Submitted by Brenda Willman
But first, how about those Boxelder bugs taking over the place? Yep, I checked, and online it says they are ‘inaccurately’ called beetles. Apparently they are a ‘true bug’ of North America - and I can vouch for that – they are definitely bugging me. I have seen them delicately drop from the cracks between our beautiful, natural cedar plank ceilings and virtually disappear into thin air, until they reappear by my window or wall or floor, or worse when they crawl over my face, arms and shoulders while I am (was) sleeping, causing me to leap out of bed and next lay awake waiting for the next one to land on me.
How very hard the Planning and Development Committee have worked for the future of our coop! No words can express the gratitude I have for the past, current and future members of this Committee and what they have done and will continue to do for all of us. This goes beyond a simple thank you for a job well done. As I have noted more often than anyone cares to hear, I am “all in” when it comes to coop housing, and my future has hung in the balance.
For a little context, when I was a child my family was one of the first to move into the Willow Park Housing Coop, Canada’s first housing cooperative for families. We moved from a single floor square 3 room house (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen along one wall and ‘living room’ with on the ground furnace/stove, along the other wall), where the kids slept in an “add on” lean-to type of space at the back, unheated (in Winterpeg!) and built by my father and his brothers, to an attached home complete with a basement, a real furnace, a main floor and 3 bedrooms on the top floor. We had stairs!! As an adult moving to Calgary, when I was unable to get into the housing coop I lived in a non-profit apartment in Sunnyside, the next-best thing. And when I was finally accepted into the Sunnyhill Housing Cooperative I firmly planted my roots, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The worry and concern of the past several years – that of ‘will I have place to live that I can afford’ - has been larger than many of the younger set may be able to fully fathom. Cliché as it may sound, there are things that we don’t see the same while young and able-bodied, and on the ‘way up’. Someone here once told me (more like accused me) that I didn’t understand what it was like to be young family living in a housing coop, thinking I couldn’t understand their perspective/concerns. But guess what? I was 32 when I moved here with my partner, with every intention of starting a family- it just didn’t work out that way. Life doesn’t always deliver our hopes and dreams. But that aside, we all have the same things to worry about, whether we come with families or not: will we have an affordable roof over our heads, leaving enough $ to provide for food, heat and light, never mind the occasional $ left over to do something fun? And if one is old and without family, will anyone notice if I haven’t been seen for days, and check on me?
We all join housing coops for different reasons, a fact I have also repeated a lot. Some join to save money to buy a house. Some join to live reasonably cheaply while getting their formal education, or for other reasons we can all understand. Some join because they like the neighbourhood in which their coop is situated. The reasons are many. Some join because they are ‘community’ people at heart and a coop speaks to their basic needs. Some join for the very tangible bonus of allowing aging in place.
I joined because cooperative living is part of my make-up. No one else in my family firmly attached to the concept and all own(ed) houses, but I was the baby, and owning cooperatively is something I have understood since I was 8. The benefits of moving to Willow Park did not just include better living condition vis a vis the roof over my head. It also meant a move across the highway from the ‘country’ to the ‘city’ where there was a newish and nearby elementary school with a better curriculum and better opportunities for gifted students, good bus service to amenities like subsidized programs at the YMCA and YWCA. My life changed so much for the better a result of living in cooperative housing, and I never wanted to, nor want to live anywhere else.
So while I am impatient (though I fail to see how wanting to get something done which has been sitting since 2008 can be defined as impatient) about getting the policies up to date, and may even be guilty of coming across as mean, cantankerous, grumpy, accusatory, etc. when communicating with others about the project, it is necessary that we get this done so that all of the work put in by the Planning and Development Committee can continue to bear fruit. We don’t just need land, walls and roofs. With each of those come the necessity of ways to maintain them, and ways to maintain our budgets, and to maintain, to the best of our collective ability, harmonious interpersonal relationships amongst this group of collective co-owners we have created. Let me repeat that “we have created”. We choose who joins our cooperative. It’s not a lottery, and members do not fall into our laps haphazardly.
In closing, thank you again to those who have served diligently on the Planning and Development Committee, and who have chosen the representatives who have worked with our own team to move the project forward. Going forward, let’s ensure that we have everything we need to thrive, and that includes knowledgeable and good leadership, good governance, good policies, and adhering to the latter. What should help to ensure our continued success is working under the principles, policies and procedures we have collectively (and heartily most of the time) debated and agreed upon, making amendments when necessary as times change.
“At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed is ‘community’ – the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of a [man] to assume a semblance of responsibility for [his brother].”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“Cooperative living can develop only as individual persons become able to see their own weaknesses and strengths as well as the weaknesses and strengths of others.”
– Tsunesaburo Makiguchi
“The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees and the Earth. When we realize the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise – then we can build a noble environment. If our lives are not based on this truth, then we shall perish.”
– Buddhadasa