Community Decision Making:
Any community will require some level of management or internal structure to ensure smooth operation. The following headings break down some of the potential challenges that collective housing communities could face:
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Groups working on a shared project are likely to encounter some challenges when it comes to decision making. Questions around pets are typical examples of challenging questions for a community. Community decision making processes should be resolved. Most often collective housing projects rely on a combination of democratic voting and group consensus building, with some deadlock and holdout provisions. Clearly the opportunity to contribute to a discussion and tease out the details and potential problems early is key, and there is the related need to make decisions in a time frame. There are some cases where individuals within a group may have to defer to the community, and communities may handle this differently. There are a range of decision-making techniques and software available for example the coloured card technique utilised by Earthsong and the Lumio decision making software both of which are used by many communities.
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In a complex, often slow, or challenging project such as developing a collective housing project, it is easy for project leaders or a small core group of people to be saddled with onerous workloads. This can lead to burnout, which in turn effects project momentum. Developing methods to share, delegate or deputise work and to ensure workloads are equitable is critical.
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Internal conflicts are inevitable in any diverse group of individuals, and these need not be negative. Developing strategies to manage the impact of conflicts is key to ensuring a community can thrive. Choosing strategies for conflict resolution depends on the situation and community it applies to. There are a wide range of great examples and resources available online which can be adopted or adapted according to the principles and ideals of the community.
