An Antioch University Professional Development Certificate
With Charles Durrett, AIA, Principal at The Cohousing Company
AIA and AICP CE Self-Reported Learning Units

In this workshop, you’ll learn from the leading architect and builder of cohousing communities globally. Durrett will impart his decades of experience so that you understand the dynamics of addressing homelessness in your community. This course is for legislators, non-profit staff, housing developers, municipal employees, architects, planners, designers, grassroots organizers, activists, urban volunteers, and all good citizens interested in taking action on this topic.

Two 3-hour Workshops | $200 | 5 CE Credits
Thursdays September 4 & 11, 2025
3:30 pm (Pacific Time) | 6:30 (Eastern Time)

Program is limited to 25 students to allow for questions, collaboration, and successful learning.

Course Description
This course is about taking an activist and/or and architect role in getting new communities built for people who experience homelessness. The average homeless person in the U.S. dies at 49 – that is a 30-year death sentence. When I have asked folks in Denmark, “Why do I not see any homeless people here?” The answer is usually “because that could be my brother.” When I ask people in the U.S. why there are so many, too many people say, “You know Chuck, it’s Darwinian.” Those are directly opposite viewpoints. It’s not wise, and it’s not just. One out of 9 people who experience homelessness are veterans – people who served our country, then virtually cast adrift.

We’ll look at case studies of building affordable villages for those who need a hand up, from inexpensive, self-built and mostly self-managed tiny house villages to government-funded, low-income supportive housing. We’ll look at inspiring examples like Valley View Senior Housing in Napa County, which housed twenty-two veterans (homeless and sleeping under the nearby freeway). We will look at projects that show we can and should do something. When one resident, Matt, spoke at the grand opening for Valley View Senior Housing, he asked the 150 attendees rhetorically: “You know the freeway that you drove in on this morning...” He paused, held back his tears, and said “well, I have lived under that overpass for the last 6 years,” paused again, “and I am a Vietnam Vet.” He then said, “When I saw my new home here, I thought that I had gone to heaven, and I said to myself, I will be staying here until I do actually go to heaven.”

State and local governments together spend $30,000-$50,000 each year on each homeless person (hospital stays, jail, police, fire department, and mental healthcare are the top 5 of the many costs). On the first day, 480 people signed up for these 70 tiny cottages in Napa County. This is a solution every town can get behind. “This project was accepted by all of the neighbors because of the process and the product” said Brent Cooper, head of Community Development in the town of American Canyon, CA.

We believe in the virtues of not only the housing-first approach, but more importantly, the community-first approach. It is a community attempting to create a functional and supportive neighborhood that naturally assures that people don’t get isolated and lonely and do get the support they need – mostly from their peers. We focus on how people can, in fact, solve many of their own problems and lower the costs for local government once they are sheltered and come together as a community. And how they then don’t fall through the cracks.

This course will cover how to build a new project in your town for folks who otherwise do not have any shelter. This includes a clear delineation of how to organize the effort and the various steps of getting a project built in your town. Additionally, you’ll learn from the leading architect and builder of cohousing communities globally about understanding the dynamics of community-enhanced design as well as from the other peers in the room who help put different approaches and contexts into focus.

Course Content:
• How to start an affordable tiny house village in your area
• How to do the first one utilizing volunteer labor, and how to grow from that example to more and more accommodations
• Community-enhanced design strategies from high-functioning neighborhood and cohousing best practices
• Community-organizing strategies
• Coalition-building
• Finding sites
• Finding funding sources
• Working with non-profit housing developers
• Best management practices
• Different development models through case studies around the country:

Square One’s Village Model: Housing Co-op & Community Land Trust Village Model
Opportunity Village – Transitional Tiny Home Village
Peace Village – Permanently Affordable for 60% area median income or under (utilizing church properties)
Valley View Senior Homes – Permanently Affordable Housing (30-60% AMI)
Valley View Senior Homes in Napa County, California. It consists of 70 cottages with an average of 450 ft², all of which is affordable to very low and extremely low-income seniors, majority of whom were previously unhoused and cast adrift.
Baker Street in San Francisco, CA

Required Reading: • A Solution to Homelessness in Your Town by Charles Durrett, published by ORO Editions

• Tent City Urbanism: From Self-Organized Camps to Tiny House Villages by Andrew Heben

Key Learning Outcomes

• Understand the social and physical characteristics that make housing for people who have experienced homelessness successful and a proven roadmap to get there

• Understand different development models for setting up affordable tiny house villages

• Explore how community support from a housing project can deepen personal relationships and enhances sustainability

• Discover ways housing can impact one’s life than just providing a shelter

• Form a network of people wanting to create or find cohousing and affordable tiny house villages

• Be ready to plan and launch the development process of affordable housing in your town

Instructor Bio: Chuck Durrett

Durrett and his team at The Cohousing Company have designed more than 50 cohousing communities in the United States and around the world, including Muir Commons in Davis, California, the first cohousing community in North America, and an equal amount of low-cost multifamily. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, Architecture, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and many other publications.

Charles Durrett has received numerous awards, which include the World Habitat Award presented by the United Nations, the Silver Achievement Award for Active Adult Community by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) 50+ Housing Council, the Silver Energy Value Housing Award by NAHB, the Mixed Use/Mixed Income Development Award presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and a recipient of the Global Over 50’s Housing/Healthcare award. He was also recently declared as a “visionary of the Sierras” by the Sierra Business Council, and the International Housing Awards. Charles has also spoken twice in front of the U.S. Congress about affordable housing.

Learn more about Charles Durrett and The Cohousing Company here.

View Terms & Conditions

Refund Category B – Cancellations received in writing 7 days before the date of the event are entitled to a full refund. Cancellations received between 6 and 3 days before an event are entitled to a 50% refund. Cancellations 2 or less days before an event will not be eligible for a refund.