The Fort is a 12 person cooperative house in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

The residents

We are a bunch of queer folks and allies who try to live an active and engaged life while doing lots of fun, community things. We live in a big family-style house with one large, gentle dog. Some of us enjoy things like cooking, gardening, reading books, music-playing, activism, organizing events, bike riding, house projects, and playing outside.

The cooperative

We all share weekly household responsibilities of cooking, food shopping, and cleaning. In pairs, we cook dinner (and clean up) for the house one night per week. We have house meetings the first and third Sundays of the month where we check-in, communicate about things in constructive ways, and make decisions by consensus. Sometimes we use the common spaces in the house for fun events. We also really love working together to invest in our shared home by doing projects and improvements. Some examples include maintaining our flower and vegetable gardens to grow our own food, revamping our compost system, winterizing our windows, maintaining our lawn and property, and holding the occasional spring or fall cleaning day.

The house

The house is a large single family home with three stories and a basement. We have a yard with a garden, picnic tables, lawn chairs and large trees. In the basement we have a bike shop, laundry, storage space and plenty of room for new projects. We also have porches, two large common spaces, a sunroom, lots of books, working fireplaces, and lots of windows. Our kitchen is pretty large and equipped with two ovens, two refrigerators, two sinks, a fridge for beer, and a pantry and storeroom full of food! There are 3 full bathrooms, and 1 half bathroom. We have wireless high speed internet and a projector set up to watch movies on a big screen.

The location

We're nearest to the Stony Brook T stop on the Orange Line, which is about a 10 minute walk. We are also 500 feet from both the #39 and #41 bus stops. Jamaica Pond is a hop skip and a jump away. You can walk to lots of great places easily from our home. It's great because even though we're so close to all this wonderful stuff, we're pretty tucked away on a quiet, low-traffic street.

The cost

We try to keep our living costs as low and possible and make our space accessible. Our rooms vary in size, and thus range in monthly rent prices from the mid 300's to the mid 700's. Everyone in the house equally splits the monthly cost of food and utilities, which can vary from $130 to $160 per person. We have a house bank account that we use to pool our money and purchase food every week. Before people move in, we request that they pay first month's rent plus a security deposit equal to one month's rent.

Our values

We are committed to creating an anti-oppressive space, in fact we feel that this work is one of the most important things we do together. Check out the anti-oppression poster that we made to hang on our wall, and let us know what you think!