Well, I have got limited experience with smaller, house-sized operations of this sort… In college I often crashed at a friend’s house where they would throw parties/get punk bands to show up to help pay their rent, and I did spend two years living on a larger, more farm-like commune.

The whole premise is that you establish a business, and everyone involved does work for the business, which then pays some or all of the costs of living incurred by all of you. Living communally also ultimately lessens living costs and can lead to more productive hours; buying in bulk is cheap, and it takes less time for two people to cook a meal for 12 than it takes 12 people to cook their own individual meal.

Generally speaking, this requires some ability to not totally fail at business; I’m not much business-minded, so I can’t really list any examples of what would make a good home-based business for a bunch of /a/nons, but I’m sure somebody here DOES have some ideas. I’ve always liked the idea of limited run screen printing and other crafty stuff like that, but YMMV of course; web-based business is also good, since you don’t need an office or shit like that; just designate a common space in the building as a work area.

This usually requires startup capital, and like all business is highly likely to fail initially, so it might be a better idea of anybody ever wanted to do this for them all to have other sources of income to get by on while you coalesce everything.