Happy couple embracing outdoors in a garden with trees and a wooden deck.

Philadelphia Cooperative House

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • Home-sharing
  • Urban

Founding year

  • 2020

What we do

We are 6 adults, an infant, and 3 cats living together in a spacious, beautiful house in West Philadelphia, in a diverse, community-oriented neighborhood full of families and trees. We intentionally invest in cultivating deep and loving relationships with each other – both individual relationships, and the group dynamic as a whole. We have weekly community meetings where we check in with each other and discuss community and household matters. We make decisions about our spaces and communal systems together, and with care for how those decisions impact everyone.
We share about 75% of our groceries; though we do not have a set meal schedule, each member commits to cooking for the group once a week, and we typically sit down to share 2-4 meals a week. We have regular community gatherings, such as Shabbat dinners, fireside cuddling, shared holidays, and an ongoing grief support group. We have been doing group growth-oriented practices together, such as quarterly personal reflections, and facilitated sessions around issues of race / whiteness, power dynamics, and trauma; we continually work to improve our collective understanding of these and related issues.
We all take interest in the growth and well-being of the children in the home, and actively seek to contribute to their collective upbringing in some form (though exactly how we do it varies widely across members).
Although we do not yet have any concrete plans to buy land, we hold in our hearts the intention to invest in a long-term future together.
We don’t have rooms for new members. You are more than welcome to come and visit or be in touch

Our Mission

An intergenerational community, where people feel secure and loved. We live with an awareness of our impact on each other and the world. Our participants and surroundings are invited into ongoing communal and personal growth.
We seek to make supportive spaces that are “safe enough” for growth, open communication, genuine interaction, friendship, and people being true to themselves. Our members aspire to lead holistic, healthy, affordable, and sustainable lives. We wish to collaborate in creating a nourishing home for children. Together we aspire to engage with the larger society through learning, hospitality, and offering our gifts in a variety of ways.

  • Purpose
  • Home-sharing
  • Community type
  • Coliving
  • Activities
  • Property management
  • Experiences

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2020
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2021
  • Started living together
  • 6 Total members
  • Not open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
7

How to join

We are currently renting and residing in West Philadelphia (Lenapehoking, unceded land of the Lenni Lenape people), a 15 minute walk from Clark Park. The house is a beautiful, spacious 7 bedroom 3.5 bathroom Victorian home; it has a washer/dryer, living room, fireplace, big kitchen & dining room, covered front porch, a backyard (with a hot tub, garden, and composting system), and plenty of space to host guests.
We don’t have any more rooms.
The membership application process starts by contacting our community member Yakir Englander (ya****************@***il.com). We ask potential members to fill out an application form. Then, if we believe there is a potential fit, we do interviews with applicants (either on Zoom or in person, depending on the situation).

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Please contact Yakir Englander: ya****************@***il.com

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.

Decision-making process

  • Full Consensus

Everyone must agree before moving forward.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation
  • Members typically need to have their own job or other personal source of income to cover their expenses while living in the community?

Additional economic information

Regular fees: $15
Labor: Yes (6 hrs/week)
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Workshop, Hot tub or hot springs, Large Scale Kitchen, Fire pit, Internet

Frequency of communal meals

  • 2-5 times per week

Dietary type

  • Vegetarian Only

Dietary restriction

  • People can cook and eat what they want in their own residence

Community activities and engagement

  • Neighborhood, Community Housing, or Homeowner's Association
  • Festivals, Conferences, Events

Substance use culture

  • Substance use occurs primarily at celebrations or ceremonies
  • Substance use is prohibited in the community
  • Religions
  • Christian
  • Buddhist
  • Jewish
  • Quaker
  • Wiccan, Paganism, or Earth Religions

Gender composition

  • Roughly balanced (no group over 60%)

Age demographics

  • Multi-generational (all ages well represented)

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • Pennsylvania, United States

Philadelphia Cooperative House

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

  • Promoted
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
6 days ago

Beautiful 3+ Bed, 2.5 Bath Townhome in Established West Emerald CoHousing, Seattle

A rare home is available at West Emerald Cohousing, an established all-ages intentional community in West Seattle. For those considering a move to the Pacific Northwest—or hoping to join a mature community rather than one still in the forming stages—West Emerald offers decades of community life, beautiful gardens, shared resources and a peaceful setting within the city in a convenient location since 1999. This unit has a unique floor plan that is ideal for co-buying, co-living, or for one household. The home itself offers a flexible 3+ bedroom, 2.5 bath layout: Garden-level room with a separate exterior entrance and half bath—ideal for a home office, studio, guest space or client-facing business Main-level bedroom and full bath, laundry, making one-level living possible Open great room with large windows overlooking gardens filled with birdsong Well-designed kitchen with generous storage and pantry Two additional light-filled spacious bedrooms and a full bath upstairs Thoughtfully maintained and updated Located at the end of a common pathway for added privacy and garden views, Just feet from parking, which is out of view West Emerald community amenities include: Common House with gathering and activity spaces Community meals and events Mature gardens and shared outdoor spaces Workshop/maker spaces and bike barn Exercise room EV charging opportunity Excellent Metro access to Downtown Seattle just minutes away Nestled into a dell, it’s Seattle’s best-kept secret South Seattle College and lifelong learning, NW Wine Academy, the Seattle Chinese Garden are nearby, with easy access to Alki Beach, Lincoln Park, magnet schools, ferries, and the shops and restaurants of the West Seattle Junction. 6000 17th Ave SW, Seattle, WA Is a wonderful opportunity to have your own comfortable, private home while becoming part of a vibrant and well-established Seattle all-ages cohousing community. For more information contact the friendly Realtor at 206-579-9066, or at ki**********@**********te.com who will be happy to meet you there or do a facetime tour.
Offer
Offer
Need
Need
  • Forming Communities
1 month ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.

Update to a Public Profile

  • Log in
  • Go to your profile page
  • Toggle on the "Add my profile to the directory"
  • Save your profile

Information

Communities

A residential project: people live here as their primary home.

Organizations

An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).

Plus Community Membership

  • Find people with Profile Match
  • Access to your community listing statistics
  • Create Discussion Groups
  • Access to our affiliate program
  • Member badge on your community profile
I am an official member of this community
Disclaimer
I affirm that my information is accurate and I am authorized to manage this listing
Foundation for Intentional Community FIC Member badge logo.

Free Plan

Free Membership
Free

Intentional Advertising

  • Subtotal

    {{ currencyFormat( pricing_summary.total_amount ) }}

Icon representing community connections and collaboration for intentional communities.

Plus Membership

We’re introducing new Plus features — including community reviews, Profile Match, and unlimited Needs & Offers posts — while keeping most of FIC free for everyone. Membership costs less than two coffees a month. 

  • Find communities with Profile Match
  • View detailed reviews about communities
  • Create free listings in Needs & Offers
  • Plus Member resources in CommUniversity
  • View communities detailed reviews
  • Plus Member badge on your profile