Can’t Find A Place to Live? Have you Considered Intentional Community Living?

The last few years have been unprecedented in the housing market with record prices and a chronic shortage of available homes.

And now many face a cost of living crisis as the price of everyday life spirals ever upwards.

The result is that many people are struggling to find an affordable home to rent let alone to buy, many others need to downsize to save money, whilst others have buyer remorse and their new home or location is not all they dreamt it would be.

But every cloud has a silver lining.

When moving home people predominately are looking for a better way of life, often with a garden to grow veg and maybe enjoy an outdoor living space, where they can be part of a real community, and where their quality of life is vastly improved.

Necessity is the mother of invention, or in this case, prices and scarcity and not being able to find a community you wish to live amongst may leave you more open to alternatives that you may not have considered before.

Now, this is not an option for everyone, but if you are seeking a certain lifestyle within a real community, then intentional community living may just be for you.

In this week’s home moving blog, we look at communal living and I will relay my experience of living within a Buddhist community for several years to give you an idea of whether or not this is a lifestyle choice for you.

You may also like to read: Can Moving Home Make You Happier? In this guide, we examine whether moving home will solve all your problems or will your problems travel with you to your new home.

What is an Intentional Community?

An intentional community is one where a number of people with similar goals or interests live. A place where people choose to live rather than have to live due to other lifestyle choices.

It is a community where you actively live your life in line with your values and beliefs.

There are many different structures of how these communities are set up and managed. Some you buy a property within the community, some you pay rent, and some exchange food and board for work.

Most have self-contained accommodations with communal socialising and working areas.

But they all have a common goal or interest, something that gels the community together, where the residents seek a fulfilling and satisfying life.

The residents all work together sharing responsibilities for ensuring the community thrives and for the good of the community as a whole.

When researching intentional community life you will see it referred to in various ways. Intentional living is also known as:

• Communes
• Co-Housing Projects
• Co-living
• Collective Houses
• Housing Co-Operatives
• Eco-Villages
• Off-Grid Communities

You may also like to read: The Ultimate Guide to Moving Into a Shared House. House shares are similar but very different to intentional communities. The occupants of a shared house usually have no common bond whereas intentional communities most certainly do. However, you may find some of the advice in this article useful when deciding if you could live under the same roof as multiple other people.

What are the Different Types of Intentional Communities?

There are several ways in which intentional communities are set up and finding the right one for you will depend upon what your interests are or how you wish to live.

#1 Co-housing Communities: Co-housing is where the community tends to live in separate houses or flats within a complex but share common areas.

#2 Mansion Communes: Where the residents live within a mansion or large home in the country.

#3 Urban Communes: Large shared houses or housing co-ops within an urban environment.

#4 Spiritual Communes: Communities that share a religious or spiritual belief.

#5 Low Impact Communities: These are off-grid, totally self-sustained communities.  

My Experience of Commune Life

12 years or so ago I was a volunteer at a Buddhist centre in the Midlands.

It was a large country house with both separate houses and self-contained rooms within the main house, whilst there were communal areas including a large dining area and the grounds.

Some people worked regular jobs, others volunteered full-time, and others volunteered as their spare time allowed.

Volunteers got bed and board in exchange for work done around the centre, whilst permanent residents paid rent.

There was a mix of residents ranging from young families with children in houses to single retirees in bedsits.

A rota detailed the tasks you were assigned each week, which could be helping in the kitchen, cleaning communal areas, making repairs, or gardening.

There was an amazing sense of community, everybody helped everybody, and although there was plenty of work to be done, it was always in a stress-free and relaxed environment.

You would imagine that being around people in such close proximity, working and living together, with people often passing through, there would be tensions and conflicts but that just never happened. Everybody just got along.

The opportunity to learn new skills, pass on your skills, understand other people’s viewpoints, to appreciate other cultures, only added positivity to the whole experience.

The sense of contentment, of appreciating your surroundings was immense. The house, the grounds, and the community all contributed to a feeling of wellness both physical and mental.

As you drove onto the estate it was as if the world stopped at the gates and you entered a different realm.

There was no judgment, no materialism, no peer pressure, no noisy neighbours, and no antisocial behaviour.

Just a community of people who sought a quiet and meaningful existence and who respected each other.

And I think that is a crucial point to make about communal living. Mutual respect and shared values.

Whether that be a spiritual viewpoint, a desire to live a sustainable life, or some other common goal, it is that mutual goal, that shared aim, that nurtures respect and tolerance among the residents.

Communal living is not for everyone, but it does offer what many people are seeking these days.

I would suggest that any community you are considering joining you should visit as many times as you can, perhaps go on a volunteering holiday there and really get to know the community first.

Community living historically was not a lifetime choice, most did it for a few years, especially during the 60s and 70s.

That trend is now changing and people are committing to this way of living for life. The benefits are so many it is easy to see why.

You may also like to read: Everything You Need to Know About Making a Small Home Work for You. Often, moving to an intentional community will mean downsizing your home, although this is not always the case. But if you find yourself in that situation you may find the tips and advice in this article invaluable.

The Benefits of Living in an Intentional Community

As I said earlier, community living is not for everyone, but there are certainly more pros than cons when it comes to living in an intentional community.

#1 Community Living

Humans have always lived in communities, in tribes, in groups, it is our natural social environment.

It is only in recent years that we sought single-family homes, to isolate ourselves from those around us resulting in loneliness and an insular society. 

Intentional community living takes us back to our roots, to where we all helped each other to reach our common goal, to pass on knowledge and skills, and to have social interaction.

#2 Self Development

Moving into an intentional community may open you up to a whole array of new experiences, to learning new skills, to enable you to share your skills, to be more tolerant, to be more forgiving, and to develop new social skills, a whole host of ways that will help you grow and develop as a person.

#3 Simpler Lifestyle

Many communities centre on a simpler, more appreciative lifestyle, where people and experiences are valued more than possessions.

Having a focus, say on sustainable living, means that you forget all the commercialism, the petty interferences of day-to-day life, it concentrates your mind on what is important to have a fulfilling life.

#4 No Peer Pressure

Often, not only does the community have a common interest, but also tends to be economically comparable. So there is no peer pressure to have the latest or flashiest things.

#5 Cheaper Lifestyle

In many instances, intentional living can be a cheaper way to live.

There are shared appliances, for example, property maintenance is often carried out by the community, and food and utility costs are shared.

#6 Better for the Planet

Aside from the full off-grid communities which are obviously eco-friendly, the whole concept of intentional living is better for the planet.

Communal cooking for example is better than running six ovens in different households and most communities grow their own fruit and veg.

#7 Better for the Kids

A real positive of community life is that the kids not only have a safe environment in which to live but they are exposed to a wealth of skills, knowledge, and interaction from all the other kids and adults in the community.

They grow up learning the value of friendship, tolerance, of understanding, as well as a better understanding of the planet on which we live.

Kids tend to thrive in intentional communities, they are not exposed to the materialism that most kids are, and they receive real-life skills that many kids never will.

You may also like to read: Moving Home to Live the Good Life. In this post, we look at the whole subject of moving home to live a more frugal, simpler, sustainable, and satisfying life.

Is Intentional Living for You?

There is a huge array of intentional communities all over the UK as well as overseas, each with different management styles, different accommodation choices, and different focuses.

Research, research, and more research is the key to finding the right community for you.

Visit often before committing, speak with other residents, and be sure that it is a life that you could happily live.

Even within genres, many communities have a different democracy and a different way of operating which can have a positive or negative effect.

Many people choose to travel and stay at different communes for short periods of time, while others make a lifelong commitment to one community, and the options are yours to take.

And there is such a broad range of age groups, social classes, and diverse cultures, that you will surely find a community that you feel comfortable with.

From a personal point of view, I found the experience life-changing, I learned so much not only about other people but about myself. Life skills that will stay with me forever.

Intentional living offers a way of life that many aspire to and offers a quick route to living a sustainable lifestyle for example.

Many people want to live a certain lifestyle but have neither the skills nor the land that would enable them to do so.

Intentional communities are already set up, they have the land and knowledge base that will help you realise your dreams.

The biggest question is do you believe enough in your beliefs to want to live by them?

You may also like to read: 11 Invaluable Tips for People Who Move Home Frequently. If you choose to live a more nomadic lifestyle between intentional communities, which many people do, then the tips within this guide will be invaluable to you.

Useful Intentional Living Resources

As mentioned earlier, finding the right community for you is essential.

Here are some really useful websites for intentional living communities within the UK, a quick internet search will give results for such communities overseas if that would suit you better.

Diggers & Dreamers – One of the best resources out there for intentional living in the UK. Not only will you find a huge amount of useful information about the lifestyle but can find communities that are actively seeking members. You can search by region or community type making it easy to find potential communities.

Lowimpact.org has over 650 listings of intentional living communities around the UK as well as a useful blog and courses that you can attend.

Ic.org is the website of the Foundation of Intentional Living where you can find a wealth of information as well as a directory of UK and International intentional living communities. 

Once you have found your new place to live be sure to come back and visit our home moving blog where you will find a huge library of topics to make your home move cheaper and easier.

Good luck, this could be the start of a wonderful new life for you.