community 2.0

In our opening discussions, we came up with some Practical Visions we have:

1. Several homes on one block, perhaps one where several people live together (singles, some couples) and the other houses are individual households.
2. We want to be able to walk to each other’s homes
3. We want to share a garden

Field Trip!! Sunday, November 5^th at 2pm

We’re going to visit “Last Organic Post” which is a (secular) communal living situation with an entrepreneurial organic garden. Then we’re going to drive around Denver Harbor to get a feel for the neighborhood.

Next time we meet:

1. We’re going to have examples of homes available in the Denver Harbor area
2. We’re going to talk finances.

a.      Those who know about financing a home and things of that sort are going to teach the rest of us a bit about financial options

b.      Where are you financially? You can disclose as much as you want. We want to know what keeps you from taking steps towards moving in? Where are you with debts?

c.      Think about what keeps you from being able to move in and decide whether you want to make some needs known to the community. Do you want help? How can we help?

Jen and Jessy (the former Steen sisters) are going to be making a book with pictures of available houses with details of what they cost and what mortgages would be with various percentages in down payments. LADIES: anyone else interested in helping us make this scrapbook?

(Clint knows the main realtor in Denver Harbor (John Anderson) who will help us decipher the good homes from the lemons)

Changes to be made to Manifesto:

1. Possibly change wording to make parts not sound anti-American or caustic or abrasive
2. Add a sentence to fix this? Something about denying self-service, self-gratification prevalent in American Dream
3. We don’t want to be unnecessarily inflammatory
4. Changes must be posted online

Ways to bring a little Justice in the world:

1. Widow in Argentina (Maritza Banispiero) she works full time but cannot make ends meet with 5 kids. They are living missionally in a rough area of town and she lives next door to the main drug lords of the area. They have a broken septic tank that is flooding the house and no fence to separate them from the neighborhood. Ecclesia has already raised $1,600 and we need another $1,600 to fix the problems.
2. Justice for Janitors: here in Houston, janitors make about $20 a day. They are forced to work only part time so that the companies that employ them can avoid paying for benefits. CEOs of Fortune 500 companies make more than 11 million a year but weren’t willing to negotiate to give hard working people basic compensation for their work. Therefore the janitors have gone on strike. By Thursday night, there were 1,300 janitors on strike and Ian is part of a coalition of clergy that is negotiating with the CEOs. If you want to get involved, Ecclesia is having a food drive to help support the striking janitors. If you want to volunteer to help the cause, contact Ian.
3. Don’t forget that the people at Chacocente still need a well. Our winter time is their dry season.
4. If you want to make a donation to any of these things, there is a link on this site to Logos Communities.