Each year we have some new members join our household and some previous members depart for new adventures.
If you’re interested in exploring living at Maitri House: Our process for welcoming new members typically starts with email or phone exchanges to hear about what interests you in community living and to explain the nature of our community. We also share our document of intention and practice, which holds many of the shared understandings and practices that allow our community to function so well. We want you to carefully read both our vision and values and our document of intention and practice in order to get as clear a picture as possible of our community. We want to know that you understand and are drawn to the vision and values that make us a community. We also prefer that, whenever possible, prospectives visit our community and meet everyone else. In cases where that’s not practically possible, we make other arrangements such as phone calls or skype meetings.
If you are interested in looking into living at Maitri House, please contact:
Jane Connor at 202-684-5974
or Ryan McAllister at ryan [at] notjustskin.org
What’s great about Maitri House? If you
- deeply value high quality relationships with people
- want to live a vision of a world in which people are in compassionate relationship with each other
- believe that people can work out their differences so that everyone’s needs are cared for
- trust that in loving community we all become more of who we want to be
- support lifestyle choices that contribute to the sustainability of the planet, its resources and all people
- and want to be engaged in the place you live
then our community may be just what you are looking for.
We welcome individuals, couples, and families to in our intentional community. (Single parents with children welcome too.) We welcome housemates of any ethnicity, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, and age.
About us: We are composed of both families and single people, with children and 1 dog among us. We strive to devote attention and caring to our relationships with one another and live our lives as a form of social change. Many of us are also activists in the larger world.
Location: Manor Circle, Takoma Park, MD. 2 blocks from the food-co-op, walking distance to Takoma metro stop, farmers’ market, restaurants, library, community center, Sligo Creek park, yoga center, Liz Lerman dance exchange, and tot-lots.
Building Type: The house is a four-story, brick building with 12 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and much common space to share. It features many garden plots and fruit trees for home-grown food, outdoors swings, a bee hive, a large bike and tool shed, a giant clothesline, and a spacious balcony for outdoor lounging and sleeping under the stars.
Co-ownership model: We have developed a hybrid co-ownership model that makes it possible to buy-in or develop equity over time in the legal entity that owns the building.
Sharing: We each choose community service roles of approximately 5 hrs/wk, for house/yard work (cleaning, cooking, child care, gardening, maintenance, finances, etc). Our community fund provides for the food, 5 or more vegan-inclusive house meals per week, and eco-friendly household products. We also divert significant amounts of fresh, still-wrapped food from the waste stream, significantly reducing our food budget.
Among us: Environmental and social change activists, dancers, musicians, people who like to play outside, adults, children, parents, and non-parents.
We’re looking for others who:
- Are dedicated to intentional and compassionate communication
- Desire to live in and contribute to community
- Desire to contribute to the larger world and sustainability
- Are socially progressive and environmentally minded
- Enjoy children
- Are interested in “my room is my private space” living
- Keep community spaces pleasant, clean, safe, and inviting places to live
- Want to share in household responsibilities
- Will engage by participating with reliability in house meetings, house work, and group decision making
- Are interested in shared activities, events, house meals, building neighborhood community
- Enjoy simply hanging out w/housemates
- Don’t smoke or use drugs (drinking at our house is also uncommon)
- Will compost, recycle, and use the clothesline (we do have a dryer for cold, rainy days)
- Can live without harmful synthetic chemicals (especially synthetic fragrances and other chemicals that get in the air… Note that this means avoiding products with the ingredient “fragrance”)
Goals and Decision-making: We have created a values and vision statement, and a document of intention and practice that describes our approach and goals in more detail. We use a values-based consensus model of decision-making and have committees of interest so that community members to have the opportunity to be involved in decisions that will affect them or the house.
