Charlotte Shade is a friend of mine and I’ve watched with interest and admiration as her group of housemate/friends have bought a house, had babies and brought them up together in a loving non-nuclear family group.

In this conversation Charlotte and I explore where the idea of buying a house with friends came from, how her group made it happen and what they’ve learnt in the process. Being a lawyer, Charlotte has a unique perspective and set of skills. She created this legal agreement, which enables the group to navigate potentially difficult situations like someone wanting to leave. They have made this agreement open-source so that other groups can use or modify as needed.

I was particularly struck by one thing that Charlotte said:

“I’ve realised that you can just do things differently if you want. You just have to do it. It's not necessarily going to be plain sailing, but when is life ever plain sailing? It's hard. There's going to be difficult things. So why not do something different?”

It struck me that these different pathways are open to us if we have the curiosity to look for them and the patience and confidence to navigate the challenges. It was clear from talking to Charlotte that the gains of energy, time and connection far outweigh the challenges of owning a house with friends. She call her and her partner “time millionaires” and she feels profoundly grateful for her situation.

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits and challenges of co-buying and how to go about it, Charlotte’s house-mate Rupert has written some excellent articles:

This article describes the process they went through to find their house.

This article provides details on the legal and financial side of the process.

This article describes the process of coming up with shared values.

And this article is about having a baby while buying and co-owning a house.

This week the tables have turned. Hannah gets to fulfil her dream of being a podcast host and I have a go at answering difficult questions about my childhood, the economics of my life, why I’ve chosen to focus on home and kāinga, what I hope to achieve in this project and why I feel like a piglet suckling an enormous industrial mother pig.

It was a treat to explore the ideas and epiphanies this project is bringing me. I feel shocked that it has taken me 41 years to begin to understand the ways our economic system controls our lives. Despite my deep desire to connect with community and the whenua, I find myself relying on big corporations for my day-to-day sustenance - supermarkets, banks, oil companies etc. Ironically it feels simpler and less risky to keep suckling at these impersonal industrial entities than it does to do business with friends and family. It seems to me that we’ve lost a fundamental ability to work together and to sustain ourselves from the earth. That feels scary! But I do have hope that by understanding more and connecting more we can start to detach ourselves from the teats of the industrial mother pig and reshape the way energy and resources flow.

I’m very excited to share this conversation with 19 year old activist and student, Anika Green. She grew up in an inner city Christian community called Stillwaters in Te Whanganui a Tara which aims to provide a space of belonging, transformation and faith for anyone who needs it. In her childhood home she was surrounded by all kinds of people who loved and cared for her, including homeless people, gang members, sex workers and refugees. She never learnt to view these people through a lens of difference. By hearing their stories and sharing in their grief and joys she learnt about issues of poverty, discrimination and injustice in a very personal and immediate way. By the age of four she was already a passionate advocate for social justice and her commitment has only grown since then.

I used to visit the Stillwaters community when I was at university for the dinners and services they hosted every Friday and Sunday evening. I remember feeling like I’d come across a warm cave in a bleak landscape when I stepped inside. I was moved by the warmth and generosity with which everyone came together to eat, sing, laugh and chat. The experience cut through a sense of isolation in my life. It was refreshing and nourishing to get out of my bubble.

In this conversation with Anika we explore the economics of her childhood home - how they afforded to feed so many people every week, where the energy and resources came from and how they balanced the needs of their family with those of the community. She told me about the home she’s creating for herself with other young students and her vision for how homes with open doors could provide the belonging and dignity people need to thrive.

I was particularly struck by one thing Anika said:

“When you know you’re loved and belong, it’s easy to be selfless.”

To me, this statement speaks to the heart of economic system change. The Good Energy Project has taught me that alternative economic systems which honour the planet and people are possible - but they require a profound shift in the way we relate to each other. As Bryan Ines pointed out in our conversation last year, we need to re-learn how to work together.

Talking with Anika, I had the sense that she lives in a wider field to other people. She has a huge capacity for service and connection because she receives so much from the people around her. She lacks the barriers, fears and indoctrinated ideas that cause other people to shut down.

This conversation spurred some deep reflections of my own sense of belonging and my capacity to open my door and welcome people in. This has been both inspiring and confronting. I don’t think I could live in a home with an open door as Anika does at this stage. I don’t feel I have the capacity, the skills to establish healthy boundaries or a deep enough sense of belonging to draw on. But I feel deeply inspired by the openness and generosity Anika shows and I want to engage in the slow work of opening up and connecting across difference.

It strikes me that unless we find pathways to belonging and ways to heal our own sense of displacement and shame, we won’t have the capacity to show up for each other or the planet.