"I look forward to the joy, cost savings, positive environmental impacts, and loving and caring community that co-housing can offer!"
-Jeremy
"I'm greatly looking forward to sharing cooking and food and activities with my new Haystack neighbors. Laughing over a cup of tea or glass of wine, or working together in the workshop or garden. But also having quiet time in our home."
- Cindy
"We envision ourselves living in a place where we can grow food, share meals, and raise our child(ren), surrounded by an involved and supportive community."
- Amy and Colin
"To have our future kids be able to run outside and play with friends and not have to worry about cars or driving across town will be a dream come true."
- Mariah
"I love cohousing because it's all about doing things together for a better and easier life. It makes sustainability less work and more fun because you add community to the equation in meaningful ways."
- Jim
"We've lived abroad and enjoy exploring different cultures and communities. Cohousing is a natural extension of these explorations. While we've enjoyed living in a great neighborhood, a move to the Perry District with its unique vibe, business offerings, seasonal farmer’s market, city park, and bike paths, seems like a good next step."
- Bill and Nikki
"We look forward to the support and challenge Haystack cohousing promises for both community and sustainable living."
- Mark and Michaele
Bob and Susan
Susan and Bob met in 1970 when they were on their way to study at a Japanese university. They both ended up moving to Spokane to work at the Environmental Symposium Series at the Expo ’74 World’s Fair. After the fair, they co-founded Northwest Regional Facilitators (NRF), a community development nonprofit. Several years later they married and their daughter Annie was born in 1987. Annie’s now an ethno-biologist working for the United Nations on biodiversity and sustainability. After leaving NRF in 2000, Bob went on to work with nonprofits in the global south and during the last six years has spent time working in Japan’s disaster area after the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and radiation melt-downs. Check out his book After Now about those experiences! After leaving NRF in the late 90s, Susan took time off to care for Annie, as well as Bob’s mom and another dear friend, as they went through their final stages of living and dying. Later through local universities, she taught intercultural communication at the MBA level and poetry writing to grade school students, as well as doing some work with Bob in Japan and continuing the design and facilitation that she’s done since the mid-1970s. Susan and Bob are avid bicyclists, spending a week each fall on Cycle Oregon. They both love to ski, and Susan is a long distance backpacker, having hiked 1500 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and hoping to complete the remaining 1100 miles in this lifetime. |
"I’m getting older. I want to spend the rest of my life in intergenerational settings where people are building true community."
- Bob
“Community has been an important thread in my life—growing up in a small town in southern Minnesota, helping creating a ‘community of scholars’ in college, co-founding an intentional community, starting women’s groups—and I look forward to more!”
- Susan
Christie and John
(Christie) What attracted me to this community are the people who are developing it. They are a vibrant, dedicated, resourceful bunch — just the kind of people I want for neighbors. Cooking is probably my favorite activity, but growing flowers and organic fruit and vegetables are a close second. I expect to put my Master Composter training to good use in the Haystack gardens, and look forward to canning some of the garden bounty with my neighbors. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom, a Welcome Wagon Hostess, a Realtor, and worked with underwriters at Spokane Public Radio. I have been a DARE volunteer and currently volunteer with Feed Cheney. In the ‘70s I wrote a weekly column for the Cheney Free Press called Christie’s Crackerbarrel. I’m counting on being a surrogate Grandma to children in the Haystack community. John and I enjoy classical music and live local theatre. Most of our travel is to visit family, and when we travel by car, we especially like to stay along the way with hosts in the bed & breakfast clubs we belong to. It’s like staying with family. (John) Boeing was my first career, and then I became a teacher. Since retiring from Eastern Washington University, I stay active by continuing to play racquetball three days a week and enjoy driving my Corvette. Playing trombone in the Project Joy Orchestra, Lilac City Community Band, Spokane Falls Community Band and the PJAMRS (Peace and Justice Activist Musical Rascals of Spokane) keeps me on my toes. We’ve lived in the same house in Cheney for over 52 years and we’re looking forward to a new community of friends in Haystack Heights. "This is quite a journey we're taking together, and I believe we're in very good company." |
"Our guest room is always ready for travelers from near and far. We look forward to the close community, shared experiences and camaraderie that cohousing offers."
- Katherine and Jerry
"I'm looking forward to learning how to bike more confidently on city streets with my new neighbors."
- Anne
“I have learned so much about building community and the design process. This cohousing project has attracted interesting people with a variety of skills that I would enjoy as neighbors."
- Ray
"I love the give and take of a high functioning community. I imagine walking into the common house and joining a spirited conversation about places I've never been or topics I've never considered. All the while young children are playing in the toddler's room and several adults are preparing dinner in the common house kitchen."
- Pat
"Many of our pursuits—reading, gardening, rowing, cycling, cooking, and even doing laundry—are solitary in nature. We look forward to sharing them with our neighbors at Haystack Heights."
- Claudine Zender
"Haystack Heights was exactly what we were looking for—without knowing it. How wonderful to find folks wanting to build a neighborhood based on caring for everyone—like the ideal village. We’re delighted to be a part of this adventure."
-Paul and Susan
Gregg
Being raised within the military community brought frequent moves across southern states and Europe, where Gregg first saw different (better) ways of living together. After sampling various intentional communities as a young adult, therapeutic and otherwise, he became a clinical psychologist focusing on helping injured workers. The move from Olympia to Spokane offers an opportunity to satisfy both a long held personal desire for community as well as a professional desire to address the often desperate plight of injured workers by joining a community of like-minded health providers within Providence occupational medicine. |
“It has been and continues to be an enjoyable and humbling experience getting to know people drawn to the cohousing community." |
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