Housing Co-op

Since our inception, The Emmaus Community has dreamed about being both a dispersed and a residental community; with some of our  members sharing life and presence together and practicing hospitality in a place-based hub. 

We see this vision as something akin to an monastery - but where diverse members can live as singles, couples and families in their own spaces - and then go daily from 'temple to table' (Acts 2) together.

The vision, ultimately is one of a sharing of life, living more simply, offering radical hospitality and engaging in spiritual practice.  Put another way, the space, will be a 'container' to move deeper into our shared committments to prayer, presence and simplicity. 

Through our development as a community, we've already started to live into some of these practices we envision sharing in our residental aspects; shared meals, deep and ongoing intentional formation, inviting those seeking hospitality, shaping our conflict resoultuion and anti-oppression practices, some elements of an informal sharing economy - and of course, all rooted in the foundation of daliy prayer and contemplation. 

From 2014-2022 Belmont House served as a community hub (Belmont was sold in 2024).  From 2018-2020 we ran our Priory, a space of hospitality and retreat - which closed due to Covid.  In 2023, we renewed our committment to being a neo-monastic and intentional Christian Community and in 2024 we renewed our search of space to build this!

We believe that a residental and community hub would create space to do this for some of our members who are called into this kind of life - and hopefully with others / other groups who share similar values. 

We've registered the Burning Hearts Housing Cooperative as a vehicle to have this vision come to be in the years to come.  We've been working on a business plan, and a model that will foster diversity and stability.

There have been a number of false starts (and will likely be more), but we continue to believe that God is calling us into something deep, bold and daring in how we live together and live with others.

Currently, we are looking for a long-term lease or purchase or a land or building.

We continue to believe that this vision, which would seek to create affordable and sustainable spaces for a diversity of people, fosters community and deeper spirituality, and could be a model for others to develop cooperative housing. 

We also see it as an emerging post-Christendom organic, local, embodied way of being church.

We seek the means to move forward in this vision, with burning hearts.

We cherish your well-wishes, ideas, hopes and prayers for sustenance as we continue to work toward this dream.

 

* note, the images are from Vancouver CoHousing, which we visited in 2019 and Old Grace Co-op in Winnipeg.