To support public education and group outreach activities, CDC is providing the following tools. These tools are available to cohousing groups at no cost and at a nominal fee to professionals who use them as part of their services.

1. What is Cohousing a PowerPoint presentation.
2. What it Takes to Develop a Cohousing Project a PDF document.
3. A Cohousing Interview a CBC radio interview in MP3 format.

"What is Cohousing"

"What is Cohousing" is a short PowerPoint presentation intended to inform people new to Cohousing about what it is, what it offers and the forms it can take. You don't need to have the Power Point program to use this presentation as it is self launching and will run on any Microsoft operating system. Simply read the instructions below that apply to the type of browser you use, then click on the "Download" button to begin. Once downloaded you can view the presentation or save it to a CD for later viewing.

In Internet Explorer

• Click on the Download button above.

• A dialogue box "File download - Security Warning" will appear. Click "run" if you wish to watch the presentation now; click "save" if you wish to save it to disk for later use.

• A download progress dialogue box will open showing you the download taking place. The download may take several minutes depending on the speed of your internet service.

• A dialogue box "Internet Explorer - Security Warning will open asking you what you want to do with this file. Click "run" and the presentation will begin. Click save and a "Save As" dialogue box will appear, prompting you to save the file to a location on your hard-drive. If you wish to burn a CD for future use, select your CD burner drive.

• Depending on your security settings, various "Warning" dialogue boxes may appear requiring you to confirm that you wish to download from our site.

In Firefox

• Click the Download button above.

• A dialogue box "Opening Coho_Is.EXE" will appear; click on "Save File".

• A "Save in" dialogue box will open. To view right away save directly to your desktop, once complete an icon will appear on your desktop, click (or double click) the icon to view the presentation. To save to your hard-drive select your preferred location. To make a CD of the presentation save to your CD burner drive.

• When you have clicked "save" the "Download Manager" dialogue box will open showing you the progress of your download. The download may take several minutes depending on the speed of your internet service.

• Depending on your security settings, various "Warning" dialogue boxes may appear requiring you to confirm that you wish to download from our site.

"What it Takes"

"What it Takes to Develop a Cohousing Project" is an illustrated description of the various components needed to create a successful Cohousing project. Just click the "Open" button below to view. This document is an Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf) and you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader* to view or print it.

*If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can download it HERE

"A Cohousing Interview"

"CBC radio interview August 14, 2008 from “Sounds Like Canada”. Host Steve Burgess interviews Ronaye Matthew (CDC cohousing development consulting) and Valerie McIntyre (WindSong cohousing resident) in this entertaining look at life in cohousing. Approximately 20 minutes in length."