Also known as a “commune.”
What was it like? Was it a cool experience?
Mrs. Homie and I are giving some consideration to the idea of giving up the grind and opting for something simpler and more peaceful. There’s an intentional community forming just down the road from her family’s home in Missouri, and we may pay it a visit this summer.
Curious to hear as well. I’ve always kinda been irked at the attitudes of most “modern hippies” I’ve known, but I love the idea of communal living. If I found the right group, I’d jump at it.
Sounds gross.
Fuck no. I can barely stand having room mates who have friends over.
On a more positive note I have plenty of dippie friends who love other people and have lived in communal situations very happily. However be warned that the more people in one house, the more potential there is for drama - especially if a lot of them believe in ‘free love’ (HAH!).
I think it sounds positively enticing. I’d also like to hear more if anyone out there has been a part of one.
Uh. Many of us have been in college dorms- and that is a living arrangement that many of us have fond memories of. It’s also not that unusual for young professionals to rent a house with some friends.
Just because it does’t come with hippie rhetoric doesn’t make it not a communal living situation. There are lots of successful and “non-dippy” group house, etc. Just look on Craig’s List i any city and you’ll find plenty.
I live close to a communal community. It is populated with professional people living in condos and homes running from $250,000 to $600,000. It is not your typical 60’s style commune. People live independantly but there are a lot of communal activities. They have a common dining hall where an evening meal is prepared, but you don’t have to eat there if you don’t want. They have a daycare center staffed by volunteers from the community. There is a big communal garden, and people do a lot of bartering for services (legal, home improvement, auto repair, etc.) The more “communal” work you do the larger the credit you get on homeowners fees.
It’s a weird system and I have no interest in that kind of thing, but it works for the people there. It is a modern, flexible system of living that seems to work for the people there.
One of the couples I know who live there is a lesbian couple, one a librarian and the other a lawyer. One other guy (single father of three) is an author and a writer for one of the few remaining national news magazines. All are cool people.
Lamar Miundane, you’re in CO, right? Are you talking about Genesis? That’s always struck me more as an urban yuppie co-housing thing rather than the intentional communities I’ve read about, most of which are more on the hippie/socialist/communitarian spectrum.
I remember reading about a “commune” either here or somewhere else on the internet – is this the type of place you mean?
Acorn Community
Acorn Community (Wiki)
Here’s another one linked off that Wiki page, both these places are in Virginia:
Oh look, here is a site I linked off of one of those other sites: The Federation of Egalitarian Communities
These seem to be very “hippie” type communes.
And I found this site too: Fellowship for Intentional Community
The closest I’ve come was a couple of years in the late 60s. There were maybe 15 of us in a huge, very old house. Lots of drug usage and dealing, lots of music, and some really horrible cooking. What I remember most was the really bizarre ways we had of painting the walls.
I lived on a Kibbutz with a bunch of friends for 8 months when I was 18. It was fun enough, if you like cows.
I was invited to join a commune in the hills above Santa Cruz, CA in the 1960s; the fact that I was VW mechanic with a lot of tools probably had something to do with my being invited. I declined for reasons I no longer remember but I wish very much that I had joined.
To the OP, I say go for it. I’d do it now in a heartbeat.
Yes, that is exactly the type of thing I’m talking about.
This pretty much describes me to a T.
It’s funny; in the little bit of research I’ve done about it, it seems that the majority of these places adopt a “live and let live” attitude, which is, in a nutshell, my philosophy on life.
I only spent a few weeks staying in one as a WWOOFer (basically helper in excange for food and accommodation while backpacking) in New Zealand, would definitely consider it if I could find a similar place. I was pretty interested in how it worked out, so asked quite a lot of questions of the people I stayed with, whi had spent the last 20 years in several different communities.
It mostly had seperate family houses, though of course they didn’t ‘belong’ to the family, so if, for example, one of the kids left home and another family in the group was now considered to have a greater space need (new baby, new partner), they could be asked to move into the smaller house. When you first moved in, you had a several month probation before a vote from the members- so it was possible to basically give up your old house and then not get in anyway.
You did have to give quite a large sum of money initially (I think it was proportionate to what you had) in order to be a full member, as well as be accepted by vote, but that did make you pretty well permanent. You did still have to put in regular work hours, possibly with a pay option if you mainly worked outside. It was possible (especially if did didn’t do the hours) to get voted out, but you had to really annoy everyone. I think this had maybe happened a few times in the place’s 60 year history, no-one seemed worried about the possibility.
The financial benefits from the community were pretty high though, as it covered all medical/dental costs, subsidised transport (including communally owned free to use cars, though I think you could have your own if it was obvious you needed one on a daily basis for work, and yes most people did also work outside of the community) all college/university fees paid for your children (I did comment on the number of big families, especially with a single parent!)… And of course it was possible to pay all of your rent by helping grow food for everyone or working with the livestock (actually this place had quite a lot of alternative work options, a cafe, a garage, running various courses…)
I thought at the time that the person who got the absolute best deal from it was the girl in her late twenties with Down’s Syndrome who lived there- living in a community where everyone knew her and accepted her and understood what she wanted, I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier person in my life 
If I ever have a kid with learning disabilities, I’m definitely going to start looking for a community like that!
I know it’s impossible to get an accurate view in such a short time, but I think the main problems in a stable long-term community would be;
Generally speaking “co-housing” is nothing like what people think of as a commune. For one, people do own their properties, or have as much right to it as any renter, if it is a rental arrangment. Usually the “co-” amounts to (optional) common meals, shared childcare when applicable, and social events together.
I have - the woo got to me in just over a month (and this was me at 19, easily led). The intersection between the intentional community and New Agers and the nuttier sort of neopagans is too large for my liking. That, and it was far too hierarchical, sexist and cult-of-personality-ish for my liking, which wasn’t how it was sold to me before I joined - I was expecting more of an egalitarian syndicalist setup, I got some sort of Iron John abortion.
Also, they couldn’t farm for shit. Instead of growing grapes or stone fruit for sale (ideal for that area) the Big Men were insisting on growing enough grain that the commune could be “self-sufficient”. Not that that worked.
But the one **Filbert **stayed at sounds a lot nicer.
I would love to, but my hubby would croak. When our kids were small, I often dreamed of living in that sort of environment. In fact, at one point, a couple of friends of mine needed a place to live and moved into our basement. I was a stay-at-home mom and loved having someone else in the house to talk to during the day and they both loved to cook, as I did. It was great for the few months it lasted. I probably would be the type to have “sister wives” because I loved being around my SIL’s who were all having babies when I did. Coming from a Mennonite background, I just have more of a “everyone sharing together” mindset than my hubby.