Imagine lively people-scaled  communities dotting the San Francisco Bay Area - places co-created by their residents for raising kids, for  retirement, for growing food or simply  living well by sharing more. The Bay Area already has  ecovillages, and cohousing neighborhoods, resident-owned housing cooperatives, and group houses -- real world places where we can live more sustainably through a more cooperative way of life. You can have both privacy and community when you know your neighbors on purpose, in day-to-day relationships based on common vision and values.

East Bay Cohousing (EBCOHO) is a Bay Area-wide MeetUp. It is hosted by Cohousing Coaches Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris of Berkeley Cohousing and their business, Planning for Sustainable Communities. We connect a wide variety of kindred spirits and resources.  We support individuals wanting to learn more, forming groups looking to create community together, and members of existing communities. We are mostly in the East Bay and San Francisco; others are from the North and South Bay, Los Angeles, Nevada, and other parts of the US and Mexico. Sister meetups and other online sites hosted by PfSC include: San Francisco Cohousing, Silicon Valley Cohousing, Aging in Community, and Future of Community.

There are over two dozen cohousing communities in the greater Bay Area, (more cohousing in Oakland than any other U.S. city). There are also dozens of other emerging and long-established intentional communities in our network. EBCOHO members have recently bought or rented homes in cohousing neighborhoods and cooperatively owned apartment buildings in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland ,  Pleasant Hill, Grass Valley, Santa Rosa, and Nevada City. We have members living in Swan's Market Cohousing, Triple Point, Temescal Commons, Berkeley Cohousing, Parker Street Coop, Berkeley Town House, Addison Court Coop and established forming groups.

We host EBCOHO events for members, and link you to  other events featuring a global network of friends and allies: pioneers in cooperative culture and sustainable communities: urban farmers,  affordable housing developers, green builders, and creative visionaries in the movements for more open, user-friendly and collaborative technologies, economies, and governments.  There's a global reinvention of communiies going on - both on the ground and online -- and the Bay Area  is one of the world's epicenters.

EBCOHO has more events than our MeetUp-based home page can show fully, so please click on our  Calendar to see more. Join for free to get involved! There's no charge for basic membership, but  supporting members get discounts on some events, including socials, and workshops, cohousing books, and  Cohousing Coaching.

Start your journey with an ORIENTATION or join us for social events, talks, slide shows training and community-building workshops to learn the tools for developing good group process, healthy relationships, and on the other side, the community finance, the sharing economy, and real estate development. Find others who share your vision for supportive neighbors. Do it for yourself, for your family, for your parents, do it for the Earth! Make 2013 the year to deepen YOUR community connections.

East Bay Cohousing is a labor of love organized by Cohousing Coaches Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris. It is a project of our business and consulting firm, Planning for Sustainable Communities. PfSC combines 40 years of experience providing research and technical assistance to public and private clients in the areas of community and economic development, business planning, data management and software development.