I took the pictures of my family off my desk last night and put them in a box. Our cooperative, Picklebric, will be looking for a new place to live this summer. Neighborhood tensions around the proposed cooperative ordinance have uprooted us from our home of four years.
In 2011, my fiancée was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After two surgeries, we moved into a house on University Hill, hoping to build a home — a community — where she could recover. Together with our housemates, we built a place of healing — and much more.
We cook and share meals five nights each week. We share expenses for food, rent and utilities. We tend to an abundant garden, celebrate birthdays and holidays, care for each other through illness and injury, and share Shabbat meals on Friday evenings. We tell each other that we love each other. We are a family.
Yet we are more than a family. We have a house charter and hold weekly consensus-based meetings. We host public classes on topics ranging from personal finance to the perfect dumpling. We have provided affordable housing to workers at local nonprofits, including Falling Fruit, the Kitchen Community and Clean Energy Action. We have created a welcoming environment for internationals from France, Switzerland and Argentina. We are a community.
We’ve never had issues with our neighbors. In fact, they begin conversations about the proposed ordinance by insisting that we’ve been good neighbors. We voluntarily limit our household to three cars, one of which is a shared vehicle. We have shoveled neighbors’ sidewalks, helped elderly neighbors into vehicles and looked after neighbors’ dogs and homes. We are mature and responsible neighborhood citizens.
Now our home is in jeopardy. Our statements in favor of the proposed ordinance before the University Hill Neighborhood Association and City Council spurred a couple of vocal neighbors to successfully pressure our landlord into not renewing our lease, despite our landlord recognizing us as excellent tenants and neighbors.
Some of our neighbors’ concerns — fears that over time a cooperative could devolve into a party house and drive down property values — can be effectively addressed by provisions for certification and nuisance enforcement in the proposed ordinance
Other concerns — like a stated desire to see a “normal” family move into our house — can only be addressed by changing norms about what family is and whether renters belong in this part of town at all.
When some of my neighbors insist that they want a family in our house, I want them to understand that a family — one that loves and cares for each other just as a “normal” family does — already inhabits our house.
When some of my neighbors worry about the long-term prospect of a group of renters living together at our house, I want them to understand that we are a stable and organized community. Together we deliberate, make decisions and delegate responsibilities. It’s no accident that we have remained responsible neighborhood citizens for four years, despite a virtually complete turnover in our membership.
When some of my neighbors tell me that they cannot risk legal recognition of a cooperative home in our neighborhood, I want them to understand that we are an asset — not a burden — to the neighborhood. We have tiled floors, painted walls and fixed doors. We have landscaped, irrigated and cultivated most of the yard. Together we rehabilitated much of the property, certainly increasing its value.
Our home provides affordable and sustainable food to its members and to others in our neighborhood. Beyond being a community drop-off point for pastured eggs and raw milk; we have helped start a local food cooperative and helped harvest local fruit for Boulder’s school children and the less fortunate. We have provided a home to laser scientists and lawyers, waitresses and tutors, unplugged neighborhood bluegrass concerts and civic groups like FreeCycle — not to mention the joy of simply sharing a potluck Sabbath meal in community with others.
Our home is more than the house we are leaving behind: it exists in the sound relationships between the humans, plants and animals that inhabit it. Our lives may be disrupted and our community uprooted, but we are undeterred.
We will find new ground and send out new roots. We’re actively looking for a new house in Boulder — please reach out if you know someone who might give us the chance to turn it into a home: picklebric@gmail.com.
Steven Winter lives in the Picklebric cooperative in Boulder
