Counter-cultural Hiccups

I’m not sure why we assumed that something counter-cultural wouldn’t hit some bumps in the road.  We sort of thought the hardest part would be telling our parents (which was not easy for some of us, and not as bad as others expected).  But some other challenges have come forward from several systems.  In other words, the man is trying to keep us down.

The first complication:  DSS.  Alex and I are foster parents, and while we don’t have any foster kiddos right now, we’re hoping that a certain errant teenager will come back to live with us.  And Erin and Ryan have had hopes to become foster parents as well.  But having foster kiddos at the community shouldn’t be a problem, right?  It will be a village raising children –six adults, six permanent kiddos, plus some foster kiddos.   What a terrific environment for children who need lots of love and attention!

Nope.  DSS interprets their regulations as requiring that a foster home can’t have more than six children.  And this is true no matter how many adults live there.  So a 1:7 ratio of adults to kids is not okay, and neither is a 6:7 ratio.  [As an attorney, I’m hesitant to ask the question “does this rule make sense” because, let’s face it, not much in the legal world makes sense at first glance. BUT DOES THIS RULE MAKE ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER?].  I urged DSS to interpret the regulation in a way that contemplates how many children the adult is caring for, so that it’s not assumed that Alex and I are the primary caregivers for all of the children just because we happen to be foster parents who live with them.  But it’s not clear if DSS will agree with me.  They’ve been considering this question for over a month, with no answer yet from Pierre. 

I don’t want to say a lot about our foster daughter, but for many reasons based on her history and our time together Alex and I have decided that we don’t want to be the ones to close the door to her living with us again.  Honestly, I’m not sure DSS will place her with us again, but there is reason to hope that this is possible and we don’t want to shut down this possibility.  So, DSS’s answer on this is decisive in our living in the community.  If DSS says no, we’re not moving in. 

Hurdle number two:  the City.  Erin and Ryan’s idea for the community was born out of the real estate flyer, which said that this church was zoned for multifamily use, as well as for a church.  Which is technically true, but (as we’re finding out) doesn’t mean that the building itself is acceptable as a multifamily housing unit.  In other words, you could build an apartment building in this area of the city, but you could not necessarily turn any house into an apartment building.  Again, I’m not sure why we expected that the City’s ordinances could accommodate every wacky idea its citizens might come up with, when the whole point of zoning and planning guidelines is to protect against wacky ideas that may diminish a neighbor’s property value.  I won’t go into all the details, but it became apparent that the more we asked of the City the more they could demand of us.  And for a host of reasons, including my job with the City, this hurdle primarily affects Alex and me. 

So don’t be naïve, all you crazy hippies who think this way of life might be for you.  Because of the unconventional nature of an intentional community arrangement, and possibly because of some lingering biases against people who choose to live outside of the mainstream, there may be institutional barriers which get in the way of your ideas.  This outsider status is a new position for me, since I’m probably the most conventional, rules-oriented adult in the bunch.  Plus I’m a liberal, so it’s expected that I generally support government involvement and regulations that are designed to help citizens.    

So it seems like I may be seeing the limits of our institutions from a different place than I'm used to (i.e. as a lawyer).  Since moving outside the mainstream was actually part of the point of participating in the community in the first place, I really shouldn’t be surprised that our culture's systems doubt the legitimacy of our proposal.  But over the course of the last few weeks I’ve become disappointed by our institutions and their dumb rules that can’t comprehend that an intentional community is a good thing for children, possibly a great environment for a needy teenager, and a source of life and energy for a neighborhood.  I can see it; why can’t everyone else?