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We present a larger-scale, albeit still local, idea for decent-sized groups of people to gather and cluster, using the ideas and standards of a pluralistic free society of equals, to become materially self-sufficient, to increase their own level or material independency, to protect each other’s civil rights and well-being against major hazards, and to become prosperous.

We call this idea a “Freedomist Homestead Community” and it is a concept for protecting your family from economic, natural, or man-made disasters while increasing your level of wealth and happiness. Unless you are financially secure and self-sufficient to the max, you will find it difficult to insulate your family from major crises, such as the pandemic, or to invest in something that could increase your wealth without increasing the burden on your time and energy.

A Freedomist Homestead Community could be urban or rural. In fact, for Freedomists who live in an urban setting, clustering together in one larger, mutually-benificial and self-sufficient community may mitigate some of the economic, social, and political problems faced by that city.

In presenting this concept we are not proposing that you have to use our exact terminology. You can call your project anything you like. Sometimes we use terms like “clustered housing” or “clustered living”, for instance.

Basically, a Freedomist Homestead Community is a larger housing and business development consisting of 3-5 main clusters of around 200 adults each each, interspersed with housing and commercial space leased for profit to the public, using renewable energy and locally-sourced renewable products to meet its most basic material needs.

These Homestead Clusters consist of 3-5 Homesteads for around 15 adults who are members of a fraternal benefit community (more on that further along) or related by blood and around 5-10 other adults who simply lease space based on fair housing laws.

A Homestead might be a single multi-use and multi-family building with a few shops, offices for home businesses, a gym/pool, and surrounding land with food production in the form of greenhouses, hydroponics, a fish farm, or small animal enclosures. Or all these things, including residences, might be separate buildings on a single estate.

Let’s talk about a fraternal benefit community. If you research a fraternal benefit society, they are formed on the basis of a “fraternal bond” and they bring mutual benefit to members. A fraternal bond can be religious, ethnic, vocational, or any number of different things.

A Homestead based on a fraternal benefit community is basically a housing cluster owned by a mutual benefit corporation that consists of members of that fraternal benefit society. A mutual benefit corporation is an incorporated entity designed to benefit the owners of its shares, but it can conduct for-profit activities for its members.

The Homestead Community’s land would be owned by a land trust, dedicated to promoting certain types of mutual benefit corporations. It’s common facilities and infrastructure would be owned by a parent entity, which also owns and land trust. In addition to the Homesteads, the parent entity might also own residential and business spaces it leases to the public and other spaces for its benevolence and charity work.

It would benefit is shareholders in providing them great housing, letting them be around peole with whom they feel a warm fraternal connection, and allowing them to derive profit through financially self-sustaining activities, such as leasing residential and business spaces, or even doing special events for profit. It is conceivable such a community and its mutual benefit corporations, if it had multiple types, could earn enough money to both provide for no-cost housing and even generate income for members.

Too often people think in a one-dimensional and single-faceted manner and don’t realize that an intentional community reflective of higher freedom standards must, like existing public entities (like municipalities), include and consist of diverse organizations and entities.

The Freedomist Homestead Community would consist of multiple interconnected but autonomous entities which use existing legal structures to their maximum effect because no single entity can be what we are striving to build. It would be the very picture of a free and pluralistic society of equals which provides for your inherent right and innate desire to cluster with people you feel a warm connection to without allowing any form of discrimination.

There are smaller scale ways to build toward this goal and it is conceivable that a single Homestead Community may not occupy one space, it could be a distributed community with individual residences and properties, clusters or Homesteads of around 15 adults, or the like, distributed here and there with larger common facilities somewhere accessible to all. Whether it is concentrated or distributed, a Homestead Community could meet all basic needs through free exchange, collaboration, mutual benefit, and mutual assurance alone without any need to depend on the corporate world or the government.

Building physical spaces for gathering and clustered living and to achieve material and economic self-reliance through mutual support is the only practical way to protect yourself from the impact of larger scale systems that are not beneficial to most people or from man-made or natural disasters.

One might begin woth a Homestead for 3-5 families and attached single adults connected by a fraternal bond, with 1-3 residences for the public, and expand, adding new Homesteads to form a Homestead Cluster and multiple Clusters forming a Homestead Community.

The gist is this: it is necessary and wise to begin working toward building physical spaces that would result in the support structure for a self-sustaining free and pluralistic society at the local scale.

Free association in housing means you are free to choose who you “live with” in your immediate vicinity and it means you are free to form clustered living arrangements with people with whom you are related or have a fraternal bond.

The mutual benefit corporation is designed to benefit its members, a given class or group of people who own shares in the corporation while the corporation owns the assets and property used to benefit the members. We propose the vehicle of a mutual benefit corporation to provide mutual benefit housing, or clustered living, while preventing the abuse of this right to prompt intolerance, discrimination, and segregation.

Mutual benefit housing is housing owned by a mutual benefit corporation for the benefit of its members. Even if some housing is leased to the public at large, the profits are used to benefit the shareholders who may also, as shareholders, have access to housing. In the case of members, by owning shares they gain access to the housing, they pay only for the shares and/or actual cosgs, like utilities and maintenance.

A group of, say, 30 or so families who form an MBC could buy a condo development with 50 units, using 30 for members and leasing 20 to the public. It may be that the profit from the leased residences covers more than half the cost of the other 30 units occupied by members.

Such MBC’s could be limited to members of a fraternal order or a church or to people in certain income ranges, to people of color, or whatever. It stands to reason that an MBC would be able to limit its membership to people it serbes, as described, thus providing a vehicle for like-minded people to cluster together for close cooperation and mutual support.

In researching the law, it seems possible to have an MBC limited to a specific group of people on the same basis as fraternal benefit societies are formed.

The danger and concern from a Freedomist perspective is that, taken to extremes, this legal device could be used to essentially segregate communities by “race”, though we consider “race” a negative social construct. Imagine whole neighborhoods with “no Jews” signs and you begin to see how this vehicle for mutual benefit could become a cover for racist exclusion.

Clustered living is conceptually the aggregation of a few dozen or so families whose organic cohesiveness allows for very close cooperation without sacrificing individual autonomy or requiring a strong system of command and control. The idea of a group of such families and attached single adults clustering together for very close mutual support, and benefit, seems basically nothing more sinister than an extended family group, which used to be prevalent in most societies.

The issue of using this as a means of racial exclusion comes both when it is scaled behind a few dozen related or organically cohesive families to encompass whole areas and when people not considered in the “in group” cannot access housing.

Our proposal for such clustered living approaches recognizes the instinct and right of individuals to “cluster” but also recommends a limitation to scale while also recommending that even such “clustered housing developments” should offer some housing to the public on the basis of fair housing laws. Segregation and exclusion promote conflict and also tend to marginalize people, denying them equitable access to a basis necessity.

On the other hand, denying people the right to cluster together in such a familial way, whether as relatives or because of some fraternal bond, is also a violation of a fundamental human right to free association. A balanced approach, using an MBC that allows for clustered living on a reasonable scale and that also offers housing to the public, seems the best way to respect both sets of rights. It is also makes economic sense.

What is more, we propose, an MBC as a “landlord” will likely be a LOT better than a private landlord as all MBC members are shareholders and will be available to ensure their clients, those leasing from them, are happy.

We can envision a clustered housing development with 30 or so residences for members, 20 or so for the public, with some common areas for members only and some for all residences, perhaps some shops or a market area, and even facilities for a fraternal benefit society or some subcriber-based club or online community whose members live near the development but who aren’t residents.

Unlike traditional housing where you own the deed, in an MBC the corporation holds the deed, you hold the shares, but, on the downside, if you cease to gualify as a member, like if membership in a fraternal benefit society is the basis of membership, then you could face a scenario where your shares are bought back from you and you either move out or become a renter.

Nothing is perfect and within the scope of existing law and practical necessity, it seems an MBC that also offers housing to the public is a great way to honor our inherent right to free association and to cluster together while ensuring that nobody loses access to housing based on intolerance, bigotry, or discrimination. We therefore tend to promote this idea and would support clarifying legislation making it more clear and easier for people who desire to cluster together to do so. We also would propose laws that incentivize MBC’s to set aside at least 30% of their total inventory of housing spaces to serve the public.

People deserve to be able to form clusters, including through clustered living arrangements, that give them close connections for mutual benefit with people they are related to or have a fraternal bond with. The balance we must maintain is to ensure that in exercising such rights we remain sensitive to the rights and needs of others.