Have you ever thought about “volunteering” and how de-valued it is in our current system? We, as a globe, increasingly use money as our only reward system – and the majority of productive acts we do for someone else either earns us money or is considered “volunteering”. Very few people engage regularly in a system that rewards them in other, perhaps more humane, ways. There needs to be something, whether social approval or the security of reciprocation that encourages people to give to their community. Cohousing, I believe, is one system that does value human labor, or better put “human caring”, in a way outside the capitalist monetary system. I think there are a few reasons why cohousing is effective at this, which I will explore later in a later post, but first: how I started thinking about this.
A couple of months ago I was introduced to the Beacon Hill Village – a not for profit organization based in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. The “village” is an organization set up to provide services from within the community to the community. It heavily supports aging in place, offering human labor for services as varied as driving an elderly neighbor to the doctor or hiring a handyman. It also checks out and recommends good business in the area, sometimes at a special discount. It is membership based and not only practical in getting many more services to residents. but also increases the relationships, human contact, and social capital in the neighborhood.
The Beacon Hill Village sparked a series of these villages all around the country – over 60 of them now. They are linked virtually through the Village-to-Village Network. These Villages can be seen as variations on Time Banking, and idea that is slightly broader but similar in spirit. Time banking is a practice of valuing human labor as a currency with the literal idea of putting your “time” spent working in the community into a bank, and taking out someone else’s time later, when you need it. Some entire cities, such as Ithaca NY, have embraced the idea fully – even offering IthacaHours as a legitimate form of payment in some area businesses. You volunteer and in exchange get either goods, services, or the security of services later on. It is such a cool idea!!
Here is a recent article from the New York Times New Old Age Blog on one such network: A Community Time Bank
I love this idea for several reasons:
- It works within our system rather than against it, which means it can function and even flourish NOW
- It gives value to caring. It is capitalism in it’s best, softest possible form.
- It supports aging in place
- It increases social capital and relationships in a neighborhood
- It helps freelance, unemployed, or self-employed folks who are good citizens find loyal work
- It keeps money in the community
- It provides human contact, especially to the elderly, that is so important in maintaining mental health
