These alternative shared-living set-ups all thrive based on co-operative frameworks. But Covid-19 has made communal living more complicated amid restrictions – and its nature as a disease with rapid community spread.

It’s hard to establish how many people are living in intentional communities (generally defined as communities planned around a social ideal or collective values, often involving shared resources). But by one estimate, they’re home to around 100,000 people worldwide, and growing. There’s a broad spectrum of options, from throwback hippie communes to more professionalised operations. What they share is a commitment to communal living: a premise the pandemic has challenged. With curbs on gatherings and other components of community building, many alternative communities have needed to adopt new routines.

In some ways, the crisis has established the resilience of certain types of shared living situations. In a survey of 75 intentional communities, 15% reported minimal or positive effects of the pandemic, and only 5% reported severe or negative impacts. Yet, it hasn’t been all rosy; even pre-pandemic, communities often found finances hard to square. For many, financial sustainability has become a further cause for concern as the pandemic has eroded income sources that modern communities depend on.

These three communities – small, mid-sized and large – are weathering the Covid-19 storm, but in each case, finances have suffered and tensions have emerged. Still, like the majority of those surveyed, residents are grateful to be living communally in a period of disruption and loneliness.