Beyond Cohousing: Welcoming New Paths to Belonging

By Trish Becker-Hafnor

Cohousing has always been about more than shared meals and meetings — it’s about creating a life rooted in connection, collaboration, and care. As more people seek community in a fragmented world, we’re seeing a wave of innovative, values-driven ways to live together.

At CohoUS, we believe these efforts belong together.

That’s why we’re embracing a broader vision for the future — one that honors traditional cohousing and welcomes a range of community-rooted housing models. From co-buying groups to housing cooperatives, people are finding creative paths to belonging. We’re evolving to support them all.

This expanded focus will shape everything we do in the years ahead — and it will come to life this fall at our next big event:

🎉 Beyond Cohousing: A Gathering on Collaborative Neighborhoods

📍 Sacramento, CA | 📅 October 2025

This gathering will bring together community seekers, cohousing residents, professionals, and innovators working across models. Together, we’ll explore what it means to build inclusive, sustainable, and resilient communities — and how we can support one another across shared goals.

Whether you're living in cohousing, dreaming up a new model, or just beginning your journey, there's a place for you in this movement.

CohoUS is growing — and we can’t wait to grow with you.

Join us in Sacramento, CA on November 2, 2025 for Cohousing & Beyond, a dynamic one-day gathering focused on collaborative living and community-rooted housing models.

What to Expect:

Practical skills and inspiration to bring your community dreams to life
A panel of experts exploring cohousing, retrofits, co-ops & more
8 breakout sessions packed with practical tools and expert advice
Connection with community builders, professionals & curious newcomers
Local community tours on October 31 & November 1

Early Bird Registration is available until July 31! Register now for $175 or $125 if you're a CohoUS member!

JOIN US IN SACRAMENTO

Upcoming Events

Affordable and Ecological Cohousing Design

July 10 – August 14th, Thursdays, 12pm – 1:30pm MT

In this 6-course seminar, participants will learn from Charles Durrett, the leading architect and builder of cohousing communities globally. Durrett will impart his decades of experience so that you can learn about how to build your dream residential community with affordability and sustainability top of mind.

Participants will learn how affordability and sustainability fit together, hand in glove. It’s not one or the other. We’ll dive in to where the highest level of sustainability is achieved in high-functioning cohousing communities, culture change itself. Durrett will cover both the essence and the basics – based on designing for thousands of cohousers who didn’t want to compromise either.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE

Social Identity and Its Role in Community

Wednesday, July 16, Wednesday, 12pm – 2pm MT

This session will train attendees on the definitions of power, privilege, oppression, marginalization, and social identity. Participants will work on an activity called the “Social Identity Wheel” which is designed to help participants think of all of the major areas of identity they possess, and whether these identities have been privileged or marginalized within the context of the U.S. Attendees will also learn about intersectionality and applying an intersectional lens to identity.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE

Deepening Our Understanding of Oppression

Wednesday, July 30, Wednesday, 12pm – 2pm MT

This session will train attendees on how oppression and power around social identity operates on a structural level, using the 4 I’s of oppression as a theory. Attendees will be trained on racism as a foundational example of a system of oppression and will be presented with a deeper examination of anti-black racism in the U.S.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE

Allyship and How to Avoid Its Pitfalls

Wednesday, August 13, Wednesday, 12pm – 2pm MT

This session will train attendees on a model of allyship, for both individuals and organizations, and avoiding paternalistic and savior mentalities when practices allyship. Attendees will also be trained on the pitfalls of allyship, or common mistakes/errors those looking to be allies to marginalized communities often make.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE

Heartwood Cohousing: Planting New Roots Alongside Established Trees in Southwest Colorado

Imagine waking to the scent of Ponderosa pines, sunlight filtering through the trees, knowing a day of connection, shared purpose, and natural beauty awaits. This isn't a distant dream; it's the unfolding reality at Heartwood Cohousing, established in 2000 and nestled on 360 acres just outside Bayfield in scenic Southwest Colorado. Learn more and explore whether Heartwood Cohousing might be the right fit for you by joining one of our Virtual Tours which host every month on the 15th at 3pm Mountain Time. As our thriving community, now over two decades strong, cherishes the deep bonds and vibrant life we've built, we're buzzing with excitement as we prepare to build 14 new homes and welcome new neighbors into Heartwood Phase 2 – deepening our roots on this incredible land and expanding our vision for a richer, multi-generational life lived in harmony with nature and each other.

Read the rest on our blog

Join us for our free monthly events to learn more about cohousing!

The Commons

Curious about cohousing but don’t know where to start? Want to meet with cohousing newbies and experts alike?

This (free) monthly gathering will include a Cohousing 101 presentation and ample time to connect and ask questions. Join us once, or every time – we’ll be here every month on the 10^th at 10am MT.

Senior Cohousing Q&A

Want to learn more about what it's like to build, join, and participate in cohousing as you age?

The Senior Cohousing Advocates Committee will be facilitating an informal conversation for those interested in senior cohousing and/or senior living in intergenerational cohousing. This (free) event will take place every month on the 20th at 10am MT.

See below for local and national news coverage on the cohousing movement and community updates:

Cantine’s Island Cohousing woos younger members featuring Cantine's Island
Neighbors by Design: Cohousing Comes to Central NJ featuring Rocky Brook and Chuck Durrett
Fighting loneliness through intentional community: Inside Iowa City’s housing collectives featuring River City, and Prairie Hill
A Grand Experiment in Parenthood and Friendship featuring Berkeley Cohousing and Deb Goldberg
How Alternative Housing Can Bring Us Happiness and Community featuring Radish, Temescal, Frolic and CohoUS Executive Director Trish Becker-Hafnor
Rachel Carson EcoVillage residents eye move in after 5 tumultuous years of development featuring Rachel Carson Ecovillage
Solo Agers Can benefit by Planning a Move before Crisis Hits

Anything we missed? Send us an email and we'll include it in the next issue of our e-news!

Community founders forging new paths for affordability

As we encourage more people to consider living in cohousing, we love to emphasize the benefits. They include supportive neighbors, less space needed due to more sharing, and better ways to get our aging-in-community needs met in senior or intergenerational communities.

However, an oft-heard challenge when spreading the word is that it is “not affordable.” Our movement’s reliance on creating market-rate housing is part of what helps our communities get built and financed. It also provides an easy exit when someone wants or needs to move ⎯ they can sell their home and afford another home of similar size in a given housing market. But that doesn’t help someone who can’t afford to get in the door, and rental options in most U.S. cohousing neighborhoods are limited.

Given the dramatic increases in housing prices across the country (and the growing disparity in incomes), many have come to see cohousing as part of the problem. They see it as linked to a system that creates financial barriers for someone who isn’t already a homeowner or who didn’t luck out with a home purchase long ago.

We may have done a wonderful job of working together and creating something that serves members and owners well. But it can be (perhaps rightfully) perceived as self-serving, for the benefit the lucky few, rather than a tool that can help many people and continue to be relevant.

There are solutions

I’ve lived in two cohousing neighborhoods and visited more than 135 in the U.S. over the past quarter-century. I’ve seen many communities address this challenge through tools that help reduce costs, ease financing, or otherwise increase affordability for members.

✨ Winter 2026 Ecovillage Tours:

🌺 Hawai’i | Jan 4–11, 2026

Island-based communities focused on sustainability, indigenous culture, and deep nature connection.

🇮🇩 Bali | Jan 26–Feb 4, 2026

Explore spiritual ecology and eco-design at world-renowned projects in Bali’s lush heartlands.

🇮🇳 India | Feb 26–Mar 12, 2026

Visit vibrant eco-communities like Auroville and discover ancient wisdom woven into modern regenerative living.

🇨🇷 Costa Rica (4 unique regional tours!)

Central Region | Jan 17–25

Southern Region | Feb 5–15
Caribbean Region | Mar 21–30
Guanacaste Region | Apr 12–21

Each Costa Rica tour visits 6–12 ecovillage projects in one of the country’s diverse bioregions.

💡 Want to travel sooner?

There’s still space on the Vermont Ecovillage Tour. Taking place from July 19-26, this trip will include visits to 5 cohousing communities as well as other types of intentional community.

🏷️ SAVE an additional $200 when you use this discount code at checkout: COHOUSING200

Take advantage of this opportunity to connect with like-minded travelers and experience the world of regenerative community living.

Enjoy the latest issue of Communities Magazine for Free!

Thanks to donor generosity, Communities 207, Summer 2025, Breaking the Spell, is currently available for free in digital form here. (You can also order a print copy at gen-us.net/207 and subscribe at gen-us.net/subscribe.) The issue explores ways that communitarians are challenging and finding alternatives to thought patterns, lifeways, and habits of relating that keep us from realizing our cooperative potential and risk sleepwalking us off of metaphorical cliffs.

Will you share your community stories with us?

Submit anecdotes, photos, videos and stories so that we can help tell the story of life in community.

SHARE YOUR STORY HERE

Cohousing is part of a more sustainable, democratic and connected future.

To date, CohoUS has helped enable the development of over 200 cohousing communities in the US. These communities serve as examples of the sustainable and community-based neighborhoods our country will need in the future. Please support CohoUS and help us double that number in the next few years.

Your monthly gift will both support new initiatives as well as the continued nurturing of our communities and growth of our movement. As an CohoUS Donor, you can take pride in creating a legacy that will live on to support future generations.

Donations, as a community or as an individual, are accepted year round and can be made to:

Cohousing Association of the US

3860 Chase St

Wheat Ridge, CO 80212

DONATE