Category: Online

New CohoUS Access

Twin Cities Cohousing Network (TCCN) continues to support CohoUS, our national cohousing association. Last year’s Community Partner program has been renamed the Community Member program for 2024.

Being a CohoUS Community Member provides TCCN with access to a valuable array of free and discounted CohoUS recorded programs, online events, trainings, and other offers that can be accessed online at CohoUS and the Cohousing Institute. 

You can access all the features mentioned above by making a charitable gift to TCCN of $60 or more during a calendar year.

Gifts to TCCN of $60 or more made after October 1, 2023 extend your access to CohoUS through December 2024. 

Access through TCCN is limited to residents of Minnesota who are not members of an existing cohousing community. Please complete and submit this form to confirm your eligibility and to see options for making a secure donation.

Twin Cities Cohousing Network is a nonprofit charitable 501(c)(3) organization. Tax ID number: EIN 41-1668910. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law. No goods or services were given in exchange for your gift.

Top 10 Reasons to Live in Cohousing

Why do people want to live in cohousing? Karen Gimnig has experienced cohousing as a resident and is professional facilitator who support groups forming and living in cohousing . She is also an author, making her October 11th presentation one you won’t want to miss.

Meet the Professionals:
Karen Gimnig

Karen Gimnig is a relationship coach with a particular focus on group process and community.  She has lived in cohousing communities in Georgia and Oregon. In her role as a professional facilitator, she offers classes and workshops to support cohousing groups across the country as they build and learn to live together in cohousing. Karen worked for several years for the Cohousing Association of the US. In addition, she co-authored The Cooperative Culture Handbook with Yana Ludwig, making many of the concepts and skills she teaches in her classes and workshops available in book form. Karen currently lives in Anacortes WA with her husband Jamie. They enjoy hiking and sailing through all the beauty of the Puget Sound.

Meet the Professionals:
Karen Gimnig

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023
7:00 to 8:30 PM on Zoom

Register

Registration is required to receive a Zoom link. Limit: 100 participants.

Head shot of featured event speaker Karen Gimnig, a middle aged woman with short dark hair and glasses wearing a black shirt standing in front of dark green leafy bushes.
Karen Gimnig
(Photo used by permission)

Learn more about Karen Gimnig.

The Need for Permanent Affordability: Community Land Trusts & Cohousing

Greg Rosenberg’s experience creating cohousing communities and his extensive knowledge of community land trusts (CLTs) offers an exciting approach to creating cohousing communities with permanently affordable housing units.

Meet the Professionals: Greg Rosenberg

Rosenberg discussed some of the economic justice challenges that come with building desirable places to live, and some of the methods to develop mixed-income cohousing. Cohousing, when not price-controlled, can easily become expensive to the point of being exclusionary. This session will highlight the need for price restrictions using resale formulas (eg. through a community land trust (CLT)) to ensure ongoing affordability, and discuss the steps to subsidize home prices and keep them affordable. Two contrasting examples of mixed-income cohousing in Madison will be featured: Troy Gardens (a project of Madison Area CLT) and Linden Cohousing.


Meet the Professionals: Greg Rosenberg

“The Need for Permanent Affordability: Community Land Trusts and Cohousing”

View on YouTube

Recorded on May 10, 2023 via Zoom.

Greg Rosenberg
(photo used by permission)

Learn more about Greg at Rosenberg and Associates.

TCCN’s publicity partner for this event is:

Logo with stylized blue "M" and the words, "Minnesota Community Land Trust Coalition. A permanent solution for affordable housing."

For more information on Minnesota’s 13 Community Land Trust organizations go to mncltc.org.

What’s up with cohousing in Minnesota?

The Feb. 8 event features updates from groups working to create cohousing communities in Minnesota. Small breakout groups after the updates will allow viewers time to ask questions and engage with each other and our presenters.

Twin Cities Cohousing Network’s next virtual event features updates from groups working to create cohousing communities in Minnesota. Smaller breakout groups after brief group updates will allow views time to ask questions and engage with each other and our presenters. Topics that we have invited our speakers to address include: the ups and downs of forming a core group, working to agree on a common vision, the challenges of finding a suitable site, working with cohousing professionals and addressing challenges of affordability.

Wednesday, February 8, 2023
7:00-8:30 PM via Zoom.
Register in advance to receive your zoom link.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Minnesota outline provided by Suncatcherstudio.com

Ann Zabaldo event

Don’t miss hearing from national cohousing professional and enthusiast Ann Zabaldo at TCCN’s next Meet the Professionals event on Zoom. Zabaldo’s tireless efforts and successes are sure to inspire those of us envisioning more Minnesota cohousing communities!

Meet the Professionals

Hear from national cohousing professional and enthusiast Ann Zabaldo at TCCN’s Meet the Professionals event. Zabaldo’s tireless efforts and successes are sure to inspire those of us envisioning more Minnesota cohousing communities!

“Everyone living next to someone who cares about them” — My role in creating cohousing, working with a developer, and helping cohousing in the mid-Atlantic states

View this presentation on TCCN’s YouTube Channel

Ann Zabaldo
Wed. Oct. 12, 2022
7:00 – 8:30 PM Central

Image of Ann Zabaldo wearing green glasses and smiling brightly.
Ann Zabaldo, Washington DC

Ann Zabaldo is both a pioneer volunteer and a paid professional in the cohousing movement. She specializes in outreach, education, marketing, and fueling the fires of burning souls working to start cohousing.

Ann is past-president of The Cohousing Association of the United States (CohoUS) and is a co-founder and current board member of Mid Atlantic Cohousing, a regional non-profit organization. She is a certified facilitator for McCamant & Durrett’s Senior Cohousing Study Group workshops. She is co-executive producer of “Building Sustainable Communities for Today’s Housing Market” a DVD and companion handbook created specifically for developers who are interested in entering the cohousing market niche.

Ann was on the development team for both Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland and Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC where she lives with 65 adults, 15 children, seven dogs and waaaay too many cats. Currently, for Takoma Village she is serving on the Bylaws Working Group to revise the bylaws and the Resale and Rental pod (team or committee). This pod has brought in excellent buyers who are prepared to live in cohousing. Plus, more than $120,000 in donations to the community. Her description of living in cohousing? “It’s a rolling Mardi Gras.”

Twin Cities Cohousing Network is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Please consider making a donation in any amount to help us continue our Meet the Professional speaker series. Donate securely via PayPal or Donate via GiveMN. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent of the law.

TCCN picnic report in the news

TCCN’s July 20th summer picnic was attended by local writer John Horchner who wrote about his experience talking with attendees about their interest in creating and living in cohousing communities. His commentary, “Can cohousing solve Twin Cities’ economic inequality,” was published in the September 2020 issue of the Park Bugle, a local newspaper serving a number of St. Paul’s neighborhoods near the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus.

The picnic was attended by about forty people who included representatives of newly forming groups, groups that have been meeting for a while, and people who were interested in learning more about cohousing.

For more information about cohousing groups forming in Minnesota, subscribe to TCCN News, an almost-monthly electronic newsletter.

Author John Horchner with TCCN volunteer Paul Wehrwein at TCCN’s summer picnic.

TCCN brings you CohoUS resources and benefits

Twin Cities Cohousing Network (TCCN) has partnered with The Cohousing Association of the United States (CohoUS). This partnership offers TCCN’s partnership supporters access to all CohoUS recordings, events, and resources during 2022 with an annual gift of $60 or more. (The Cohousing US individual partnership fee is $150; joining with TCCN is a savings of $90 per calendar year.)

See all partnership benefits here.

Grace Kim, renowned cohousing architect to speak

On May 11, Grace Kim will kick off Twin Cities Cohousing Network’s new speaker series, “Meet the Professional” with her talk, “Cohousing: A Short-Term Antidote to Loneliness and Long-Term Retirement Plan” to help us catalyze cohousing in Minnesota. There will be time for Q&A.

Cohousing: A Short-Term Antidote to Loneliness and Long-Term Retirement Plan

Grace Kim, architect

View this session on TCCN’s YouTube Channel!

Grace Kim, FAIA
Wed., May 11, 2022
7:00-8:30 PM

On May 11, renowned architect Grace Kim kicked off Twin Cities Cohousing Network’s new speaker series, Meet the Professionals. This series connects viewers with well-known cohousing professionals who generously share their cohousing journeys and offer advice for how we can catalyze cohousing in Minnesota.

While Grace Kim and Mike Mariano (her partner in both life and practice) were studying architecture in London in early 90’s, they learned about the concept of cohousing from a Danish guest lecturer. This idea captured their imagination and became the foundation for their lifelong partnership (both personally and professionally). Since starting Schemata Workshop in 2004, Grace’s focus has been on multifamily housing with a strong focus on community. And in those intervening years, she has become an international expert in cohousing, inspiring projects around the globe. Her 2017 Ted Talk on the benefits of cohousing has received more than 3M views; and her Common House Design Guide along with the design of her own cohousing community has served as a resource for many national and international projects.

In her exclusive presentation for Twin Cities Cohousing Network, Grace shared her journey in cohousing and offered advice to those in the Twin Cities who are interested in catalyzing cohousing. She talked about the positive impact cohousing can have on combating loneliness and other long-term benefits.

Grace is also the cofounder of Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing, a collaborative residential community which includes her street level office and a rooftop urban farm.  She walks the talk of sustainability – leaving a small ecological footprint while incorporating holistic ideals of social and economic resilience into her daily life.

Grace has visited more than 90 cohousing communities in North America, Denmark and South Korea. Grace served on the national board for the Cohousing Association of the US and she currently serves on the Professional Advisory Council. She was the Chair of the 2009 National Cohousing Conference and International Cohousing Summit in Seattle, and the Co-Chair of the 2019 National Cohousing Conference in Portland.

Twin Cities Cohousing Network is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Please consider making a donation in any amount to help us continue our Meet the Professional speaker series. Donate securely via PayPal or Donate via GiveMN. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent of the law.

Daybreak Cohousing, Portland, OR

Explore the appeal of cohousing by participating in a story circle.

Register for one or more of the three FREE story circle sessions and engage with others interested in cohousing. Story Circle sessions are offered via Zoom on Thursdays, Mar 24, 31, and Apr 7, 2022 from 7:00-8:30 PM CDT

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

A story circle is a time-honored tradition of telling stories without interruption until everyone in the circle who wishes to speak has spoken. The uniqueness of our own story settled next to other stories provides insight into similarities and differences in our backgrounds and experiences and opens us to deeper understanding. Discussion and questions follow as time permits.

Register for one or more of the three FREE story circle sessions and engage with others interested in cohousing as we share our stories and discuss cohousing.

Story Circle sessions are offered via Zoom
Thur — Mar 24, Mar 31, Apr 7, 2022 — 7:00-8:30 PM CDT

Please read Steps to Get Ready for the story circle/s that you are interested in attending. Our story circle guidelines are also listed on the Steps to Get Ready page on the course site.

Register on the course site to attend 1, 2, or all 3 (limit of 20 registrations per session)

Each session’s unique story circle prompt is selected to help us understand an aspect of the appeal of living in a cohousing community — as well awareness of the challenges and opportunities that may arise. Cohousing resources on this site complement our learning for those who want to deepen their understanding of cohousing and how it differs from kinds of housing and living arrangements.

These sessions are FREE to help the instructor test the format. Free-will donations to Twin Cities Cohousing Network are greatly appreciated. The course facilitator volunteers her time and is not selling a product or representing any product for sale. The materials in this course are publicly available and have been curated to encourage participants to explore them. Each session is limited to a maximum of 20 participants.

Is affordable cohousing possible?

Affordable Cohousing: Challenges and Opportunities
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
7:00 to 8:30 PM

View event recording

Followup Resources (PDF)

We know there is a huge need for affordable housing in the Twin Cities. And many of us are interested in affordable cohousing units. What strategies should cohousing groups implement to bring down costs?

A national cohousing conference last October centered on this pivotal concern about affordability, drawing on examples from communities recently built. In February, three local cohousing advocates who attended that conference will report on some of the highlights, and then attendees will have a chance to join the discussion.

If housing affordability is important to you, and cohousing is appealing as a way to live, please join us as we attempt to co-create and spread approaches that can work here.

Lynn Englund
Kathy Ahlers
Image of Becca Brackett
Becca Brackett


A summer photo of a third floor balcony with clusters of chairs and potted plants thatt overlooks a common garden area of a cohousing community in Denmark.
BO cohousing. Photo by Fred Olson