My goal is to promote a housing model that improves people’s lives. Families that function well are the fundamental unit of economic and social strength. Shared, intergenerational, non-familial housing that emulates high functioning families provides participants with an economic, social and emotional base that nurtures and empowers.

Single parents, children, older people, disabled people and many others could benefit from living in a household that functions as an effective family. The only way that anyone would consider house sharing is to meet casually and regularly with others. Monthly community potlucks provide a forum for participants to connect with others. Potlucks tell a lot about a person: their food preferences, their commitment (vegetarian lasagna or a couple of liters of soda?), whether they help cleanup, how they interact with their children, and much more. Over time, people will form alliances, from which households may follow. As people get to know each other, trust will gradually develop.

Living with others successfully is no slam dunk. The field of organizational development (OD) teaches business people to relate to each other at a high level. If employees in major corporations can learn to function effectively, similar principles could work for households. Universities that offer graduate degrees in this field would be a good resource to teach people how to live together in a satisfying environment.

My role is to create the infrastructure to promote the concept and to provide a clearing house of information and resources to those who want to live in a new and connected way. This is an exciting and timely solution to an urgent and thorny problem.