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==History== ==History==
The group that would become Ganas got its start in 1973 when founder ] left New York where she was the subject of a ] investigation by the NY Attorney General<ref name=quacks>{{Cite news|first= Iver|last=Peterson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=State Finds Quacks in Mental Therapy |url=http://ganas.tk/State_Finds_Quacks.pdf |publisher=] |date=December 7, 1972 |accessdate=2007-10-31 }}</ref> for her use of phony PhD. degrees at GROW, an "unaccredited ] school"<ref>{{Cite news|first= Iver|last=Peterson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=City to Look into PhD Use|url=http://ganas.tk/City_Look_PhD_Use.pdf |publisher=] |date=July 15, 1972 |accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> founded by Gordon and her third husband in 1966.<ref name=about>{{Cite web|url=http://activistsolutions.org/about/who_we_are/mildred_gordon|title=About Mildred Gordon|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> Gordon moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, where she collected the first Ganas members and set up a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) "educational" corporation called the ] (FFL) in 1974. The group went by the name FFL until changing their name to Ganas in the early 1990s.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Kat Kinkade|coauthors=Mildred Gordon|date=Fall 1995|title=Benevolent Dictators in Community|journal=Communities Magazine|publisher=Fellowship for Intentional Community|url=http://communities.ic.org/88/2888.php#author|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://directory.ic.org/431/Ganas|title=Communities Directory|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> In the late 1970s they returned to New York and moved into a Lower East Side apartment, finally settling in Tompkinsville, Staten Island in 1979.<ref name=commune>{{Cite news|author=] |coauthors= |title=Yes, It's a Commune. Yes, It's on Staten Island. |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/nyregion/yes-it-s-a-commune-yes-it-s-on-staten-island.html?pagewanted=all |quote=Ms. Gordon, 76, is the unofficial matriarch of Ganas, a commune on Staten Island that has maintained a quiet presence since 1980, when six people seeking an alternative to alienation in American life spent $43,000 for a rundown house a few blocks from the ferry terminal. |work=] |date=November 29, 1998 |accessdate=2009-07-22 }}</ref> The group that would become Ganas got its start in 1973 {{cn}} when founder ] left New York where she was the subject of a ] investigation by the NY Attorney General<ref name=quacks>{{Cite news|first= Iver|last=Peterson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=State Finds Quacks in Mental Therapy |url=http://ganas.tk/State_Finds_Quacks.pdf |publisher=] |date=December 7, 1972 |accessdate=2007-10-31 }}</ref> for her use of phony PhD. degrees at GROW, an "unaccredited ] school"<ref>{{Cite news|first= Iver|last=Peterson |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=City to Look into PhD Use|url=http://ganas.tk/City_Look_PhD_Use.pdf |publisher=] |date=July 15, 1972 |accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> founded by Gordon and her third husband in 1966.<ref name=about>{{Cite web|url=http://activistsolutions.org/about/who_we_are/mildred_gordon|title=About Mildred Gordon|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> Gordon moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, where she collected the first Ganas members and set up a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) "educational" corporation called the ] (FFL) in 1974. The group went by the name FFL until changing their name to Ganas in the early 1990s.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Kat Kinkade|coauthors=Mildred Gordon|date=Fall 1995|title=Benevolent Dictators in Community|journal=Communities Magazine|publisher=Fellowship for Intentional Community|url=http://communities.ic.org/88/2888.php#author|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://directory.ic.org/431/Ganas|title=Communities Directory|accessdate=2009-07-23}}</ref> In the late 1970s they returned to New York and moved into a Lower East Side apartment, finally settling in Tompkinsville, Staten Island in 1979.<ref name=commune>{{Cite news|author=] |coauthors= |title=Yes, It's a Commune. Yes, It's on Staten Island. |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/nyregion/yes-it-s-a-commune-yes-it-s-on-staten-island.html?pagewanted=all |quote=Ms. Gordon, 76, is the unofficial matriarch of Ganas, a commune on Staten Island that has maintained a quiet presence since 1980, when six people seeking an alternative to alienation in American life spent $43,000 for a rundown house a few blocks from the ferry terminal. |work=] |date=November 29, 1998 |accessdate=2009-07-22 }}</ref>


On Staten Island the core-group shares ownership of eight houses and three commercial buildings that house their retail stores.<ref name=ganas>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ganas.org |title=Ganas Community |accessdate=2009-07-21|publisher=Ganas }}</ref> The stores focus on reuse, recycling and other aspects of simple living. There is a used furniture store, a used clothing store, a gallery and an Internet cafe that sells used books and other media. There are about 85 people who live in Ganas houses and cover expenses by either paying rent or working in the stores.<ref name=nymag>{{Cite news|author=] |coauthors= |title=Big Love on Staten Island. |url=http://nymag.com/news/features/16711/ |work=] |date=April 24, 2006 |accessdate=2007-10-31 }}</ref> Until 2007, these expense payments were reported on FFL 990 tax-returns as voluntary donations under "direct public support." According to IRS tax code, non-profit organizations are required to disclose to donors that their contributions are voluntary and tax-deductible and are being reported as tax-exempt income. On Staten Island the core-group shares ownership of eight houses and three commercial buildings that house their retail stores.<ref name=ganas>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ganas.org |title=Ganas Community |accessdate=2009-07-21|publisher=Ganas }}</ref> The stores focus on reuse, recycling and other aspects of simple living. There is a used furniture store, a used clothing store, a gallery and an Internet cafe that sells used books and other media. There are about 85 people who live in Ganas houses and cover expenses by either paying rent or working in the stores.<ref name=nymag>{{Cite news|author=] |coauthors= |title=Big Love on Staten Island. |url=http://nymag.com/news/features/16711/ |work=] |date=April 24, 2006 |accessdate=2007-10-31 }}</ref> Until 2007, these expense payments were reported on FFL 990 tax-returns as voluntary donations under "direct public support." According to IRS tax code, non-profit organizations are required to disclose to donors that their contributions are voluntary and tax-deductible and are being reported as tax-exempt income.

Revision as of 23:18, 8 November 2010

For other uses, see Ganas (disambiguation).
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Ganas
135 Corson Avenue, Staten Island
Formation1979
TypeIntentional community
PurposeFeedback Learning, recycling
Location
Membership70-80

Ganas is an intentional community in New Brighton, Staten Island. Ganas describes itself as "an urban experiment in open dialogue based on full disclosure and commitment to exploring applications of Feedback Learning". The community was founded in 1979 with a family of 6 persons, and grew to consist of 10-12 core group members, that share as in a commune, and 60 to 70 members of varying involvement. Within the core group, some work within the community and some work independently. Likewise, approximately half the members work within the community, and the other half pay monthly for rent, food, and utilities. The three businesses run by Ganas are associated with the sale of used articles: furniture, clothing, and books. The book cafe also has a neighborhood stage, with a weekly variety of performers. While there are previously arranged agreements, some available in print to new members, Ganas operates on four primary rules forbidding violence, freeloading, illegal activities, and non-negotiable negativity. Negativity is allowed only if it is to be discussed in the hope of resolve. Five days a week there is a 2 hour planning session, to discuss both business and personal issues over breakfast. Anyone in the community can participate in the meeting, but discussions are lead by the core group. Decision making is usually made by informal consensus of the core group.

History

The group that would become Ganas got its start in 1973 when founder Mildred Gordon left New York where she was the subject of a fraud investigation by the NY Attorney General for her use of phony PhD. degrees at GROW, an "unaccredited group therapy school" founded by Gordon and her third husband in 1966. Gordon moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, where she collected the first Ganas members and set up a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) "educational" corporation called the Foundation for Feedback Learning (FFL) in 1974. The group went by the name FFL until changing their name to Ganas in the early 1990s. In the late 1970s they returned to New York and moved into a Lower East Side apartment, finally settling in Tompkinsville, Staten Island in 1979.

On Staten Island the core-group shares ownership of eight houses and three commercial buildings that house their retail stores. The stores focus on reuse, recycling and other aspects of simple living. There is a used furniture store, a used clothing store, a gallery and an Internet cafe that sells used books and other media. There are about 85 people who live in Ganas houses and cover expenses by either paying rent or working in the stores. Until 2007, these expense payments were reported on FFL 990 tax-returns as voluntary donations under "direct public support." According to IRS tax code, non-profit organizations are required to disclose to donors that their contributions are voluntary and tax-deductible and are being reported as tax-exempt income.

The primary focus of Ganas is Feedback Learning, an intense brand of communication of which journalist Jonah Owen Lamb writes "In action, “communication” looks like group therapy. It looks uncomfortable and invasive. And, for many years, it was expected of new members. Those new to Ganas would share their life story with the group, who would respond by picking apart their issues and deciding how those issues should be dealt with. By “killing their buddhas,” it was felt, Ganas members could begin to take control of how they reacted to the world. For most of the commune’s history, until she left Ganas in 2001, the creator of this theory, Mildred, directed the buddha-killing sessions. Now she returns once a week to conduct “feedback learning” at the commune." Mildred Gordon describes Feedback Learning as an "indispensable day-to-day guiding experience" in which members of the community provide feedback - helpful criticism - to each other. Through daily discussions of every community member's behaviour members can learn about themselves and their motivations, gain from hearing unpleasant truths, and "accept negative information with the excitement of discovery."

Controversy

Although only the core-group participates in income and property sharing, Ganas is widely perceived by the media as a commune. There have been allegations by ex-members that Ganas is a cult, though the Ganas website asserts that no one is forced to participate in Feedback Learning, their group conflict resolution process. Ganas is an "allied" member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities.

Although Ganas disclaimers state "We are not a therapeutic community" in fact that distinction "is not always clear." "Ganas groups are often mistakenly thought of as personal therapy" states their Web site, and Gordon herself is often mistaken for a psychotherapist. Despite past charges of fraud Gordon continues to mis-represent herself as a psychologist in publications, but in reality Mildred Gordon has never been a trained psychotherapist of any kind and does not hold a license or even a degree. These and other discrepancies were brought to light by the shooting of Ganas co-founder Jeff Gross on May 29, 2006. The media attention surrounding the incident exposed allegations that Ganas is "a cult, a hippie commune that owns $10 million in real estate, and it went mad with power. The power is playing chess with people's lives. They control minds with drugs that are used by psychotherapists." "A lot of the women were on psychotropic drugs, and they would have these therapy sessions with Mildred and others." There were "contractual agreements for international visitors to marry Ganas residents for their citizenship privileges. They acted like a dating service handing out marriage contracts. Basically it's legal sex for money".

Jeff Gross survived the shooting and at trial identified the shooter as Rebekah Johnson, a former member who lived at Ganas periodically until she was forcibly evicted in 1996. Johnson had unsuccessfully sued the group for fraud and sexual harassment in 2000. Her claims that Ganas pressured women into fraudulent green card marriages have since been corroborated by other ex-members. Johnson's attorney denied that she had shot Gross, but said that she was psychologically damaged by Ganas and sought to expose their harmful practices. She was "wrongfully accused by Gross as payback for portraying him as a brainwashing rapist and the commune as a kinky cult." On August 4, 2008 Johnson was acquitted on charges of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and attempted grand larceny following less than five hours of deliberation by a jury. Jeff Gross, who has repeatedly claimed that he "fears for his life", no longer lives at the commune and has filed several lawsuits against both Ganas and Rebekah Johnson. In court papers alleging battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, Gross claims he was "booted out" of Ganas in October 2007 and is seeking damages totaling over $40 million.

References and notes

  1. ^ Andrew Jacobs (November 29, 1998). "Yes, It's a Commune. Yes, It's on Staten Island". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-07-22. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) Cite error: The named reference "commune" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. "Ganas Info". Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  3. ^ "Ganas Community". Ganas. Retrieved 2009-07-21. Cite error: The named reference "ganas" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Visions of Utopia". Retrieved 2010-11-08.
  5. Peterson, Iver (December 7, 1972). "State Finds Quacks in Mental Therapy" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-31. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. Peterson, Iver (July 15, 1972). "City to Look into PhD Use" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. "About Mildred Gordon". Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  8. Kat Kinkade (Fall 1995). "Benevolent Dictators in Community". Communities Magazine. Fellowship for Intentional Community. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  9. "Communities Directory". Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  10. ^ Annalee Newitz (April 24, 2006). "Big Love on Staten Island". New York Magazine. Retrieved 2007-10-31. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. Jacobs, Andrew (06-01-2006). "Free Love, Hate and an Ambush at a Commune on Staten Island". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  12. Lamb, Jonah Owen (05-2006). "Utopia Has a Web Site: Commune Life on Staten Island". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. Farhan Haq. "'Ganas' Brings Cooperative Housing to New York". International Co-operative Alliance. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  14. Cite error: The named reference free was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. Cite error: The named reference utopia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Jeff Harrell (06-03-2006). "A look at Ganas from one who has lived there". Staten Island Advance. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. "Our Communities". Federation of Egalitarian Communities. February 22, 2005. Retrieved 2009-07-28.
  18. ^ Heather Gilmore (06-04-2006). "Commune Sex Shocker". New York Post. Retrieved 2009-07-23. wacky sex sessions with a shrink {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. Mildred Gordon (199). "Intentional Communities as Laboratories for Learning about Direct Democracy". Fellowship for Intentional Community. Retrieved 2009-08-20. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  20. Peterson, Iver (July 14, 1972). "6 at School Lack Accredited Degress" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-31. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  21. Tony Allen-Mills (06-04-2006). "New York shooting blows apart hippie commune with kinky sex on the side". London Sunday Times. Retrieved 2009-07-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ James Barron (5 August 2008). "Ex-Member of Commune Is Acquitted". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-05. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  23. ^ Edgar Sandoval (4 August 2008). "Ex-commune member Rebekah Johnson cleared in shooting; guru fears for life". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2008-08-05. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  24. ^ John Annese (4 August 2008). "Staten Island commune leader: 'My life is at risk'". Staten Island Advance. Retrieved 2008-08-05. Rebekah Johnson was found not guilty on charges of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and attempted grand larceny. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  25. Frank Donnelly (28 May 2009). "Gravely wounded in shooting, founder sues Staten Island commune". Staten Island Advance. Retrieved 2009-07-21. Gross, who now lives in Denver, was booted out of the group in October 2007, court papers said. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

40°38′16″N 74°05′00″W / 40.637779°N 74.083359°W / 40.637779; -74.083359 (Ganasl)

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