Founder Adlai Neubauer has always dreamed of living in a community of lesbians. She spent the first few years of retirement traveling through the US, visiting several lesbian communities in FL, AZ and AR. Finding these established communities either too costly or too remote, in 2017, Adlai started a Facebook group to gather Columbus lesbians and their female allies to discuss the possibilities of living as an intentional community in Ohio. We met several times in person to share our dreams of an intentional lesbian community.
Between 2017 & 2019, we considered numerous properties in central Ohio including large homes to share, vacant school buildings, apartment buildings, manufactured home parks and undeveloped land. We met with City housing officials and others involved in affordable housing.
The increasingly divisive political climate, unprecedented rising prices of real estate and the COVID pandemic, slowed our progress. After the presidential election of 2020, we resumed our efforts. Adlai participated in a 5-week webinar lead by Marianne Kilkenny ("Your Quest for Home: A Guidebook to Find the Ideal Community for Your Later Years"). This webinar turned into an ongoing support group of women seeking intentional community.
Our local Facebook group and Zoom meetings expanded to include women from throughout Ohio and many other states. At the end of 2020, we realized that as individuals, our ability to be approved for a mortgage was limited.
In 2021, the Ohio Womyns Intentional Living Communities LLC was created. You'll find our Mission, Vision and Values here. That Spring, Adlai, together with her wife Carol Neubauer, participated and completed a 12-week, in-person course with LEAP (LGBTQ Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program) and created a business plan for OWILC.
During 2021, nine women became Members
of the Ohio Womyns Intentional Living
Communities, by purchasing a Membership
Interest. LLC Members vote on important
decisions of the organization as outlined in
the LLC Operating Agreement.
In early 2022, we finalized our operating agreement and established our first Board of Directors: Adlai Neubauer (President); Rosemary Rhodes (Treasurer);
Carol Neubauer (Secretary); Kelley Sargent;
Christy Fulton; and Anita Adams.
