This is a statement of values of Vashon Cohousing. That is, a statement of what we all have in common that is sufficient for us to risk our time, effort and money in developing and constructing this project. Actually we are building two things here. One is a set of buildings, our homes, a neighborhood. The other is a set of relationships with each other. Both are based on these values of community living that we share:

Sharing of resources - We all benefit from exchanging our ideas, time, skills, and tools, and from sharing the responsibilities of the project.

Diversity - We appreciate and enjoy our diversity of thought and heritage. In accepting new members, we do not discriminate on basis of race, age, class, gender or political, religious or sexual orientation.

Affordability - Project development and construction are constrained by our financial resources. Our investments are protected through good management and by providing for resale should the need arise.

Effective design principles - The design of the physical structures, together with their relationship to each other and to the land, has a great influence on the quality of community and individual life, and we will design to enhance both interaction and privacy, and the natural beauty of the site.

Family oriented - We value the contributions of children, elders, parents, and non-parents to community life, and respect the sanctity and authority of the individual family unit.

Personal freedom and growth - We choose our own lifestyles, pursue our own spiritual and personal goals, and have no political or religious affiliation as a group. Even so, we recognize the spiritual dimension to our work and expect that community involvement will be conducive to our personal growth. We hope to support the individual initiative, creativity, and personal success of each other.

Self-government - We recognize the need for everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in decisions affecting the entire community, and that we may have to make some hard decisions limiting certain behaviors or actions within the community. We expect continued involvement of all in the planning, growth and development of the community. Toward this end we have developed guidelines for participation in group discussions and conflict resolution.

Environment - Our natural environment is important to all of us. It includes not only the design of the buildings and use of safe and non-toxic building materials, but also the layout of the land, appropriate and ecologically sustainable land-use practices, and preservation and restoration of our woods and wetlands areas.

Balance - Perhaps the most crucial element for successful community living is a balance of all these ideals. Though we share these values in common, we don't assume or enforce a set of religious or political beliefs. Though we are family oriented, we welcome singles. Though we value our freedom, we accept some limits on behavior. Though we share resources, we respect privacy and private property. Though we enjoy what we have in common, we appreciate the stability and richness that our diversity brings. And finally, though involvement in group projects and activities is a matter or choice, we expect that the result of building our homes and community life based on these principles will be an enhanced and lively interaction between all members.

We are excited about the possibilities for our future and are already enjoying our work and our friendships. We see our efforts not as an isolated incident, but as part of a world-wide growing desire for socially satisfying and environmentally sound community life. Our work has just begun.

The Vashon Cohousing Group was formed in 1989 and worked as a core group of five households for five years. We created an open-air condominium legal structure so that home builders can get loans. Each household was responsible for their own financing and building.

All eighteen houses have been completed, as has the common house. Landscaping and pathways are still being developed.

Project Information

As of June 2002, we have 18 member households, with 28 adults and 13 children ages 0 -16 years. We represent a variety of religious, philosophical and political bents. There is one house for sale.

R.A. has lived most of her life in Michigan; she moved to Seattle in 1996 after getting her BS in chemistry. She moved to Vashon in 1998 where she began to realize her dreams--she worked on an organic farm for two seasons and met her dreamboat. She is currently working at the PCC deli in West Seattle baking and cooking all sorts of fun things. She is also preparing for a graduate program in the fall at the University of Washington, she is pursuing a future in environmental engineering and would like to study waste water and waste systems. She loves to dig and get dirty in the garden, loves to cook, is a dedicated bike commuter and is ambitiously learning to telemark ski.

J.B. worked for many years in commercial real estate, in affordable housing and as a project manager for schools construction, but spends her time as a co-owner of Blue Moon Farms. She has one grown son, a background in anthropology and is active in the Vashon community.

A.B. & M.D. both work on the island, and are kept busy raising their two sons.

P.B. is a Personal Coach and is devoted to beadwork, singing and yoga. She's lived in California, New York, Hawaii, and Seattle, and went to school in both art and urban planning before moving to Vashon in '93.

The D./M. family includes Mom, Dad, a girl 10 and a boy 8. Both parents grew up in tight-knit supportive communities and enjoyed ready access to natural areas. The opportunity to create a similar environment for their children is one of the things that drew them to cohousing. Both parents like to garden and cook. Both children like to romp around and play with their friends. Cohousing will provide them all with a chance to meet their needs and indulge their interests.

L.F. (born 1961) is a licensed Massage Practitioner since April 1996. Mother of two boys, born November, 1989 and July, 1992. Member of Vashon Cohousing since 1990. They have been living on the land since December, 1993. Prior to moving to Vashon in 1989, she lived and worked in Seattle.

T. & S. F. are employed on the island by a computer software supplier. Sarah has two sons 18 and 19. They are drawn to cohousing by the promise of community found missing in previous living situations.

B.H. has lived on Vashon for 25 years and manages a local bank in addition to being a favorite island artist.

R.I. has lived in the Puget Sound area since 1977 and retired from a federal social service agency at the end of 1990, after a big snowstorm! Some of her "hobbies" were GED tutoring, advising on Medicare/supplement insurance and preparing income tax returns through an AARP program. Other hobbies are golfing and playing bridge. She is single by choice. She participates as a senior citizen cohouser among many age groups while learning to appreciate more the diversity brought by everyone in this cooperative effort.

M.H. joined Vashon Cohousing, with her husband, on New Year's Eve 1989, while 6 months pregnant with their first child and still a resident of New York City. Three children later, she is now a Vashon resident. Vashon Cohousing is what persuaded her to pull up 20 year old roots and make the move to the opposite coast. A professional dancer from 1976-1987, she now intends to attend to the growth of her children, a community and an enormous garden. Margaret also is co-owner of Blue Moon Farm.

M.K. is a NYC native who has been visiting the Puget Sound for the past 25 years. He and his wife joined Vashon Cohousing soon after it was formed 10 years ago and moved to the cloud capitol of the world in 1994. His entire adult life has been focused on community, either developing his own or presenting someone else's. Founder of the New York based Ethnic Folk Arts Center, he spent the past 30 years working in Balkan villages and with immigrant communities in the US and Canada, documenting their music and dance forms, producing programs, videos, and recordings and teaching Balkan dance. At present, he is a stay-at-home dad helping care for seven-year-old twins (a girl and boy) and eleven-year-old daughter. He also coordinates the work party efforts for Vashon Island Cohousing.

D.L. migrated to the pacific northwest from his well-loved home in upstate New York twice. Once for an extended stay in north coastal British Columbia (until his visa ran out), and again when he landed in Bellingham after cross country travels. Although his formal education is in Religious Studies, a topic which he loves, his profession is software architecture and design. He splits his time between gleefully writing software code, getting dirty in the soil of gardens and farms, telemark skiing, bicycle touring, and backcountry excursions. Core to his beliefs are a strong sense of self reliance, simplicity of life and thought, verity to cultural and spiritual tradition, and a sense of deep ecology.

J.L. is a Seattle native, a Vashon lover for over 25 years, and new to cohousing, enjoying the challenges and the rewards very much indeed.

R.M. was born and raised in Seattle and moved to Vashon in 1998 to become part of cohousing. She is in her early 30's and works in the computer industry as a visual interface designer managing her own business primarily from home. In 1997, she went back to school to become a Licensed Massage Therapist. She practiced massage for two years and is currently only receiving massages since her design business has taken over again. She loves living in community and working from home. Since she has no kids of her own, interacting with the kids in cohousing is important to her and adds to the quality of her life. In addition to cohousing, she loves traveling, hiking, skiing, kayaking, playing music and creating art. She shares her house with two housemates.

T.M. The sixties arrived a little late in Oklahoma where she grew up, the fourth of five girls, and Kansas where she went to college, and she caught the tail end of them. Her all-time best teacher was a high school journalism teacher. She spent the first 15 years of adulthood writing and editing for a spectrum of mainstream business and counterculture publications. In her mid-30's, realizing her main frontier was within, she dropped out of journalism, got a job waiting tables, and launched into an eight-year therapy career. As she enters her mid-40's, she still has a "save-the-world" spirit, exploring a new career in nutrition and joining Vashon Cohousing.

M.M. grew up in Steilacoom, a small town overlooking southern Puget Sound. In 1974 he helped form Tilth, a regional association of organic farmers and gardeners. For 10 years he was a member of Pragtree Farm, a commercial organic farm serving Seattle-area restaurants and natural food stores. Pursuing his dream of being part of an agricultural cohousing community, he moved to Vashon Island in the fall of 1989 and became a founding member of Vashon Cohousing.

K.O. is 41 years old, was born in Tacoma, and grew up in Seattle. She has a design background and is currently self-employed as an art director/production manager for still photography in the city. She loves designing beautiful gardens, cooking great meals, soaking in hot springs, and having depthful conversation - i.e. "connecting the dots" on micro and macro levels. To her, vital human qualities are an excellent sense of humor and good character.

J.R. was born in 1955 and grew up in Southern California. She met her husband in 1980, and had their first child, a son, in 1982. In 1987, they relocated to Seattle to be near her husband's family. Her second child, a daughter, was born in 1990. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Services, and has been working off and on in that field since the late 1980s. She recently quit her job in Seattle, where she worked with formerly homeless individuals, and is now working part-time on the Island. She enjoys being with her family, dancing, giving Reiki treatments, working with herbs, reading, cooking/baking/canning, and visiting with friends.

R.R., although born and raised in Chicago, in the 50s and 60s, spent most every summer in the Puget Sound region, his father's homeland. After Chicago, he lived in Bremerton, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Professionally, he is a landscape architect who loves design and building, especially using sustainable techniques and Feng Shui. He loves the outdoors, both as a place of work and recreation. Currently he am striving toward a simple and spiritually full life.

E.S. moved to Vashon in 1974 to pursue a vision of community life in a semi-rural island setting. Cohousing is a natural extension of that vision with its emphasis on creating a sharing and connected community while maintaining a clear sense of privacy and space for individual growth. He has led an adventurous life including smoke jumping, commercial fishing and extended sailboat cruising and looks forward to living in cohousing with a similar spirit of adventure. For the past 21 years he has been a designer and builder of small houses on the island. Recently separated, he has a seventeen-year-old son.

E. & R.S. both left the East coast looking for adventure "out west." He moved to Olympia in 1983, and she to Seattle in 1991. They met in Seattle in 1995 while he was in acupuncture school and she was in graduate school for nutrition. They moved to Vashon Island Cohousing in February 2000 with their son who was born in October, 1998. Their shared vision, which led them to Vashon Island Cohousing, includes raising their children (the second of which was born in February, 2002) in a positive community environment and a desire to share resources to reduce environmental impact on the land. They also appreciate the semi-rural lifestyle Vashon has to offer -- they love the quiet community, but are close enough to walk to town and to work. They enjoy exploring nature, music and gardening. Their greatest joy is seeing their family and community grow and thrive.

C.W. is 50 years old, originally from Ohio but has lived in the northwest for the past 26 years. She spent seven years in Eugene, Oregon and fourteen years in Seattle. She wears several hats; most importantly as the mother of a eighteen year old young man who is a graduate of Vashon High School. Professionally, she's a registered nurse, working on a psychiatric intensive care unit, having previously worked at Providence hospital for twelve years. Jazz and history are her two favorite passions; she is the designated historian for our co-housing community.

C.W. was born in New York state, and has been a Vashon resident for 25 years. She is a proud mother of two grown children, a retired teacher who taught on Vashon Island and in Buffalo, New York public schools. "I am happy when I can sing, play the flute, read stories aloud and write poems. Here's a cohousing one:"

Good Company

Another day at sunrise.
Across the way a high window opens.
I open mine.
Children wave colored streamers on sticks,
shouting hello.