Building Possibilities: What Happens When We Get the Right People in the Room?

Reflections on a day of challenging assumptions, making connections, and reimagining housing choice.

On November 6, I had the pleasure of bringing together people from across Colorado's housing community for a daylong event called Building Possibilities. The event was part of my BMO Fellowship through the Watson Institute, a program supporting social entrepreneurs working to create positive change in their communities. We gathered at the Colorado Gives Foundation in Arvada to explore a question I've been thinking about for quite some time: How much choice do we really have about where and how we live, and what becomes possible when the people, resources, experience, and ideas already in our community connect?

It was my first time organizing an event of this kind, and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I knew we would have an interesting mix of people, including housing developers, government representatives, nonprofit leaders, funders, advocates, and individuals with firsthand experience of housing challenges. I also knew that everyone would arrive with different perspectives, priorities, and ideas about what needs to change.

What I hoped was that we could get beyond talking about everything that's wrong with housing and begin discovering where we might actually be able to make a difference.

What Do We Believe About Housing?

We began the morning with a panel discussion moderated by Michelle Dumay, a Gratitude Village board member and commissioner on Denver's Commission for People with Disabilities. Our panelists brought perspectives from cohousing, inclusive housing, community development, philanthropy, and lived experience.

Trish Becker from the National Cohousing Alliance, Renata Heberton from Angelica Village, De Andra Sharp from Next50, and Tim Dolan from the Inclusive Housing Coalition gave us plenty to think about. They were terrific! Michelle asked thoughtful questions that encouraged them to move beyond the usual talking points, and their answers sparked some wonderful conversations throughout the day.

One question I particularly liked was, "What's something you used to believe about housing that you no longer believe?"

It's a question that requires us to examine our own assumptions. Most of us develop ideas about housing based on our personal experiences, professional backgrounds, and the systems we've worked within. Over time, those beliefs can become so familiar that we stop questioning them.

Perhaps we assume that homeownership isn't realistic for people with certain incomes. Maybe we believe that people with disabilities need specialized housing rather than homes integrated into ordinary neighborhoods. Or we accept that housing development simply has to work the way it always has. Tim's answer was informative, "I used to believe that there were houses for everyone . . . that that was just natural. Now I realize a lot of people, 21,000 adults with IDD in Colorado, don't have appropriate , sometimes any, housing choice."

What happens when we begin questioning those assumptions?

Another question Michelle asked was what gave our panelists hope. I appreciated that because housing conversations can become discouraging rather quickly. There are so many challenges, and some of them seem almost impossible to overcome. Hearing what continues to motivate people who have spent years working on these issues was encouraging.

The Barriers Are Real, and They're Connected

As participants moved into table conversations, we asked them to consider where meaningful housing choice breaks down, what might make a difference, and who or what could help.

The barriers they identified probably won't surprise anyone who has tried to find an affordable, accessible home or develop housing that meets needs the traditional market often overlooks.

We heard about regulations and zoning requirements that make alternative housing models difficult to develop. We talked about rising land and construction costs, financing challenges, and the gap between what it costs to build a home and what many people can afford to pay.

Accessibility was another important part of the conversation. Even when someone can afford a home, finding one that meets their physical, intellectual, developmental, or sensory needs can be difficult. And when accessible homes are available, they aren't necessarily located near transportation, employment, services, or the people who matter most.

Race, income, age, and disability all influence the housing choices available to people, sometimes in ways that aren't immediately apparent to those who haven't experienced those barriers themselves.

We also talked about something that came up repeatedly throughout the day: silos.

Housing developers work within one set of systems. Government agencies have their own responsibilities and constraints. Funders operate according to particular requirements, while nonprofit organizations and advocates often focus on specific populations or needs. Each group brings valuable knowledge and resources, but we don't always have opportunities to sit down together and understand how those pieces might fit.

I found myself wondering how many good ideas never get very far simply because the people who could help make them happen haven't met one another.

Community Kept Coming Up

One of the things that struck me was how often the conversation returned to community.

When we talk about housing, we tend to focus on the physical product: the number of homes, square footage, construction costs, financing, and sales prices. Those things matter enormously, particularly when we're trying to make housing more affordable.

But a home is also where we live our lives. It's where we build relationships, raise families, grow older, and hopefully feel safe and connected to the people around us.

Several conversations during Building Possibilities touched on the importance of belonging, mutual support, and having people in our lives who know us and care about what happens to us. Those are some of the very things that originally drew me to cohousing.

I began exploring cohousing because I wanted a more connected neighborhood for my daughter and me. As I learned more, I became increasingly concerned about affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and who was being left out of the communities I visited.

Those concerns eventually led to Gratitude Village, where we're trying to bring these priorities together rather than treating them as separate problems.

Listening to participants at Building Possibilities reinforced my belief that we need to think more broadly about what makes a neighborhood work. We certainly need more homes, but we also need to consider whether those homes allow people to participate fully in community life.

And perhaps community itself can be part of how we address some of our housing challenges.

Moving From Conversations to Connections

One of my goals for the day was to make sure people had opportunities to connect with others they might not ordinarily meet.

We used table conversations, an activity that challenged assumptions, and a Give & Get Marketplace where participants could share resources, expertise, connections, and needs. The idea was simple: everyone has something they can offer, and almost everyone needs something that someone else in the room might be able to provide.

I especially liked the Give & Get activity because it encouraged people to think beyond their own organizations or projects. Someone might have experience navigating a particular regulatory challenge, know a potential funding source, or be able to introduce two people working on similar problems. Another person might need precisely that information or connection.

We don't always know what resources are available until we ask.

At the end of the day, participants were invited to write postcards to themselves identifying one action they wanted to take within the next 30 days. It could be following up with someone they'd met, making an introduction, sharing information, or exploring an idea that had come out of a conversation.

I liked the simplicity of that exercise. We weren't asking anyone to solve Colorado's housing challenges in a month. We were asking people to identify one thing they could actually do.

Those postcards will be mailed back to participants in December. I'm looking forward to hearing whether any of those commitments have already led to something new.

From Rotary Phones to Smartphones

One of my favorite moments came near the end of the day when Ken Mitchell shared an observation that has stayed with me.

He suggested that we need to do for housing what Steve Jobs did for telephones.

Think about how dramatically phones have changed during our lifetimes. Many of us remember rotary-dial telephones, party lines, and being tied to a cord attached to the wall. Today, we carry small computers in our pockets that allow us to communicate, navigate, work, learn, and do things we couldn't have imagined a few decades ago.

Ken's point, as I understood it, was that housing needs that kind of rethinking. He said we are still building houses basically the same way we did 50 years ago - timber, drywall, nail & screws.

We've made enormous technological advances in so many areas of our lives, yet much of our housing system continues to operate within familiar models and assumptions. We still struggle to create homes that are affordable, accessible, adaptable, and responsive to the ways people actually want and need to live.

What would happen if we approached housing with the same willingness to question established practices and imagine something entirely different?

I don't think there's one person, organization, or innovation that's going to solve our housing challenges. There are too many interconnected pieces. But I do think we could accomplish more if we stopped assuming that the way we've always done things is the only way they can be done.

What I Took Away From the Day

Organizing Building Possibilities was a tremendous amount of work. By my rough estimate, I spent somewhere between 160 and 180 hours preparing for the event, in addition to my fellowship classes and ongoing responsibilities with Gratitude Village. I learned a great deal about event planning along the way, and I have a few things I'd do differently next time!

We've already received some helpful feedback from participants. People appreciated the opportunity to meet others working on housing from different perspectives, and several suggested allowing more time for networking. Others recommended offering a panel discussion in the afternoon, reconsidering the Friday schedule, or adjusting the format to make participation easier.

I appreciate those suggestions, especially since this was my first attempt at bringing together a group like this. If we do it again, I'll have a much better idea of what works and what could be improved.

What surprised me most was how much I enjoyed watching people connect. During the breaks and activities, I saw conversations happening between people who might otherwise never have crossed paths. I heard participants discovering shared interests, offering suggestions, and recognizing that someone else in the room was working on a related challenge.

I don't know yet what will come from those conversations. Some may lead to collaborations, while others may simply give someone a new perspective or a useful contact. We'll need time to see whether the connections made that day turn into action.

For Gratitude Village, the experience reminded me that the work we're doing in Brighton is connected to a much larger conversation. We're trying to create one neighborhood that demonstrates how affordability, accessibility, sustainability, and community can work together. We have a great deal to learn from others, and perhaps some of what we're learning along the way will be useful to people working on different housing approaches.

I left Building Possibilities feeling tired, grateful, and encouraged. The challenges we discussed are substantial, and none of them disappeared because we spent a day talking about them. Still, I think something worthwhile happens when people who see different parts of a problem have the opportunity to sit down together, listen, and discover what they might be able to accomplish.

I'm grateful to our panelists, moderator, volunteers, sponsors, and everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to participate. I'm especially grateful to the people who shared their personal experiences with housing, because those perspectives need to be part of every conversation about what we build and for whom.

I hope we'll look back on November 6 as the beginning of some new relationships and ideas that continue to grow.

After all, bringing the right people into the room is a good start. What we do with those connections afterward is what will really matter.

COMMUNITY

Join us in embracing nature, diversity and connection.

Sustainability

DIVERSITY

info@gratitudevillageco.com

720-689-4821

© 2026. All rights reserved.

AFFORDABILITY

Gratitude Village Inc. is a 501(c)3 charitable corporation (public charity) that values diversity, equity and inclusion as essential to our mission. EIN #33-2499522

Subscribe to our Substack

https://notesfromthecommonhouse.substack.com/

Privacy Policy

Terms & Conditions

Refund Policy

Gratitude Village is a Proud Member of these organizations