Meet Us Sharing, respecting and tending to each others lives......
Terri
For many years I have been seeking community as part of my spiritual practice, which centers around my yogic lifestyle and Buddhism. Once I realized I wanted to live among others who were committed to sharing and growing together ALL THE TIME, I have never looked back. Creating a cohousing community has been my passion and the center of my life for over 6 years now. So much so that I'm also now on the National Cohousing Association board. I have been challenged to learn, change and grow far beyond what I thought possible and know that community will continue to bring these challenges with the great joys. The community of people that we have become now and continue to become, is the most amazing part of the journey for me. I am grateful to the whole community for its willingness to walk this path together.
Teams: Development, HUB, Community Agreements, Common House, and Food
Kristin, Rich, and Xander
Kristin
 I came to cohousing through a theoretical study, as a solution to create integrated housing for people with disabilties. Through the research and visiting I did during school, I became interested in living in community myself. I eventually dragged Richard to a community potluck at Milagro Cohousing in Tucson, Arizona, where we were living. And he was hooked. So when we moved to Portland, we began looking for a cohousing community and eventually started Daybreak.
I recently received my license and am now a Registered Architect in the state of Oregon. I specialize in multi-family housing - primarily low-income and special needs.
We welcomed our little boy, Xander into the world last summer and shortly thereafter moved into Daybreak. It is ... almost ... a dream come true. There's still lots of work to do and it'll be great when we have the community full. But for now, we are enjoying living in the place we dreamed about for years. Xander is such a joy and I can't wait to come home to him every day. It's been amazing to watch the interaction between him and community members.
I appreciate all the love, support and energy that the group offers and shares. Like having meals provided to us for a full month when Xander came. The personal growth we have experienced since we've come together has been huge. I am grateful for every one of our members and prospective members. And I look forward to meeting our future members. We are creating an amazing family of people.
Kristin Teams: Development, Community Authorized Support, Facilitation, Landscape/Garden, and Kids Rich
I'm often seen lurking around in dark and damp corners...well okay only when I clean the bathroom and kitchen. I like to keep things light in life–it's too short to be so serious all the time. If you have to do hard work, at least have fun doing it. Often I find that it makes work go faster. By trade, I work in IT for a growing wireless company based in Portland. It seems boring to a lot of people. I think it's all the acronyms that people have a hard time getting past. I am also the community caretaker of our mascot, the Daybreak Badger. Funny how people change over time. I've come to love community for not only the food, but the warm feelings of welcome that close friendships and neighborliness provide. That says a lot coming from a guy who wanted to live in a castle with a moat (to keep the neighbors away, of course). Rich Teams: Development and Facilities
Chris N
I took a circuitous path to arrive at Daybreak, but it was worth the journey! I moved in at the end of 2009 and have awakened with a grateful heart every day since. There’s a lot of warm human connection here.
I’ve worked as a registered nurse for many years in different settings. Time spent as a visiting nurse opened my eyes to the benefits of living in community because I saw how human relationships were more important in a person’s healing and well-being than material circumstances.
My latest undertaking is music-thanatology. By 2012, I aim to be certified to bring harp and voice to the bedside of people nearing the end of life. It has been a group endeavor! The support I’ve received from the Daybreak community as I’ve pursued this dream has been the wind beneath my wings.
Teams: Membership and Food
Ken and Scot
Ken
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia where I went to school and eventually earned degrees from Emory U and Georgia State U. I met my wife, Scot, while teaching English at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. After teaching in Atlanta and Dallas, TX for a number of years, we retired to Asheville, NC. We moved to Portland in 2007. We have a son, Max, who lives here in Portland. I enjoy cycling and traveling. Scot and I have taken many cycling tours around the world. I am involved in community work, two book clubs, two movie clubs, classes, my church and this wonderful river city.
We became interested in co-housing in Asheville when a few friends started talking about how it would be to live together. I attended an intentional community conference at a local college, read the McCamant and Durrett co-housing book, and I was hooked. This was such a sensible and meaningful way for people to live, and I was sorry I hadn't discovered it sooner. We moved into Daybreak as soon as construction was complete in 2009, and we have enjoyed the experience of growing together in community. I still believe.
Ken Teams: Membership, Community Authorized Support, and Bike
Scot
I was an Army brat. I’ve lived and traveled all over the world.
Teaching art was my career. Now, I’m an Oregon potter. Selling my work in a variety of local galleries and traveling to art shows keeps me busy. My studio is on the other side of the river. I can see it from the hot tub!
Ken and I are avid cyclists. We participated in Cycle Oregon last year, a rite to passage in the Oregon cycling community. We joined 2,000 cyclists, 6 days, and 500 + miles. Did I say camping too?
Participating in Daybreak community projects is not difficult. Digging in the dirt with a good group of neighbors is fun. Knowing that when our cooks announce that our community meal was cooked with our own produce is amazing! I love coming home to Daybreak in the evening when everyone’s lights are glowing from inside their units. “Welcome home” is the feeling that greets me.
Scot Teams: Common House, Food, Bike, and a Garden elf
SaRah
A "homeless cosmopolitan" from birth at the end of WWII, I now have no immediate family and few responsibilities. That leaves me open to develop my true response ability, even when one of my paths is to become a female curmudgeon. I have learned in my eclectic spiritual practices that I follow no guru or ideology and same in political matters. My parents gave me the gift of a great education in sending me to a private school (which I opposed politically). I think of them as the only parents I knew who seemed to truly love and respect each other. Although an Air Force brat who moved often, we never went very far from back east. When I went to college at the University of Michigan, my father returned to college at the same time, leaving our lovely suburban home for the life of a Ph.D. student after a nervous breakdown caused by trying to become management when he just wanted to remain an engineer. The cohousing design with the walkway passing by everyone's windows reminds me of what my mother hated most about her downward mobility. In a state college I realized the benefits of my private Quaker schooling when I met students with no knowledge of the world beyond their hometown whether it be a rural small town, an urban ghetto, or a rich city. Our high school sent us to MLK’s March on Washington and social activism was in my blood in those days of civil rights and Vietnam protests. When I moved to Cleveland, I did theater with the black arts center, Karamu House, and sold real estate for a black firm trying to open up the suburbs. I shook my booty in clubs to Funkadelic and got arrested for playing in a fountain. I wandered and ate in the immigrant neighborhoods and supported a levy and the poetry scene. Loving the old neighborhoods and houses, I decided to learn more about them by going back to school for architecture, which is how I came to Oregon. My friends had a plan to buy abandoned houses around Karamu House and fix them into a neighborhood for local artists. But a great tragedy happened in my "family" in Cleveland while I was in Eugene and all our dreams fell apart. I dropped out of architecture school and bought a fixer house which I shared as a rental for architecture students. So that is how over the next 15 years, I fell into my "career" as a landlord. Finally, I quit my job working for the tax assessor and followed friends to Portland. So I like to joke that I am in the two most hated professions (maybe worse than lawyers?). But I consider myself a frustrated architect and am sad that I will have no roll in Daybreak's design. There is always landscaping, which I do on all my rentals. I love the impermanence compared to buildings. I have taken several trips to Japan to study their art of gardening. After trying to get into design/development in Kansas City, Missouri, and losing most of my money there, I have a new second home in a poor town in New Mexico in between the rich towns of Santa Fe and Taos. My friends who suggested it to me are back-to-the-land movement people from the 70s and I enjoy their multigenerational community. So I am looking forward to Daybreak's. Teams: Landscape/Gardening, Facilities, Communication, and Food
Lorell
I have been living in Portland for two years with my golden retriever, Barney. I am currently going to school to become a midwife. I am passionate about supporting women to give birth outside the hospital. By the time we move into Daybreak, I will be a full-fledged midwife! Moving to Portland was like moving back home for me, because I grew up just an hour outside Portland in a town called McMinnville. In between living in McMinnville and Portland, I lived in Davis, California, for 17 years. I first moved to Davis to go to college and received my Bachelor’s of Science in civil and environmental engineering from UC Davis. But most of my time in Davis, I lived in the Muir Commons Cohousing community while working as a civil engineer for the county. Even though engineering was interesting, I did not feel passionate about it. After a lot of soul searching and personal growth, I discovered that midwifery was my passion. I loved living in cohousing and have missed living in community since moving to Portland. I love being part of Daybreak and very much looking forward to living in community again. As if I didn’t have enough things on my plate, I just started an Internet mail order business called Radiant Belly. I am selling home birth kits, supplies for midwives and some organic cotton baby clothes. Owning and operating my own business is very exciting and it is going well. In addition to midwifery, I am passionate about connecting with people, traveling the world, knitting, good food (eating and cooking it), living sustainably and protecting the environment. Teams: Membership
Laura
Laura is an authentic Pacific Northwesterner, having spent her first 18 years in Spokane, Washington, where she became a proud alumna of Holy Names Academy (which sadly no longer exists). For college, she moved to the wetter side of Washington to attend the University of Washington in Seattle during the 1970s protest era. In keeping with the spirit of the times, she dropped out of college to spend a year living in Germany where she worked in a restaurant. The realities of working in steamy kitchens and the constant bending and lifting required led her to reconsider her decision to leave the Establishment.
After finishing college, Laura went to France for a year to work as an au pair and then to Iceland for another year. Back then she dreamed of becoming a medieval historian, so knowledge of French was important. Modern Icelandic is almost the same as Old Icelandic, so it seemed a good idea at the time to study Icelandic. Watching medieval scholars at the Arne Magnusson Institute in Reykjavik, however, sobered her up about how few career opportunities were available in medieval studies. Back in Washington state, Laura worked in schools as a speech therapist, but then became interested in audiology.Missing the University of Washington’s application deadline by one month, she went to Guatemala to learn Spanish while waiting for the next academic year to come round. 1985 was not a good year for tourism in Guatemala; the country was only three years away from the height of the US-sponsored political massacres, and the terror from those times was still very palpable.
Laura got to see close up what abject poverty and political repression looked like, and how they worked hand-in-hand. She returned to Seattle with a fascination for current events in Central America. Two years later, after graduating in audiology, she volunteered for nine months with the organization Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, collecting personal testimonies of Nicaraguans victimized by the U.S.-supported Contras. After returning to Washington state, she worked contentedly as an audiologist in Yakima for five years. Then, itching for further education, she moved to Austin, Texas, to pursue a doctorate, and later taught college-level classes in California and Texas before deciding that the Pacific Northwest was a pretty special place, and being close to relatives had a lot of advantages.
She moved to Portland in 2007, met the Daybreak people in 2008 and decided that community living close to downtown in an eco-friendly environment encouraging sustainability was the way to go. Laura joined Daybreak in June 2008. She continues to work as an audiologist, and is starting her own business specializing in auditory processing testing in Portland. Over time, she has been a member of various symphony choirs or choruses. Today she is a happy to sing in a choir at the First Unitarian Church of Portland, and enjoys the many films and concerts available in Portland.
Teams: Landscape/Garden, Membership, and Social
Baird and Karen
Baird
I was born and spent much of my life in New York City - mostly in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. Working as a design engineer in the early 1960's, I came to realize that a new machine, called a computer, could do all my work in a fraction of a second. And so I became enchanted with the tool, and embarked on a wonderful thirty year career with IBM working as a systems programmer and then teaching at their computer science research institute.
Into this whirlwind of technology and worldwide lecture tours came the love of my life – Karen, from “out West” in Oregon. She was an IBM systems engineer “back East” for some technical education, so we immediately got married and started life together living in a loft apartment in an old warehouse and helping to start up a community known as Greenwich Green Cooperative. Here we raised our two daughters, and commuted to work by bicycle before bike lanes or helmets or spandex had been invented.
About twenty years ago, we moved to Portland, built our dream house up on Skyline, retired from IBM, and enjoyed life in the woods with a wonderful group of neighbors we call The Hamlet. I resumed my interests in theology and art and became especially enchanted by the art of the Northwest Pacific Coast Indian tribes – especially the Haida - who influenced my paintings for several years.
So now it is time to downsize, simplify, and get back on the grid (public transportation). Daybreak is a natural for us with its communal life, and we are looking forward to growing and learning in this new cohousing adventure.
Baird Teams: Membership, Workshop, and Communication.
Karen
I was born in Seattle and moved to Portland at age 1 which makes me “almost a native” of Oregon. My immediate family members still live in Portland although our daughters have emigrated, one to Eugene and the other to Cambridge.
I spent a year in Paris as part of my education at Willamette University. When I realized that I didn’t really want to teach French, I switched my major to math and enrolled at University of Washington. I joined IBM after graduation, hoping for an assignment to Norway at some point (I took Norwegian at UW while finishing up the requirements for a degree in French). Then came the life-changing trip to New York City for a 13-week course at IBM’s Systems Research Institute where I met Baird and his daughter Margaret. After a short courtship (we became engaged on our second date), we were married in Portland and I moved to New York City into the beautiful co-operative apartment that was our home for the next 13 years (and was my introduction to “communal living” and consensus government). Elizabeth was born two years later. Much to my surprise, raising children in the City was a wonderful experience. There were parks to play in, museums to visit, and a carousel to ride. We all rode bikes everywhere. I rode to work in my work clothes and heels and wore a long poncho when it rained. As an infant, Elizabeth rode in a front pack. When she out grew the Snugli, she rode in a Dutch seat that clipped on the handlebars. Margaret had her own bike and enjoyed riding as well. Having decided to retire in Portland, we moved our schedule ahead by 15 years when we were unexpectedly offered a transfer to the Portland IBM office just about the time Margaret enrolled at University of Oregon. I retired from IBM after 30 years and found a new life in my extensive garden on the hill. We have always entertained a lot and found a role as the center for social life in our little hamlet. We celebrated 4th of July every year with a potluck and fireworks in our driveway and had a neighborhood open house every New Year’s Day. We walk down into Forest Park every morning with the neighbors and their dogs. I have always enjoyed traveling and did a fair amount of it before I got married. My job with IBM allowed me a chance to travel as well. As a family, we loved to explore the country, and every summer went on a family vacation, usually somewhere along the east coast. We even drove back and forth across the country twice. Now that our children are gone, we have taken some fun trips on our own. I am looking forward to life in our new community. We have experienced lasting friendships from both our New York life and our life on the hill and believe that Daybreak will be another experience in building new friendships.
Karen Teams: Finance, Landscape/Gardening, Kids and Social
Pat
My first year at Daybreak has involved new challenges and a supportive community. Portland now familia with its river, trains, buses, and friendly folk. The rain shields us from the dense press of too many, but requires no sunscreen, snow shovel, or mittens.
My last home in west Los Angeles followed years in Seattle, Ann Arbor, Hartford, New Haven, Sturbridge, Lexington, Kurukshetra, Berkeley, and Sacramento. Householder years past, west-coast strewn birth family, I began the evolution toward them in 1995 after my husband died in his Connecticut birthplace. Children, Melissa and Jesse, family members San Diego to Olympia, buoy me forward--enriched by friends.
I’ve had two careers trying to improve US health care prior to my new retirement status. First, two decades as a medical administrator managing operations for Connecticut health plans--the first federally qualified HMO, Community Health Care Plan, Partner’s, and Kaiser. Then at 50, I returned to school for a University of Michigan PhD. The past nine years on the UCLA Public Health faculty were focused on researching more effective delivery of health care services while endeavoring to teach its management.
Other roles: Peace Corps, Unitarian, choir member, non-profit board member; wheeled MSer; traveler, reader, image-maker. Enough life to accumulate unexpected twists in the road. Now retired, a new lifespace to people and enjoy.
Transition Conveyance How did I get to this glorious wet spot?
The whys for another time.
Berkeley seeker to Nilokheri
Bicycle on monsoonal ride.
Husband and toddler, Kentucky to Ann Arbor
Econoline van in rain-hushed campground.
Yielding to Connecticut roots, Ecuadorian detour,
Orchid-strewn mountains, truck careening ‘round.
Drawn, post-householder, to literal learning,
Moving west in a station wagon staged.
Now, academia to community of a dearer sort,
Boxed possessions, body six-wheel propelled.
Still with a suitcase, with terror and gusto,
Arriving at DayBreak to make my home.
Teams: Steering, HUB, Finance, Facilitation
John
 I’m originally from upstate New York and moved to Portland in the summer of 2000. My career background consists of a variety of jobs in the nonprofit, education and government sectors. I’ve also been a Peace Corps volunteer and worked on international technical assistance projects in Eastern Europe and Africa. I have a graduate degree in Public Administration, and a BA in geography and economics from the State University of New York.
My Oregon work experience includes being a department administrator at OHSU, serving as the interim principal of a start up charter school in Hillsboro, and involvement in new transit construction projects as a budget analyst with TriMet capital projects.
I’ve also been active in the local community serving a four year term from 2004 to 2008 as a board member for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and being a mentor to a SE Portland youth since 2003 through the Marathon Education Partners program.
I’m an avid cyclist and completed the Portland Century as well as Cycle Oregon’s week long Round Up Ride in 2010. I live “car free” at Daybreak, and use my bike, TriMet and occasionally close by Zipcars for my transportation needs. Also, other community members allow me to frequently borrow their vehicles.
I’ve lived at Daybreak for over a year now. I enjoy the camaraderie among my fellow community members, the wonderful facilities and near by neighborhood amenities such as great coffee shops and restaurants. I also have very positive feelings about the contributions I’ve made to the community over the past year. Some of the activities I’ve enjoyed the most have been helping to cook weekly community meals, organizing a group outing to a Timbers soccer game, and hosting visits to Daybreak over the summer by my teenage “mentor kid”.
I’m looking forward to my second year at Daybreak and all the new experiences and individuals that I will encounter along the way.
Teams: Bike and Finance
Tammy and Sarah (and Rachel)
Tammy
Tammy spent much of her life on the east coast. She was born in Canada, and moved on an average of every 2 years from birth until high school, when Endicott, NY became home for a stretch of nearly 8 years. The rest of her 20’s were spent in Washington DC, where she studied Public Administration and earned a Master’s degree.
Moving to Oregon in 1988 to attend law school was a huge change. She came to Oregon to begin this new chapter because Oregon is known to have a substantially more collegial legal community than many other states, and certainly much more than the major cities of the east coast. She currently practices law at Kivel & Howard, LLP in Portland.
Having lived here longer than anywhere else, she considers herself an Oregonian. Both of her daughters are native Oregonians. Her older one is in college back east in Washington, DC. Her younger one resides (happily!!) with her at Daybreak, until she too, spreads her wings and takes flight.
The family also consists of 2 dogs. Sadly, the pair of guinea pigs, the only rodent residents at Daybreak, grew old and recently passed on, but the dogs entertain with plenty of gusto to fill the spaces. One of the dogs was raised by Tammy and Sarah as a guide for the Guide Dogs for the Blind program, but with her nervous stomach she ended up returning to fill the job description of adored family pet and enjoy a life of leisure. She is also a capable participant in the Delta Society’s Animal Assisted Interactions program, thanks to the hard work and dedication of Sarah. Now she is regularly read to by children at the local library in the “Read to the Dogs” program.
Tammy teams: Finance and Community Authorized Support
Sarah
I am currently attending community college and working on my general courses. Between classes I am a nanny for a couple families whom I adore. I also spend a large amount of time volunteering at the Oregon Humane Society walking dogs and giving them the love they deserve. On the rare occasion that I have spare time I enjoy walking our doggies in the neighborhood and sitting back to watch movies.
Living in community was a good move for us, we are now surrounded by a support system we wouldn't have had otherwise. I am thankful for the respect that everyone has for one another and the positivity of the group. I love that there are always yummy leftovers in the Common House fridge so I rarely have to make myself lunch. Not to mention the abundance of desserts!
Sarah’s teams: Steering
Sarah Teams: Steering
Ted
I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, went to college in New Jersey, and spent 16 years in Chicago before moving to Portland and into Daybreak in January 2010. Looking for community in Chicago, I co-founded a group that eventually bought a 6-unit apartment building and created the HUB Housing Cooperative from it. I'm still connected with friends in that group. I'm forever grateful to the Daybreak community for doing all that work to imagine and create Daybreak as a vision, then as a physical reality. One aspect I love about Daybreak is how much we value connection with the larger neighborhood (not simply our own small community). For example, I recently joined the board of the Overlook Village Business Association. Conversations starters with me: volunteering in Africa, ultimate frisbee, bicycle commuting, business impact in our communities and our families, possibility, creativity. Professionally, I'm an executive coach, working with leadership teams to craft one-page strategic plans that inspire and align them to unleash their creativity to accomplish their purpose.
Teams: Steering, HUB, Community Agreements, Process, and Facilitation
Jodi
I was born and raised in New England, and after high school in Florida returned to Boston for college. I went to California for law school and ended up practicing law there for many years. In 2004 I was ready for a change. I ended up in Bulgaria, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan working for a nonprofit. I loved the opportunity to live abroad, learn about other cultures and travel. I realized in the last year that I missed having a sense of community in my life. I started researching and learning more about intentional communities and cohousing. I'd heard great things about Portland and it has all the things I want in a city: it's near water, has a vibrant arts scene, yoga studios, amazing book stores, good public transportation, a variety of restaurants and micro-breweries, and fabulous farmer's markets. Then I found Daybreak. It's a perfect fit and I look forward to the adventures that lie ahead.
Teams: Community Authorized Support, Process, Facilitation, and Membership
Kathy
How does a native Hoosier (what's that?!?!?) who spent her whole life in the Midwest (Indiana, Chicago, Minnesota, and back to Indiana) end up living blissfully in a cohousing community in Portland? In the words of Jerry Garcia, "what a long, strange trip it's been".
I grew up in Indianapolis, daughter of conservative parents who grew up on small farms in southern Indiana, left to go to college at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (promising myself I'd never come back), got married, spent six years living on the south side of Chicago, moved to Minnesota where I spent 25 years living in a small town, trying to keep warm, raising two kids, getting divorced. I moved back to Indiana 10 years ago to be close to my aging mother, when my daughter left for the Pacific Northwest to go to college, solving the "empty nest" dilemma by leaving the nest myself. After my mother and brother died two years ago, there was little to keep me in the midwest, so when my employer offered early retirement to nearly one-third of its employees as a way of solving its financial difficulties, I thought about it for a long time, and finally made a giant leap of faith, took the retirement offer, decided to move to Portland (where my daughter and son-in-law live), and started trying to figure out where to live. While watching an HGTV episode of a show called "House Hunters" one day, I first heard about cohousing, and a few months later, visited Daybreak and realized what a wonderful place it is. Six months later, I listed my house in Indiana for sale, packed up a greatly pared-down selection of all my worldly goods, and headed off on a road trip to Portland, via Graceland, New Orleans, South Padre Island, Texas, the Alamo, the Grand Canyon, and Hoover Dam (truly the long way around).
I've now been living at Daybreak for not quite a year, most of the boxes are unpacked, I have acquired two new feline roommates and a bicycle (making me an official Portlander, I think), I have a new job (couldn't really stay retired yet!), and have a wonderful new extended family of over 30 people of all ages. I LOVE living at Daybreak! I get to be a "grandmother" to some of our younger residents and there are always folks to feed my cats if I'm away or provide transportation to and from the airport or to make the two-block trek to the Scoop food-truck for ice cream. At Daybreak, I can often be found in the gardens looking for giant zucchini lurking in the raised beds or making Sunday dinner in the Common House kitchen. And it's the best thing in the world to be driving home from work in terrible traffic on a Tuesday evening knowing that at the end of the road, there will be a delicious dinner in the Daybreak Common House and warm, caring friends to share it with.
Teams - Landscape/Gardening, Food, Steering
Chelsea
I came to Daybreak after living in many shared houses and was seeking to continue building and living in community but also to enjoy a bit more private space. I'm new to Portland and have been loving getting to know the city and explore. I love traveling and join the growing ranks of returned Peace Corps volunteers living at daybreak. I was in the Peace Corps in The Gambia, traveled in Tanzania, and also spent time in India.
I currently work as a pediatric nurse in home health. I love getting to see a glimpse of many different people's lives and being welcomed so joyfully into their homes. I get a real sense of joy knowing I help keep children living at home with their families. I shall soon be continuing my education by getting my Masters in Public Health at Portland State.
Other interests include biking, hiking, reading, book clubs, learning to knit, volunteering, and cooking.
Teams: Kids, Common House, Process
Chris L
Moving into cohousing – and moving to Portland - have been my dream for many years. But detours were my life story ‘til now. Grew up mostly in NY, a 2-hr train ride from Manhattan, but born in Finland, short stints in VA and MI as a kid. Never knew what I wanted to do for a living, came to West Coast for the first time to go to grad school in Berkeley – Russian history, then an MBA.
I stayed in California (both north and south) – working in marketing communications for hi-tech companies, an ad agency and finally my own business for nearly 20 years, returning to NY in 1992 so that I would be there if and when my parents needed me. In 2006 my dad had a paralyzing stroke. Before that, I’d worked in, and eventually managed his public relations firm, handling both travel and technical clients – mostly with a rail travel company. Have traveled extensively in Europe – adore it. When my mom also developed serious health problems, I realized I should be working in healthcare and went back to school (oldest in my class!) to become an RN. I’ve been interested in alternative, holistic approaches to health for many years and eventually hope to work in public health nursing/policy-making to create a system that focuses on prevention.
Cohousing and sustainability have been passions since my California days, when I was a contributing editor for New Village Journal (no longer published). I met a green architect and planner who had designed cohousing communities – and I wrote an article based on his work. Writing another article about Portland’s great transportation system and Oregon’s approach to land use convinced me that like-minded souls dwell here. As soon as I got my nursing license, I moved the whole family to Portland – and felt immediately at home in Daybreak. I have been longing for community for as long as I can remember, and I believe it is a fundamental human need that is unfulfilled in modern life.
Cohousing is, to me, the natural way people were meant to live – a wonderful combination of privacy and sharing. The Daybreak family includes so many amazing people. Come and join us!
Al and Meg
Al
“I amuse myself by making things – BETTER!” That quote appears on a t-shirt given to me by my in-laws, upon witnessing my lifelong passion for building and repairing things. I also have broad experience in program management that has included marketing, operations, services development, training, HR, contract services, manufacturing, engineering, and radio/TV production. I have expertise in the following: Marketing communications, Knowledge management, Voice-over narration, Legal journalism, Electro-Mechanical prototype building, Graphic design, Website management, Virtual-communications consulting, and Meeting facilitation.
I have a passion for social justice, based on growing up in a working class family with two working parents. As an older brother, I provided child care for my two younger siblings, including my sister, who was developmentally disabled. Inspired by my Mom’s community involvement, I have volunteered with a parks & recreation program to co-facilitate a drama class for developmentally disabled adults. I have also volunteered as a project manager through a variety of nonprofit organizations. As a voice actor, I have volunteered as a reader for Books on Tape. My recent nonprofit role in volunteer leadership and construction & salvage management has inspired me to pursue fine arts that reuse scrap materials – including wood, metal, paint, and glass. Some of my work appears here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33185767@N03/
Meg Van Buren and I met 13 years ago at a freestyle boogie dancing event – and we’re still dancing. As life partners, we enjoy sharing all forms of human arts communication and look forward to sharing that with our Portland communities.
Meg
My spiraling life journey embraces growing up as the oldest of six in upstate New York; winning a spelling bee in 7th grade; a year of study in Wurzburg, Germany; volunteer work in Senegal; hitchhiking from NY to Boulder, CO, where I worked in a youth hostel; decade in San Diego; and moving to the Bay Area in 1987, where I did graduate work and was employed in the fields of education, Drama Therapy, and counseling. I am jazzed about Portland on account of the trees, the friendly folks we've encountered, the arts opportunities, and the more livable pace of life ...
Some things I like: freestyle boogie dancing; Improv of all kinds; anything involving words -- reading, writing, playing (cooperative) Scrabble, having a chance to practice my German and French; building community; engaging with youth using a strengths-based approach; hiking in the woods; cooking healthy and yummy meals.
My work life has included stints as a chambermaid, GE assembly line worker, Peace Corps volunteer, textbook editor, Women's Health Clinic worker, B&B manager, library worker, preschool and elementary school teacher, middle school counselor, arts facilitator with homeless youth, and educational consultant.
I have an abiding passion for Social Justice, including community organizing, awareness work around racism and homophobia, and youth advocacy in and beyond the school setting.
Silly stuff I am prone to doing: imitations of Sarah Palin, dancing everywhere, and goofing around with Snappy, our in-home Conflict Resolution Manager (who does not realize it is a green felt alligator hand puppet)! My beloved life partner, Al Zayha and I have been together since 1998, and we are very excited about the Portland path our life journey is taking!
The accompanying photo is of my friend Josi and me, being silly in Redwood City, CA.
Cynthia & Bruce
Cynthia
Recently when asked for a bio, these words I wrote: I have always read, often wondered, now I also write. Mostly poems.
It is time to expand on that.
In the past I have done a variety of jobs with this common thread - design and build. Schooled as a figurative sculptor, hired to develop recipes and design a test kitchen, worked in the garment industry, heavy industry and even a newspaper. There were 8 wonderful years self-employed as a woodworker until my body said scale back to something smaller such as custom picture framing. Then this body said, scale back some more. A few years ago I was able to retire from the salaried world and got busy with volunteering - tutor Chinese in English and read to elderly shut ins. In the last few years I organized a writing group, a day long writing workshop and a monthly event called Reading Aloud.
It was New England through my mid-twenties, San Francisco and Bay Area until my late 50’s, now Portland. My husband Bruce and I have met good people, and became very close with some, yet were unhappy in this place until we moved to Daybreak. A community. The first intentional community we knew was Dishman Community Center. While it is Portland Park and Rec it is more than an indoor pool and exercise rooms. It was a chance to feel en carne, in our own meat, how good it felt to take part in, be part of, a community. This experience as well as endless talk with close friends and journaling with my poetry helped me recognize the interdependence of Daybreak Cohousing. We leapt at the chance to live here.
We always perk up at the sight of madrones – lovely smooth bark with display of startling orange flashing through the trees. There is a photo a friend took in Mendocino County – these beauties dance in a cluster over our bed. And here we are living on Madrona Hills, the old name for this Overlook neighborhood. Sweet.
Bruce
Probably like most people I never had a particular ‘career’ path in mind. I've worked in the automotive aftermarket industry, the garment industry, the advertising-marketing industry. I've worked in sales for an employment agency; I've run a messenger service in midtown Manhattan. The work that satisfied me the most however had to do with the commercial photographic industry. I was able to parlay my love of the photographic image into a career. I've spent a lot of time in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Santa Rosa CA., and now Portland.
At home my favorite thing to do is to make pizza (trying to follow the ‘true’ way of Neapolitan pizza making), artisan bread baking, and exploring the intricacies of enjoying espresso coffee in a non-commercial environment. I spend a lot of time listening and pursuing my interest in music- I'd go almost anywhere to hear Bach's choral music. One of the delights of Portland has been going to the offerings of the Bach Cantata Choir.
My personal history tells me every moment is important. Another way to put it is I believe intuition is the place where heart and mind perfectly intersect. I had the intuition that Daybreak would be right for me. In essence, it is a place where the serious and the playful overlap.
I had come to a realization that I didn't much like Portland as a City or political entity BUT had met people that had become essential to my wellbeing. Leaving Portland was no longer an option. Appreciating the community in place at Daybreak, their living the ideal of ‘Interdependence’, corresponds to my life journey as I get older. Now I’m at least content to stay in Portland while being giddy to be living at Daybreak. Today and yesterday and the day before we got to wake up in the treetops.
I thank everyone who, intentionally or not, contributes to my happiness.
Karen C and Sofia
Jenn, Isaac, Everett 
Hi. I'm Jenn, mama of Isaac 5 and Everett 3. Though we just moved in this past Thanksgiving (2011), I have wanted to live in cohousing since the first time I heard the word cohousing, probably 12 years ago. Not only do I love this community already because I know each person living here has a strong desire to know their neighbors and to live more ecologically sound, two of my core values, but I have had Many community dinners already, there are great children with lively energy, older adults to look up to, delicious leftovers ;), a garden, a fantastic roof hot tub (which the boys love), group acupuncture, and spontaneous community get togethers... all things I greatly adore. I have been an at home mother for 5 1/2 years. I've loved having the ability to grow such strong bonds with my children. Now I am beginning my search to join the workforce, probably back into teaching in some form. Prior to mothering, I was a substitute teacher for 2 years, a massage therapist, a custom picture framer, and barista (then there were the summers of housekeeping for a hotel just bordering Denali National Park, Alaska and a camp leader at a horse ranch in the mountains of Colorado). I have practiced yoga on and off for almost 20 years. I am going to offer some classes, or just organize gatherings for yoga, at daybreak in the next month. It is my greatest source of physical exercise and meditation (I don't do hot yoga, but I sweat). Isaac is a talkative, charming, passionate and spirited little one. He gravitates toward one interest at a time (generally). His first passion was music (playing guitars/violins/cellos/drums and picking out the different instruments in songs), followed and weaved in with cars/trucks, dinosaurs and ocean creatures, and now the jedi vs the dark side.. (born into a pacifist, lesbian household one wonders how these interests came to be. . .) He Loves babies and will want to cuddle any one he encounters. Everett is my tenacious, sweet, cuddly love-bug. He enjoys all the things Isaac does and often they play well together. He is mostly in cars/truck mode now, but he also loves to sing, dance, visit any dog he passes on the sidewalk, and loves bike rides, playgrounds and jumping.
Lynn, Desta, Rosa  I have journeyed far and wide before I landed at Daybreak a few months ago. I have spent much of my life on the move - starting with being an army brat to joining the Peace Corps and living in Lesotho, Africa; traveling through Africa and Europe; hiking from Mexico to Oregon along the Pacific Crest Trail; and riding my bike across the country from Oregon to Virginia. I did settle down long enough to get a degree in Environmental Studies at Sacramento State University and work as a firefighter/paramedic in Sacramento. I had a lovely period living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains that included horses, dogs, cats, and chickens and an occasional rogue rattlesnake. I eventually went back to school and got a law degree. Along the way I adopted two awesome daughters from Ethiopia and we all landed in Portland where I now work as an attorney for foster children. My daughters are both in college. Desta lives with me here at Daybreak and goes to PCC. My other daughter, Rosa, goes to St Olaf College in Minnesota, and spends time with us here when she can.
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