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$1,020 / 1br - 240ft2 - Maitri House intentional community (Takoma Park)
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Founded in 2008 in Takoma Park, we’re a joyful intentional community of friends who enjoy living together with shared values. We recognize and celebrate the challenges of this journey as we seek a balance between collective responsibility and individual agency. We strive to live more sustainably and to act with concern for the well-being of people and the planet. We nurture the skills we believe essential for reaching our goals: a constructive and deliberate culture around communication and conflict resolution.
We’re seeking a new housemate(s) who we hope to become friends with! Over the years, we’ve developed effective processes for:
- Collective decision-making
- Sharing house labor
- Helping each other to identify and process tensions that arise between us
- Sharing funds for food and household supplies (while everyone has and manages their own finances)
- Sharing and integrating feedback to change the way we do things
- Co-owning our large house (a three-story brick house with 11 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and ⅓ acre)
We like to cultivate a home that’s:
- Welcoming to each others’ guests
- Free from artificial fragrances
- Stocked with shared vegan food and healthy cleaning supplies, but welcoming of all personal food
- Low in alcohol and intoxicants
- Multigenerational and family-friendly
- Reasonably tidy, but homey and far from pristine
- Supportive of and connected with one of our members who’s a young woman with significant developmental differences who lives with her family
- With several shared meals each week
Culturally, we lean:
- Lefty, with a stance of being hard on systems and soft on people
- Feelings-oriented with lots of conversations about our inner lives
- Nerdy/intellectual and science-oriented
- Playful and thoughtful
- Away from prescriptions around gender
- Pluralistic, mostly secular, and not very woo-woo
Some things at least several of us like to do:
- Grow, forage, and cook local foods
- Go on outdoor adventures
- Dance, craft, and/or sing
- Play board games, party games, RPGs, etc
- Host events for the wider community in our large living-dining room. For example: workshops, fundraisers, film screenings, potlucks, political gatherings, games, crafts, and improv nights.
Living like this is quite different from the US norm. It has pros and cons – it’s great for some and isn’t for everyone – so our getting-to-know each other process is a little long, usually taking around a month. If possible, after several visits and reading our internal operating documents, we ask you to stay with us and live your life from here for a week. This “visitor period” helps you and us see what it’d be like to live together.
About the room:
A large room on the 2nd floor facing South and West, measuring a little larger than 13’x18′ with a walk-in closet that occupies some of that area. Occupancy cost for this room is 990/month, and is expected to increase to 1020/month in Jan 2026.
What is the monthly equity contribution? In brief, this is a way new members build up their co-ownership investment in the community. It is money that remains theirs and earns interest.
Additional costs:
All utilities, including high-speed internet, are included in the room cost. There is also a community fund ($160/mo) that covers an abundance of vegan food, laundry supplies, and cleaning supplies. It is entirely possible to eat very well without spending additional money on food.
Room sharing is welcome. There is an additional cost of $135 per month per additional occupant over 2 years old.
Co-ownership:
Lastly, we ask for an initial equity investment into the co-ownership structure equivalent to one month’s room fee, somewhat analogous to a security deposit, and an ongoing input of $50/month if possible for the first year to develop your ownership share.
If you’re interested in exploring joining us:
In our experience, the process to be accepted as a community member can take a month or longer. If that doesn’t work with your timeframe, you probably want to prioritize other housing options.
Please reply to this ad with:
1) a few sentences about yourself,
2) what draws you to want to explore living with us,
3) when you’re looking to join and how long you’re interested in, and
4) what are your thoughts about joining this community in particular during the pandemic?
Please feel free to ask any questions. We’ll share our document of intention, which lays out many of our shared agreements and practices around living together, communication and conflict guide, and other core documents about our community. We will then schedule in-person visits, or video meetings if the former is not possible. If it’s logistically possible, we prefer to arrange a visitor stay of a week or more to have a better sense of what it would be like to live together.