---
date: 2019-01-18
modified_at: 2019-01-29
tags: [philosophy, productivity]
description: A vision for affordable pod-based co-living that solves housing crises and loneliness through rating systems, noise-canceling technology, and community-focused design.
---
# Fighting housing crises and loneliness with Cheap Community Living

In 2016, I came up with Community Hostels
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tyjpjsfejo7krx/CommunityHostels.pdf?dl=0: A plan to
make hostels cheaper and better than ever, using symbiosis, cost-reduction,
labor-reduction and behavior-control.

Now, I'm iterating over this idea with a new taste: Co-living is the future of
living. There are many problems in current society, and housing crises,
loneliness and depression are among them. With Cheap Community Living, you can
fight these problems.

There are a few pod-living concepts out there, but they are not thought through.
Also there are co-living concepts out there, but they are often expensive and
not matured yet.

When co-living or pod-living for a longer time, I think there are a few minimum
requirements. What you need is:

 * A 2-person bed
 * enough drawer space for some clothes and to lock up valuables next to your
   bed
 * a wall or curtain so you get privacy
 * a way to deal with noise
 * a way to deal with messy or anti-social people

Solving the biggest problems of co-living and pod-living
I've distinguished 3 big problems with pod-living or co-living concepts:

 1. Annoying people
 2. No privacy
 3. Too expensive

Here are my solutions:

Annoying people
Living too long in hostels can become annoying because of people that get home
late drunk, or are dirty and don't clean up after themselves. Therefore, there
should be a rating system that rates people based on their social behavior. If
someone is dirty or loud, others can complain using the app, and their rating
will drop. With a lower rating, it will be more expensive for you to live in the
Community Hostel. If your rating becomes very very low, you can even be kicked
out of the hostel. This will automatically ensure everyone plays along nicely.

No privacy
The biggest pod-share concept http://podshare.co/ creates shared rooms with
beds without curtains or walls. This is horrible for privacy. If you just have
curtains, you still have a problem with sound. Having sex, others will hear you.
But there's a solution to that! Technology like Muzo
https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2016/09/22/noise-blocking-device/ can
noise-cancel anything. From loud drunk home-getters to sex. This can solve the
problem bigtime, if the technology gets mature enough.

Too expensive
A lot of co-living is currently very expensive because it's not always full and
because of risks for the owner, like people breaking down stuff. Also, there are
probably hotel-taxes on co-living... Something that should change for this to be
affordable. It should get the same rules as renting. Last but not least, many
co-living concepts have big bedrooms. Something that's not necessary in my
opinion, if you have the above 2 solutions ready.

How I want to make this reality
 1. I want to create a blueprint of the perfect design of bedrooms with pods.
 2. Then, we take an approach like WeWork does: We turn houses into
    pod-co-living houses, all around the world.
 3. Futhermore, blueprint will be open-sourced, and enable everyone around the
    world to open up a community living location.

The first three things are not in my expertise, so I am looking to collaborate
with people that share my vision in this.

Once we have a few locations, we need the tech to make it all possible.

The app that does it all I will oversee the project of creating the software
necessary for automation and behavior-control. This will mostly consist of an
app that lets the coliver enter a co-living space, pay for a bed, rate their
roommates, give people roles (staff), decide on the price based on rating, and
cluster coliving groups together based on interest. The app I'm currently
building (Communify https://communify.cc) is for co-working. This app will be
an extension of that.

I'm really interested in meeting other motivated and talented indiviuals that
share this vision and like to make it reality.