Finding New Members

Short and Sweet

A) Do you like the person?

B) Do you trust that they…

Understand the household agreements?
Are excited to follow through with the household agreements?
Are emotionally and physically capable of fulfilling the household agreements?

Things to Keep in Mind While Searching for a New Housemate:

Get to know people as much as reasonably possible before accepting them.
- Is the most common response to “what would you do next time?”
- A common practice when reviewing new member candidates is to accept all who apply unless there is a very obvious concern about them. There should be a strong positive assessment of the candidate not solely a lack of a negative.
- Optional ideas for getting to know a prospective housemate:
  - Phone interviews are a great first step in application process after a written application is received.
  - Getting references and calling them to get information about the prospective member is important as it can possibly bring a major concern to light.
  - A visit to the prospective member’s residence
    - What are their standards for cleanliness?
    - How does their choice of belongings inform their values?
    - What is the quality of relationship with their existing housemates?
  - Invite them to dinner or an event
    - Casual situations allow people to relax more and be themselves.
  - Sleepover or extended visit to the house
    - Allows them to try living at the house in a more casual way.
    - Allows them to experience external factors like trying a new commute or if they like the neighborhood.
- Poor member selection due to less than careful selection practices often leads to conflict and high turnover, particularly during the first year or two; those that are left are often particularly picky when choosing housemates. See the super scientific and well guesstimated graph below with years on the x-axis and conflict on the y-axis.

How will the prospective member integrate with the existing group?
- Aligning with the house values is important for minimizing conflict and maintaining group cohesion.
  - Read over the house values together and discuss how likely the prospective member will mesh with the group.

How will the house accept their individual diversity?
- Diversity in any degree or area is ok if and only if it is talked about openly and/or there are clear household agreements around it.
  - For example a meat eater living in a vegetarian coop is a type of diversity and is ok if household agreements are developed for it (whether meat can be cooked in the shared kitchen, etc).

Invite people to live in your house that you are confident that you will want to spend time with! Ask yourself the following questions while thinking about how your answers will impact group cohesion:
- “Do you like the person?”
  - If a prospective housemate seems like a great fit for your house but you don’t like them for some reason it is important to pay attention to that. Respect how you do feel about them not how you should feel about them.
- “Could you imagine being their friend?”
  - While not necessary or required for positive cooperative living experiences, coops whose members consider each other friends increases long-term compatibility.
- “How much would you want to sit next to them at dinner or decide to watch a movie together?”
  - It is very likely that while living with someone you interact frequently. It is important to ‘want’ to spend time with your fellow housemates. People who want to spend time together increase the group cohesion and this typically leads to less conflict down the road.
- “Does it seem like their emotional state would impinge on their ability to function within the coop?”
  - Coop living is hard. It takes a good deal of emotional maturity to be able to navigate the ups and downs of living with a group of people without subjecting themselves and others to undue duress.
- “Would you like to become more like this person?”
  - People tend to absorb many of the attitudes and habits of those they live with.
- “Are they meeting their needs currently? Have they struggled with this in the past?”
  - If they often cannot meet their own needs then it is likely that they will create conflict in the house in unskillful attempts to have others meet their needs. Self-defeating or victimizing speech patterns can help identify that this is a challenge for them.
  - Taking fundamental responsibility for their life situation, both the good and the bad.

Decide beforehand if couples should have two rooms or if one is fine.

Turnover is a given for coop housing and should be expected.
- Member selection is an ongoing task and can be treated like other types of chores.

The pros of finding a new housemate via friends or from an organization that you’re part of:
- There is some degree of existing cohesion to the group.
- The person likely feels some level of responsibility to someone(s) to make it work.
- The amount of work to integrate them into the house is reduced.
- They have effectively been vouched for as a good housemate possibility.
- For coops whose members are older there is a higher likelihood of existing relationships working out than strangers as there is often less interest or capacity to get to know new people.

The pros of finding a new housemate that was previously a stranger:
- The prospective member may bring new energy, ideas, perspective, and/or other metrics of diversity to the house.
- There are no existing unfavorable dynamics between the prospective member and housemates.
- May increase the overall awareness of coops if that person previously hadn’t lived in coop before and begins talking to their friends and family about it.

What You Should Ask the Prospective Member?

Choose those questions that work for your house.

“Do you understand the household agreements?”
- Potential housemates need to know what the expectations are for living in the house in order to make an informed decision about whether they actually would like to live there. If they are uninterested in the household agreements then it may be a concern that they have other motives for joining the house (e.g. price, location, etc).
- Their capacity to listen while you explain the household agreements and communicate them back are translatable communication skills that indicate success in coop living. E.g. capacity to listen and ability to articulate what they understand.

“What are your thoughts about the household agreements?”
- If someone isn’t expressing positive assessments of the main structures during an interview then it isn’t likely they will follow through with them in practice. It demonstrates that the person is interested and bought in to joining the house when small suggestions or ideas for improvements are identified.

“Are you excited to follow through with the household agreements?”
- The emotional version of the previous question that gets at feelings in contrast to the logical thoughts.

“Are you concerned about your ability to follow through with those household agreements?”
- This allows them to open up and share something that might not have come up regarding how they view their personal limits. If something is identified, either by what they did or didn’t say, that is a major concern it may be prudent to ask follow up questions.

“What priority will you place on attending house meetings?”
- Having everyone attend the house meetings is crucial for member buy-in to decisions and group cohesion. It should be a fairly high priority for them. Asking them to contrast the priority to their other priorities can help give a better idea of what they mean.

“Could you describe an experience or two where you have had a conflict with someone you lived with? How did you deal with it? What went well? What might you have done differently?”
- The person should be able to acknowledge that they have had a conflict before and it would be a concern if they can’t identify one (unless they lived alone their whole life). How significant the conflict they bring up is not so important as is the way that they go about handling it. Think about what conflict resolution skills they possess? Refer to the CONFLICT RESOLUTION section.

“How comfortable are you with addressing conflict directly?”
- In order to reduce and resolve conflicts it is important to have open dialogue about it and it should be a concern if they express that they don’t like to talk about conflicts. This question can inform their skill and interest in conflict resolution. Let them know the household agreements around conflict resolution. Refer to the CONFLICT RESOLUTION section.

“What is something that you expect to have or be able to do in your house?”
- Asking what their needs are is important so as to ensure the house can meet them. If they need to roller blade in the house in the middle of the night to fall back asleep or if they need their 15 foot python to reside in the living room it is important to know to give an idea of how it will affect the other housemates.

“Living with a group of humans in close proximity can bring up uncomfortable topics. For example “What would you do if…you heard sexual noises coming from another housemate’s room at night?” <or insert relevant example for your house>
- Being able to talk about and work through uncomfortable topics is a prerequisite to a coop house functioning well. Refer to the CONFLICT RESOLUTION section.

“How do you support yourself financially?”
- Will they be able to meet the financial needs of the house? When housemates do not pay their portion of the expenses it undermines housemates’ feelings of safety and security as it could undermine the housing situation or excessively restrict what food is in the refrigerator.

“Have you had trouble paying your rent on time in the past?”
- The past record can inform their future performance.

“What is your motivation for living in a coop?”
- Look for enthusiasm about your coop’s values
- Beware running from something or happenstance.
- Beware if lower cost of living is primary motivation.

“How familiar are you with the practice of being in the present moment regardless of what is happening?”
- Practicing mindfulness, whether they call it meditation or flow during sports or art or something else, is critical to developing mind-body skills that improve one’s ability to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting thoughtlessly. These skills can be very helpful in coops in addition to many other areas of our lives.

“Are you familiar with the phrase: ‘Putting yourself in their shoes?’ and can you give an example how you have done this”
- Understanding other people’s perspectives, what they might be thinking or feeling is very helpful for reducing judgment and blame between housemates.

“How often do you typically invite friends and family to visit your home?”
- Having guests visit is often a great thing! This adds to the culture of the house.
- It may be a concern if someone rarely invites guests to their house.
  - It may indicate that the house is not providing their needs and in a broader context they might not feel proud of the house and may be losing interest in contributing and being part of the house culture. Note that in some cultures people do not invite friends to their house but instead meet at public places.
- It may be a concern if someone has so many frequent guests that it alienates the other housemates or dilutes their participation.

“How close do you like to be with the people you live with?”
- Some people want to develop close ties with those they live with and others don’t. Attention should be placed on selecting housemates that match the level of closeness desired. <suggestion: read up about Attachment Theory for Adults and associated Emotionally Focused Therapy EFT to ensure that the existing housemate group is compatible with the prospective new member>

“What is your typical day-to-day schedule like? Would it accommodate our meetings, dinners, etc?”
- If the prospective housemate is unable to attend house meeting or dinners or other group activities for practical scheduling reasons it will be detrimental with integrating and participating with the coop and hinder working through conflicts.

“Do you have a partner or significant other that lives outside of the house? If so, how often are you visiting them and vice versa?”
- It will impact the atmosphere of the house greatly if there will be a regular visitor or if the housemate will be gone a significant amount of the time. If the partner is a significant part of the prospective member’s life it would be a good idea to meet their partner before inviting them to live with you.

To Do

Decide on a process for how a new member will be found, interviewed, and selected.
- Generate a list of questions that can be asked for the phone interview and in person interview.
  - Allows for some consistency for comparing potential members.

Generate a document listing all of the household agreements. E.g. a house manual.
- Showing this to prospective housemates will help them better understand what the house will and won’t provide them.

Characteristics and Attitudes of Good Housemates

Ability to see others’ needs in relation to their own
Can respond vs. react
Maintains a positive attitude
High level of social competency
Mindful about their words and actions
Refrains from lying
Refrains from gossiping
Willingness to talk about their own feelings openly but not excessively
Willingness to talk about issues as soon as they come up
Does not let issues slide
Desire for the coop to function well
Previous group living experience
Good self awareness/communication skills
Takes responsibility for their actions and life situation
Financially responsible
Inclination to share
Likes living with people
Understands that living with other people sometimes involves interacting when you might prefer not to and not interacting when you would like to.
Tolerant and flexible
Capacity to listen
Ability to hold both truths: indefiniteness and permanence
Intention toward personal growth and becoming a better housemate
Interest in treating partners as separate individuals and not treating them as a unit