What coliving is and why you might fall in love with it
This Thursday is the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, and 47% of Americans plan to celebrate it as Friendsgiving. If you haven’t heard of it, Friendsgiving is when folks gather when their friends for the feast instead of, or in addition to, spending time with family which was the tradition for many years. In honor of this annual communal dinner with friends, today’s post highlights coliving: the shared living arrangement that millions of people around the world choose instead of living alone. When you’re coliving or in a shared living arrangement, you don’t have to wait for one day of the year to have a special dinner with friends because it happens on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis!
Coliving, also called shared living or communal living, is a little different from just living with roommates. While all of these situations involve living with other people that you’re not related to, here are some ways that they differ:
In a coliving situation, you typically get your own private room or a shared room, and everyone shares the common areas. While some coliving arrangements are high-tech and prioritize giving everyone their own private spaces with minimal communal responsibility as reported in this story on Vox, the type of coliving I’m more familiar with is much more integrated and communal. Instead of just sharing the fridge and splitting the bills, people who choose this kind of intentional shared living arrangement agree to create something beautiful together: Community. The “Community through Coliving” approach comes with more purposeful commitments to creating a strong sense of connection between the members, and sharing more responsibilities and benefits.
The community you commit to building together can be as small as five people or as large as 100+ people, like the intentional community I once lived in. The community might also choose to take on additional goals and projects together, such as creating a garden full of fruits and veggies to feed the community and the surrounding neighborhood. Or, you might build and maintain event spaces and host yoga retreats, like my intentional community in Hawaii did.
Coliving has a lot of benefits and some drawbacks, so you need to think carefully about the kind of community you join or choose to start. To help you understand the benefits and drawbacks of coliving, I’ve invited today’s guest, Naima von Ritter Figueres, co-founder and Head of Community and Wellbeing for Conscious Coliving to share her advice on coliving. Her current coliving community is in gorgeous Costa Rica and through her work, she helps other people succeed at coliving at locations all around the world.
If you’re considering joining an intentional community or the coliving movement, check out our interview below and my listen to my conversation with Naima on her podcast, Coliving Conversations.
To introduce yourself to our readers, please tell us who you are, what you do, and how you share your work with the world.
Naima von Ritter Figueres, co-founder and Head of Community and Wellbeing for Conscious Coliving.
“My name is Naima von Ritter Figueres, and I am co-founder and Head of Community and Wellbeing for Conscious Coliving. We are on a mission to help solve the global loneliness, environmental, and housing crises through connection-oriented coliving.
While coliving spaces have emerged over the past few years offering community and convenience, the sector has not yet reached its full potential in fostering happy, healthy communities as well as resilient, and sustainable societies.
We support coliving businesses and communities to embed social, environmental, and financial value through consulting, research, content, and training.
Our award-winnining Community Facilitation Handbook, as well as the Coliving Manifesto and Coliving Conversations podcast are all free resources we offer to help serve the coliving movement.”
What sparked your interest in coliving?
“My interest in coliving was sparked through my personal experience of loneliness. While working in different countries on sustainable development, I often felt painfully alone. At first, I hid my suffering. But once I started opening up about it, I found out many other people I knew were also experiencing loneliness — some of whom had been living in the same place for ten years!
So I realized it wasn't just me. Loneliness was a systemic issue with severe negative consequences on our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. It was then that I began researching possible solutions and came across coliving as a concept.
I fell more and more in love with coliving as I learned it could be a solution not only to loneliness, but also to the mental health, environmental, and housing crises we are all facing.”
Pros and Cons of Coliving
What did your experience of friendship look like before you got into coliving, and what does it look like now?
Group photo of Naima’s coliving community. Looks like a fun bunch :)
“I've always been quite social and enjoyed building up different circles of friends wherever it was possible.
Now I am a bit more grounded in Costa Rica and this is where I have my biggest and closest friendship circle. However, I also have friend groups in the cities I visit regularly in Berlin, London, and Salta, Argentina.
Through my coliving space in Costa Rica, Stolas Coliving, I get to meet a lot of new people. Some come and go within a few months, others stay for years. This help bring both a consistency and a freshness to my friendships!”
Can you share a brief story about a friendship success that could have only happened for you in a coliving environment?
“One of my close friends is originally from Venezuela and has lived with us in our coliving space in Costa Rica. She is very knowledgeable about many things that I’m interested in, including shamanism and natural ways of healing, so we immediately connected when she arrived.
Through casual encounters on a daily basis in the coliving space, we get to geek out on these topics together. Whether we are preparing breakfast, doing some gardening, or lighting up and chilling, we both love to learn from each other! As well as have fun and dance a lot. :D”
What are some of your personal highs and lows when it comes to coliving?
“One of my personal lows was when I went through a period of being mentally and emotionally unwell. I felt like an imposter in my coliving space. I would ask myself, ‘How can I be Head of Community and Wellbeing for my coliving company, if I can't even be well myself and I’m barely contributing to the community here?’
So I was kind of beating myself up about it. Later I learned to bring more compassion to myself. But it was a rough patch.
On a high note, I love the social life and possibilities that are available to me just by living in a coliving space. For instance, we have yoga twice a week, games and drinks on Thursdays, and karaoke that happens spontaneously.
I also love having access to communal spaces that I wouldn’t otherwise have in a more traditional living situation. For instance we have a large community garden, several lounge areas, a multi-purpose room, co-working areas, and a market.”
Coliving Advice
If someone’s thinking about getting into co-living, what would be your advice for them?
Naima’s coliving house in Costa Rica
“If you are looking to get into coliving as a resident, look at what the space offers in terms of community and wellbeing. Because from our experience, these two areas are very influential in making a positive resident experience.
Is there at least one dedicated community facilitator or manager for every 30 residents? Are there community events hosted regularly? Are residents encouraged to engage and participate? Are there good communication and feedback channels? Are community and wellbeing metrics included in the key business performance indicators?”
How can folks find you online and keep up with your work?
“People can check out our website ConsciousColiving.com for tons of open-source content and research related to all things coliving. The award-winning Community Facilitation Handbook, with a super useful toolbox at the end of it, can also be downloaded for free.
And then, of course, our podcast Coliving Conversations is out now! The show shines a light on the people, projects and places of the blossoming coliving movement. It primarily asks the question, “How is shared living already tackling some of the biggest challenges that we face today AND how can we scale it in the way that the world needs?”
It was great to have you on for our second episode, Facilitating Connection and Friendship in Community Living. It’s an amazing and very insightful conversation and anyone who likes this blog post should be sure to check it out!”
Keep growing, keep building
To get inspiration for creating stronger friendships and cultivating more community in your life, subscribe to the We Should Get Together newsletter, sent from the desk of Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
