Jessica Ruvalcaba
With COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in place, the residents' many potluck dinners are on hold, but they're having concerts in the courtyard where people stay far apart.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more storiesDevon Fitzgerald, a 30-year-old facial massage therapist living in a one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles with his fiancé, needed a change.
Within a few months, they had applied, interviewed and were invited to live in two side-by-side studio apartments."We were looking for a higher quality of life at a lower cost," said Devon, now a five-year Eco-Village resident and the father of two boys, ages 4 and 2. "We wanted to be around people who not just shared values, but wanted to share activities, food, and time with their neighbors. We wanted to be in a place where that was easy.
The community was founded by the Cooperative Resources and Services Project acting as a nonprofit 501.c.3 community development organization. Operating as the Los Angeles Eco-Village since 1993, its mission is clear: "Demonstrate processes for achieving lower environmental impacts while raising the quality of community life."
Like many low-income groups, the residents of the Eco-Village faced challenges with quarantines around COVID-19."No one here has been tested. We had one neighbor whose daughter had a cough and a mild fever a week before the shutdown. They all self-isolated for two weeks. They all had help with their food; someone would go shopping for them.