Tour Leaders

Joani Blank, Northern California tour leader and Tours Coordinator for Coho/US, has lived in cohousing since 1992 – eight years at Doyle Street Cohousing in Emeryville, CA, and since 2000 in Swan’s Market Cohousing in Oakland. Joani served on the board of Coho/US for eight years, and has visited 64 completed cohousing communities in the U.S. and Canada in the past 12 years.

Laura Fitch, a resident of Pioneer Valley Cohousing in Massachusetts since 1994, discovered her interest in cohousing in 1980 in Denmark where she studied and toured a number of the early Danish communities. An architect with Kraus-Fitch Architects, Laura specializes in the design of cohousing communities and common houses. She enjoys sharing stories of how her community gets the work done, parenting children in community, and how she believes site and architectural design can support or detract from the community experience.

Eris Weaver is a founding member of FrogSong, a cohousing community in Cotati, CA. Her new career as a professional facilitator and group process consultant has grown directly out of her experience living and working in cohousing. She enjoys working with forming and existing communities to improve their interpersonal connections, communication skills, and decision-making processes. Cohousing has fulfilled so many of her needs, desires, and dreams, that she now can’t imagine living any other way!

Jennifer West has lived in Emeryville's Doyle St. Cohousing with her family since 2004. She is an elementary teacher by profession, with facilitation training as well. Her sister is a nine-year resident at N St. Cohousing in Davis, which is how Jennifer first got interested in this way of living. Jennifer participated in a bus tour in summer, 2003, and spent the next year trying to create a new community in the East Bay. She then took the easy route and moved into to an existing community! Her daughters are 6 and 2 years old.