterday and to everyone who has been fighting all the good fights back home. Let the ruling classes tremble before us before the awesome, irrepressible power of the people for we have a society and a world to win.

Azadi! Azadi! Azadi!

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Los Angeles Roars for Azadi! Reflections on an Indian Solidarity Action in Southern California - CounterPunch

There is much to be said about solitude: that sometimes it's necessary, that it's the place from which creative expression can blossom, untethered to the gaze of others. But equally necessary, and seeminglyubiquitousto me this year in Boston's arts and culture scene, is the pull to gather.

In 2019, I thought a lotabout the way people come together in a space, claim or reclaim it for themselves and the fellowship or tension that may arise from this physical, or sometimes metaphorical gathering. It seemed to me, that everywhere I turned in the creative world, there was a hunger,or at least a confrontation with,the idea of convening.

There are obvious examples. Violist Rayna Yun Chou and Celebrity Series of Boston held 5,000 performances with 58 musicians who played one minute of a song for strangers. Dubbed "Concert For One," the musician and the stranger sat face-to-face inside of small shipping containersset up in Chinatown and Cambridge."Both people are vulnerable, the openness really moves you, Yun Chou told us about the intimate performancesduring which strangers convened.

Then there's public art presenter Now + There's collaboration with art world darling Nick Cave for a joy-themed procession through the city with massive sculptures made of inflatable lawn ornaments. The project, titled "Augment," gatheredfolks for more than a dozen workshops to explore what sparked joy for them and to express it by parading through the streets.

The Institute of Contemporary Art's highly anticipated and virally documented acquisition of Yayoi Kusama largest infinity roomhad us convene with others insidethe mirrored, brightly-colored tentacled room as a poem from Kusama blared from speakers. There, we were transported to a tactile universe of polka dots and a vastness outside of ourselves. Part of the fun of the room is its experiential nature that's conducive to sharing with others. I, of course, posted a selfie on the 'gram. The proliferation of Kusama's infinity mirror images on social media also convened us online.

Artist Pat Falco asked us to consider how we've historically convened in our homes and in our neighborhoods through "MOCK," two adjacent walls in the Seaport meant to evoke New England's triple-deckers that once made home-ownership (albeit mostly for white folks) a possibility. But eventually, anti-immigrant and anti-poor regulations prevented the creation of new triple-deckers. The development of new neighborhoods we see popping up today (like the Seaport) have a much different feel.

Seeing Falco's installation (also presented by Now + There) in the swanky, homogeneous Seaport made me think of how we convene in our communities and how the neighborhoods we inhabit formed their identities. Why do we feel a sense of belonging, a right to be somewhere, a welcoming feeling in some public spaces and not in others?

That's a question that the Museum of Fine Arts grappled intensely with this year. Through its programming, the encyclopedic museum has convened audiences who have historically been excluded from its walls. Its "Gender Bending Fashion" exhibition included a vivid digital photoalbum with queer and transgender Bostonians. Shows centered on artists like Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide and Frida Kahlo were presented with curatorial heft and rigorous aesthetic analysis. But what drew me in was the cadence with which these shows were publicly introduced using Spanglish, focused on the cultural and artistic lineage of the artists rather than the popular, diminishing narratives. When I was reporting on the Kahlo exhibition, the curator told me that a cafe employee at the MFA had never gone into a gallery until that show opened.

And yet in May, black and brown children from the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy were called "F----- black kids" by another visitor, were profiled by guards, they say, and one girl was told to focus on the art rather than stripping when she danced at the "Gender Bending Fashion" exhibition. The museum revoked the membership of the patron who made the racist comment, launched an internal review of its practices and revamped its welcome for student groups.

But I still wonder, will those children ever be moved to convene at the MFA again? Why, when we convene in a public space that should belong to all us, do some people feel entitled to shun others? Can these spaces truly be decolonized? What would it look like for a cultural institution to truly cultivate an inclusive space to convene?

We may have a glimpse of that with the Boston Music Awards. Once known for feeling out of touch with wider music trends and being rather insular, this year's awards, Brendan McGuirk wrote, felt, sounded and looked different than it ever had before in large part because of the proliferation of hip-hop and R&B that's flourishing in the city. Nearly two years after my colleague Amelia Mason's deep look into the hostility toward hip-hop in Boston, the writer and critic Dart Adams, in a panel this month at WBUR, said he finally saw tangible, measurable progress in the way the city embraces the genre.

While some community movementsare burgeoning, others have eroded this year. The Boston's Children's Theatre the oldest in the country went bankrupt after concerns of financial mismanagement and the controversial and sudden departure of its artistic director. What happens when children lose their source of convening with other like-minded aspiring artists? As Cristela Guerra reported, for many of them, the loss also feels like violation of trust.

There's also the convening of audiences. The local theater scene continued to confront the fact that most of its patrons and critics are white, while an increasing number of black and brown artists are on stage. But we are also witnessing intentional efforts to convene audiences of color. When my colleague Arielle Gray attended a performance of SpeakEasy Stage and Front Porch Arts Collective's "Choir Boy" for #BlackOutBoston a night explicitly marketed for Black folks she wrote that the experience "felt like a jubilant, family reunion."

Then, there's the literal, physical spaces in which we convene.Artists themselves have had to deal with a competitive housing market that continuously shrinks the availability of affordable space to live and work. Green Street Studio, which provided affordable rehearsal and performance space for hundreds of dancers and artists for 28 years, shut its doors in October after they say they were priced out (though the city of Cambridgeappears to be brokering a solution).Haley House closed its caf for nearly the whole year as it reevaluated its business model prompting many to think of just how few explicitly queer POC spaces there are in Boston to convene safely and openly.

The Boston Center for the Arts is reevaluating its artist residency program so that it can more serve a greater number of artists on a rotating basis. The plan calls for the longtime artists at the BCA to vacate their below-market rate rented studios. These issues are not new. We know what a scarce commodity affordable artistic space is in Boston. And yet, this year, these stories really put into sharp focus the dearth of places for people to practice creativity in community.

The act of convening is not new in Boston or in art, but it felt like there was a hunger for it in 2019. We are all searching for a space, physical and not, to experience something profound with others, something that reminds us that we are not grappling with the big questions alone. There are others seeking too solace, friendship, an escape, a challenge, new ideas. And sometimes, as communities, we come to collective reckonings. It's through art and the fellowship that blossoms because of it that we're able to look at old dilemmas in original ways. That's the power of creativity. It blooms when we convene.

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2019 In Boston Arts: A Year Of Convening - WBUR

As more and more of our lives are spent in the digital world, its important that that world is accessible to everyone. Technology has allowed for huge strides in disability accessibility, from improved voice-to-text functions to apps that connect someone with a virtual assistant, but experts say theres still a lot of work to be doneespecially when it comes to simply using the internet. Americans with disabilities are three times as likely as those without a disability to say they never go online, according to the Pew Research Center.

Advancements have been (and continue to be) made for those who are visually, hearing, or physically impaired, but Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of Maryland, says we havent yet tackled the most challenging area: differing cognitive abilities. As were about to enter a new decade, he hopes this is a gap technology can help fill.

For somebody who is blind, you can turn visual communication into something auditory, and for someone who is deaf, vice versa. But you cant take information and transform it from cognitive to some other dimension, Vanderheiden says. The biggest thing weve found in the last period of time is that many more people are having trouble accessing information than we had suspected.

This even includes people without cognitive disabilities, he addspeople who functioned in society just fine before technology infiltrated everything. Weve started adding complexity to things, he says. You used to walk over to the thermostat and turn it . . . now its a digital interface. Being technology savvy is a separate skill set from other kinds of intelligence, and this act of technifying everything can be alienating to parts of the population who suddenly find they need to be behind a computer to do their jobs, their work in school, or even complete their menial tasks like paying bills and buying food.

Vanderheiden is working on two solutions to this problemone which will be available soon and another longer term solution that requires getting a lot of people on board. Like lots of disability focused technologies before them, these solutions would also make things easier for those who dont have a disability, just less technology-abled or looking for a convenience.

The first is Morphic, an assistive technology spearheaded by the Trace R&D Center. Morphic is an operating system extension that would personalize a computer to an individuals needs, whether that means changing the font size, language, contrast, or making certain features easier to find. In pilot testing now and slated for an early 2020 release, Morphic would allow anyone to sit at a computerwhether in their home, a library, an office, or a school laband have its settings be tailored to their abilities, like putting on a pair of glasses with their prescription. When they log out, the settings will revert, so the next person doesnt have to manually change everything.

The longer-term solution would change the way our tech world approaches accessibility. Right now, each individual company has to make sure their systems are accessible. While some companies (like Apple and Microsoft) have been putting a lot of effort into making those changes, they still may not have the right resources or enough time to figure out the best accessibility solutions. Rather than having these companies try to create an interface thats usable by everyoneespecially as future technologies look more and more different from todaysVanderheiden proposes that developers create interfaces for mainstream users, and then a separate entity would build tools to interpret those interfaces for disabled communities.

This would be an extension of the assistive technology model, but these tools could work with any interface. An example Vanderheiden cites is the idea of a public Info-Bot that could understand a mainstream interface and then create user-specific versions for a variety of accessibilities. You might think companies would oppose this if they want to control their own designs, but Vanderheiden says its actually the opposite: The companies want to have control over the main interface design, and all the rules about accessibility put all these constraints on what they can do, he says.

One problem with putting the onus for accessibility solely on a company is that there will probably be some oversight, intentional or not. Autonomous cars could be breakthrough for the visually impaired, but if developers make clear speech a requirement in that interface, that limits the accessibility for another whole section of the population. Even ordering a pizza is restrictive: a blind man sued Dominos after he was unable to order food from the companys website or app, even though he had screen-reading software. Attorneys for the pizza chain tried to argue ADA requirements dont extend to online platforms, but when so much of our lives are conducted online, how is the digital world not a public space? The courts sided with the man, and accessibility advocates considered it a win, noting that if businesses dont maintain accessible websites, theyre essentially shutting people with disabilities out of the economy. Its a ruling that will reshape how companies make decisions about their websites and technology for years to come.

A separate tool that adapts technology for each individual could be the answer to making sure everyone has a fair chance of participation, and proves thatwhether companies like Dominos agree or nottheres a societal understanding that the internet is for everyone. If anything, the idea shows that our approach to accessibility needs to be rethought. Technology is ever changing, Vanderheiden says, and so how we approach it needs to also change.

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What's coming in the next decade in technology accessibility - Fast Company

The least-recognized of the First Amendments five freedoms assembly and petition are facing perhaps the most immediate challenges, though freedoms of press, speech and religion dont escape unscathed.

At years end, First Amendment issues are as controversial and multi-faceted as anything in our fractured, divided society.

The least-recognized of the amendments five freedoms assembly and petition are facing perhaps the most immediate challenges, though freedoms of press, speech and religion dont escape unscathed.

Most immediately, a Black Lives Matter activist faces a lawsuit from a Baton Rouge, La., police officer who blamed the activist for injuries he suffered at a 2016 protest over the police killing of a black man. The suit doesnt claim the activist threw or even encouraged the throwing of a rock; rather, it seeks damages because the man led others to block a highway where the violent incident occurred.

A recent Washington Post story notes that Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) plans to introduce legislation to hold protesters arrested during unpermitted demonstrations liable for police overtime and other fees around such demonstrations.

In more than a dozen states in recent years, from Oregon to Florida, lawmakers have faced proposals to increase penalties for obstructing streets and highways and to limit the financial liability of drivers whose cars injure protesters. In Arizona, a failed 2017 proposal rooted in that states racketeering laws would have permitted the arrest and seizure of homes and other assets of those whom simply plan a protest in which some act of violence occurs.

In a similar financial penalty vein, several major news operations face defamation lawsuits seeking massive damages over their coverage of news events claims certain to roil public debate once again about the role, credibility and performance of the nations free press. Critics also say such lawsuits even if unlikely to succeed are effectively attempts to chill reporting and intimidate corporate owners.

Prominent among those filing the lawsuits is Rep. Devin Nunes, (R-Calif.), who wants $435 million dollars from CNN for a report he says falsely linked him to events in the ongoing Ukraine-Biden investigation controversy. He also is seeking $150 million from The Fresno Bee over a report involving a workplace scandal at a winery in which Nunes has a stake, $75 million from Hearst over an Esquire article regarding a family farm in Iowa, with the claim the magazine has an axe to grind against him and a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter for what he says is its intentional effort to downplay conservative content as well as two parody accounts that mock him.

In the introduction to the most recent lawsuit, Nunes says CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.

Moving to another area of contention, campus free speech issues continue to vex collegiate communities, from complaints that conservative speech and views of faculty and staff are stifled, to a move by President Trump that he says will fight against anti-Semitism but that critics say is really intended to punish student or faculty advocacy for the BDS Movement boycotts, divestiture or sanctions aimed at ending international support for Israel.

Much like the campus controversies, interpretations of religious liberty regarding public policy continued to swirl through the year. As the Supreme Courts 2019-20 term began in October, at least eight cases touching on faith issues the most in recent years were scheduled to be heard. A number involved LGBTQ rights regarding employment or health benefits. While some cases do not directly involve religious organizations, the courts decisions would affect arguments over whether religious beliefs can negate claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.

An expansion of First Amendment protection for commercial speech (which at one time did not exist in law) continues, as courts at least give serious consideration to a variety of business arguments. In several instances, corporate lawyers are arguing that to force companies to make certain disclosures about product content or sources is an unacceptable requirement that violates the First Amendment by forcing companies to speak.

Other cases involve claims of free speech protection for hospitals facing a Trump administration rule requiring disclosure of secret rates. Industry groups filed a lawsuit earlier this month, also claiming it is compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment.

New technology continues inexorably to challenge long-standing law. In a mix of free speech and public safety concerns, a Texas man was sentenced in February to eight years in prison for using a 3-D printer to construct a plastic handgun and ammunition in violation of a prior court order against owning of a firearm. Advocates for the so-called 3-D gun argue the computer instructions in such 3-D printing projects are speech and not subject to federal or state firearms regulations. Government officials say existing criminal law on issues such as possession and manufacturing should allow them to regulate or ban making or owning such weapons.

Government officials and social media critics continue to hammer operations such as Facebook and Twitter which are not government entities, but private concerns not governed by the First Amendment with regulatory threats over political advertising, hate speech and evidence of foreign election interference.

Threatened action ranges from using anti-trust legislation to break up the largest social media companies, to removal of what is known as Section 230 protection for companies (from the Communications Decency Act of 1996) that now permits them to avoid legal responsibility for content they simply carry, rather than material they create or significantly edit.

Opponents of watering down or removing Section 230 protection say either action would, in effect, end the web as we know it by shutting down the flow of information to the mere trickle of items or articles that could be independently verified by internet providers, or to bland factual accounts devoid of opinion or interpretation.

The year 2019 may well go down in First Amendment history as a turning point, in which those working to limit or control information avoided direct confrontations over First Amendment rights and turned to tactics designed to make it much more difficult, much too costly or even financially ruinous to exercise those rights.

Gene Policinski is president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute. He can be reached at gpolicinski@freedomforum.org, or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

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We're divided in new ways over First Amendment freedoms - Sunbury Daily Item

The problems galled local officials, who vented deep frustration that a utility they often work closely with kept failing them.

After all, they are the ones dealing with a shutoff's consequences. They must dispatch ambulances, run jails and water plants, direct traffic through darkened intersections, set up community shelters and much more.

"It's almost as if it's intentional disregard of all the warnings we gave them," said Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon, whose district north of San Francisco has experienced nearly every shutoff.

___

Sixteen million people --- more than the population of nearly any U.S. state --- depend on PG&E for power. The shutoffs were an inconvenience for some and extremely costly for others. For society's most frail, they brought questions of life and death.

Those who rely on medical devices in their homes were particularly vulnerable.

"PG&E did nothing to help us who depend on electricity to run our life support," recounted Grace Lin, a polio survivor who needs a ventilator to breathe and uses an electric wheelchair. "It's not like we could simply grind our teeth and tough it out by holding our breath."

Lin said she was confused by the notifications PG&E sent ahead of the first shutoff that affected her San Francisco Bay Area home on Oct. 9. The company website they referred to for updates was frozen. Lin considered herself lucky that she had the means to evacuate 20 miles away, to a quadriplegic friend's house that had electricity.

PG&E could identify "medical baseline" customers such as Lin based on billing records. Local officials working to identify everyone who might need help repeatedly asked PG&E to share its list, so no one was overlooked.

Regulators said PG&E promised it would release medical baseline addresses during a shutoff. Yet when each of the first four hit, PG&E insisted that locals sign a legal agreement not to disclose the addresses, causing delay and uncertainty that regulators said could risk lives.

On the eve of the first massive power outage, Malashenko of the utilities commission was urgently emailing company officials in frustration.

"This issue has been discussed many times over the last several months" yet "has once again become an issue with PG&E," she wrote on Oct. 8.

Malashenko said state officials also pushed PG&E to improve in other areas. Starting in April, they met at least weekly with PG&E, pointing out needed improvements and stressing that aspects of the utility's preparation was inadequate.

PG&E argued that the commission's own privacy rules meant it couldn't share the addresses without a non-disclosure agreement, spokesman Jeff Smith explained. Resolving the problem took an order that the commission's executive director sent three hours before the first massive blackouts began.

Other groups of vulnerable Californians endured shutoffs without the help they needed.

"A lot of them don't have support, a lot of them don't have family," Betty Briggs, 84, said of her elderly neighbors in the well-touristed Napa Valley town of Calistoga. "It makes it very difficult, and it puts them in danger."

Briggs can get around without help, but her husband requires 24-hour care due to dementia. He lives nearby at Cedars Care Home, where seven residents in their 80s and 90s experienced three shutoffs before mid-October.

The outages created anxiety for people reliant on routine, as well as practical problems.

Beds and wheelchair lifts require electricity. So does the heat and air conditioning. When the freezer got too warm, staff tossed 30 days of backup food.

Owner Irais Lopez still hasn't restocked fully.

"Now, we only buy small quantities," Lopez said, "because we don't know what will happen."

___

At PG&E's high-rise headquarters in downtown San Francisco, the emergency operations center springs to life with each shutoff.

Employees in different colored vests that distinguish their expertise cluster around banks of computer monitors showing real-time updates. Maps track wind speed and direction, as well as which circuits are down. Conversation hums in the background.

This is where decisions are made and answers can be found --- and local officials said they felt they had little access to either.

Fed up with communication gaps, one hard-hit county requested a presence at PG&E headquarters during the September shutoff. Regulators required that the utility hold seats in its emergency operations center for local representatives, but a lawyer for Sonoma County instead spent her day in a conference room several locked doors away.

"There was just a lack of understanding on behalf of PG&E of why local government needs timely information," said Petra Bruggisser, a deputy county counsel.

PG&E already had a shaky reputation in its Northern and central California territory.

The company spent three years in bankruptcy starting in 2001, after California's attempt to deregulate its power market went awry.

Maintenance failures led to a natural gas pipeline blast near San Francisco in 2010 that killed eight people. PG&E was found criminally liable and paid a $1.6 billion fine.

In late 2017, its equipment was suspected of starting the Tubbs Fire that killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,600 buildings.

The utility revealed in spring 2018 that it would start using power shutoffs when fire danger was high and extreme winds blew.

PG&E then began to explain what to expect, sending millions of emails to update its customer contact files, running advertising in multiple languages and holding hundreds of meetings with community leaders, public safety agencies and residents.

The California Public Utilities Commission started writing guidelines for how utilities should roll out "de-energization." The guidelines were published as a 176-page document in June.

By that point, PG&E had again filed for bankruptcy protection, crushed by liabilities for fires in 2017 and 2018, including the Camp Fire that nearly wiped out the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.

The utility now has a market value of about $6 billion --- a drop of $30 billion in just over two years --- and is working with the state and a federal judge to emerge from bankruptcy by June 30.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he expects PG&E's entire 14-member board of directors, including Johnson, its CEO, to step down before the state will approve the utility's plan to regain its financial footing.

"PG&E's recent management of the public safety power shutoffs did not restore public confidence," the Democratic governor warned the company in a Dec. 13 letter. "Instead, PG&E caused extreme uncertainty and harm for Californians who rely on power for their health care and their livelihood."

PG&E said Johnson was not available for an interview. The utility's point man on the shutoffs told AP that he believes Johnson, while testifying before lawmakers last month, was referring to its ability to kill and safely restore power to an extremely complex electrical grid.

Sumeet Singh, a vice president who oversees PG&E's community wildfire safety program, listed a litany of ways the utility is investing in fixes that he said will lessen the need for future shutoffs. Those include trimming more vegetation near power lines and burying some lines in areas most at risk of igniting.

Singh also acknowledged that the utility had some struggles during the early shutoffs but that it strove to improve and disputed any characterization that it did not succeed in some ways. He cited how quickly the utility restored power as one improvement, along with the timeliness and accuracy of customer notifications.

"Did we hit the mark on every single improvement? No. Do we have more work to do? Yes," Singh said.

Power shutoffs are likely to be a feature of life in California for years to come. PG&E must invest billions in infrastructure upgrades, and communities are spreading into lands once populated by trees and brush.

Regulators promise to be watching closely.

"If we have an outcome that doesn't meet the public expectation and what we need to run as a state," said Malashenko of the utilities commission, "that means that we need to rethink our approach and try something different and drive to a better outcome."

In November, the commission launched an investigation into whether it should sanction PG&E for violating shutoff protocols.

PG&E said it will need to improve how it reacts after it shuts off the power.

"I think we thought the big event was turning off the power," Johnson told lawmakers. "And I think we focused on that as the main event instead of the impact of that, right, on the people it affected."

(KR)

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PG&E's History of Blackouts Troubling - DTN The Progressive Farmer

With some cohousing, co-living inhabitants share chores and a kitchen; for others they live more independently and share expenses. Photo: Courtesy Red Oak Realty

Home Truths, a quarterly report on the state of the Berkeley real estate market, is brought to you byRed Oak Realty.

Most of us in the East Bay live exclusively with our nuclear families, but not all.

Some East Bay residents choose to live in intentional communities that transcend the traditional nuclear family makeup of home exclusively with partners, parents or children.

The East Bays grand Victorians (and other homes of course) have always hosted communities of roommates, some more organized than others. In this post, we highlight the latter shared housing that formalizes the living relationship between unrelated members to a greater degree.

While most East Bay real estate consumers live more traditionally, some East Bay residents (and some of our clients) choose to live in intentional communities.

These different living situations vary from independent, personal arrangements between just two people or families to those at higher scales with a framework provided by a corporation or person to organize living for many families in one place. While not always the case, living in intentional communities can be a more affordable way to live in the East Bay.

Collaboration lives at the heart of these arrangements, which, of course, can vary greatly. In some cases, co-living inhabitants share chores and kitchen space, in others they live more independently and share expenses for upkeep of shared property and expenses.

Intentional communities come in two flavors: cohousing, where individual homes are clustered together in a tight-knit community with more privacy, and co-living, where between 12 to 30 people can share a large house, including all common areas. Co-housing communities tend to offer more permanent living situations than co-living, which can have higher turnover rates.

Residents find these communities in a variety of ways, including by visiting Cohousing California or by participating in the East Bay Cohousing Meetup group, which covers student coops, collective and co-living households, urban and rural eco-villages, faith-based or service-oriented, moshads, Kibbutzes and income-sharing communes.

Typically, co-housing developments have between 15 and 40 homes.

Below, are just a few East Bay co-housing communities.

Located three blocks from the Bay Trail, The Ranch at Dogtown in West Oaklands Dogtown neighborhood features a variety of nine buildings, from houses and apartments to cottages and lofts.

On 8,000 square feet of reclaimed land and surrounded by a tall gate, the community, established in 1990, features a central garden, a chicken coop and bees. The community has approximately 30 members who share the communal garden and taking care of the land.

Diversity, in all senses of the word, plays a big role in what makes the East Bay so great. The areas diverse geography, races, cultures, mindsets and living situations make us all richer. Stay tuned for future celebrations of our home markets diversity.

Established in 1994, Berkeley Cohousing has 15 units (cottages and duplexes) in 10 buildings on a former farm in West Berkeley. The 0.8-acre community has an arrangement with the city that keeps price appreciation of the communitys homes under market value; they currently go for approximately 50% below market rate, but buyers have to meet certain low-income requirements and pass a community interview.

The community has approximately 34 adult and nine child members, and, like many cohousing communities, features a common house where joint meals and gatherings take place.

Members in each housing unit pay between $300 and $400 each month in community dues, which covers the cost of group meals (which occur from two to five times each week) and other upkeep needs; members participate in cleaning and cooking duties. Members make decisions based on consensus, which can be supplemented by a vote if necessary.

Founded in 1999 when a community of five families bought three adjacent duplexes, Temescal Creek Cohousing, in Oaklands popular Temescal neighborhood, has 11 units on 0.75 acres with approximately 20 adult members.

The community calls itself a cohousing retrofit, as the founders took traditional homes and converted them into their intentional community. The community shares between two and five meals each week and makes decisions by consensus with a fall-back option of winning an 80% majority.

The community also has a common house, which the community members financed by taking out individual home equity lines of credit.

Home Truthsis written and sponsored byRed Oak Realty, the largest independent real estate broker in the East Bay, serving the community since 1976. Readmore in this series. If you are interested in learning more about the local real estate market orare considering buying or selling a home, contact Red Oak athello@redoakrealty.com, 510-250 8780.

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Home Truths: Co-housing in the East Bay offers an alternative to traditional living - Berkeleyside