Private property as enshrined in U.S. law is a European invention. It has been wielded to dispossess workers and native peoples of their ancestral lands by dismissing traditional forms of joint land ownership practiced throughout the world. It feels odd that in order to live together in community with more than two people in the U.S. today, in ways humans have for millennia, and to have your living situation recognized (or at least left alone) by legal authorities, you too need to express your desire for joint ownership in terms of private property. This guide will often be using the language of corporations, single family homes, condominiums and other individualist capitalist structures that weren’t created to support co-living.
Our legal systems weren’t built to create these kinds of communities. That’s why it’s so hard to do. In addition, if conflict arises and isn’t addressed well, community members can lean on the existing power structures provided by law to support their position. There can be a tendency to weaponize elements of a co-living relationship that are non-normative if a group dynamic breaks down. That means you have to affirmatively set in place your co-living arrangements, including investing in learning and committing to non-violent forms of dispute resolution, to avoid leaving the most vulnerable members of your chosen family high and dry in the event of conflict. Tom Atlee, from a 10-person cooperative house called the Walnut Street Coop in Eugene, Oregon, calls this work “dancing between the space where the law helps and the law hurts.”
