
Our Mission
is to create a community-focused alternative to the for-profit housing market that is rooted in relationship and mutuality: co-housing communities in which people live like families, sharing meals, common spaces, and the rhythms of home care.

Our Staff

Isaac Everett (he/him) | Executive Director
Isaac is a passionate believer in intentional community; he co-founded one such community with five collaborators in 2011 and has lived there with his partner ever since, and was a part of the founding team that conceived and created CRECHE. Before joining the CRECHE staff, Isaac served as the Minister of Liturgical Arts at The Crossing, a Boston-based church plant, and had a ten-year career as a session musician in New York City prior to that.
Isaac spends his spare time making music, coaching weightlifters, and playing nerdy board games.
You can contact Isaac at isaac@creche.community

Jeffrey Edenberg (he/him, they/them) | Program Manager
Jeffrey is a creative people person who specializes in fostering community. Prior to joining the Creche team in 2022, he spent 5 years living at and working for Beacon Hill Friends House, a Quaker residential intentional community and gathering space.
Outside of work, Jeffrey is a musician, uncle, and houseplant enthusiast. Since putting down roots in Boston to be nearer his now 5-year-old nephew, he enjoys taking art classes, cooking, baking, and exploring New England with his partner, Egan.
You can contact Jeffrey at jeff@creche.community

Alison Sabean (she/her) | Social Work Intern
Alison is a student in the Master's of Social Work program at Boston College, and she is thrilled to be completing her first of two field education experiences with Creche! In this role, she will be learning the ins and outs of nonprofit work, participating in activities such as grant writing, fundraising, outreach, and more. Outside of school, she works with a nonprofit called The NAN Project, a suicide prevention organization geared toward students across Massachusetts. She is incredibly grateful to Creche for this opportunity and is looking forward to a great year!

Our Board

Angel Figueroa (he/him) | President
Angel is a proud Puerto Rican born and raised in Greater New York, and is a founding member of the St Mary's House. He has lived in Ohio, Idaho, Montana, and Chicago before moving to Boston to work for Episcopal City Mission, where he uses his background in faith-based organizing to engage Episcopalians in the work of economic and racial justice. He first encountered faith-based community organizing while attending the Lutheran School of Theology of Chicago, from which he graduated with a Masters of Arts in Theological Study.

Chelsea Smith (she/her) | Treasurer
Chelsea has lived in five different intentional communities in Boston and Michigan. With a background in administration and bookkeeping, she has worked as an office manager/bookkeeper at a small church, an administrative assistant with an Episcopal farm ministry, and accounting assistant for the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters, and co-coordinator of a community garden. She now works for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts as Assistant for Governance and Administration.

Kyrah Rodriguez (she/her)
Kyrah is the Director of New Life Relocation Consultants, an agency that provides both relocation and support services to residents in affordable and mixed income communities. She’s seen firsthand the impact that quality housing can have on people’s lives, and is excited by the way Creche lives in the intersection between housing justice and spiritual community. In addition to her community work, she’s a former co-warden at the Parish of St Paul Newton Highlands and has been deeply involved in immigrant justice and the Sanctuary movement.

Lauren Zook (she/her)
Lauren works in the Development Office of Northeastern University, and prior to that as grants administrator, development assistant, and global mission administrator at the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. She believes in the sustaining power of Christian family in difficult times, and is excited to join in Creche’s lifegiving work! Her most interesting extracurricular activity is an annual quest to watch every Oscar-nominated film before the awards ceremony.

Mike Scanlon (he/him) | Vice President
Mike is an award-winning independent architecture & planning professional with a particular specialty in historic preservation. Among other accomplishments, his work at 101 Beacon Street won a prestigious Preservation Achievement Award from the Boston Preservation Alliance, and he has chaired the Building Commission at Emmanuel Church for nearly a decade. In his spare time he is an accomplished ceramics artist, throwing pots at Mudflat Studios in Somerville, where he also serves on the board.

Michael Zanhiser (he/him) | Clerk
Michael has founded two intentional communities in Boston, one in Jamaica Plain and one in Dorchester, where he now lives with his wife and several housemates. He works as a software engineer for a firm designing autonomous vehicles. He’s interested in intentional community both as a politically and socially radical idea (sharing space and expenses in order to live more simply and sustainably) and as a form of Christian witness and spiritual formation, seeing voluntary interdependence as an antidote for our increasingly isolated and independent lives.

Rebekah Rodrigues (she/her)
Rebekah lives in the Emmanuel House with Jamie, her fiancée, and Garie, her cat. Originally from Fremont, California, she moved to Massachusetts to study political science and clarinet performance and now works as the Property Manager of Allston Brighton Congregational Church. Rebekah loves to cook, sing, and play cards with her housemates, and she's excited to bring her experience to her work with the board so that more people experience the joy and intimacy of living in an intentional community.

Tom Marsan-Ryan (he/him)
Tom was first exposed to intentional communities through my time living and working with the monks of the Society of St John the Evangelist (SSJE) in Harvard Square. He then spent four years living in intentional communities before starting a household and family with his partner. After five years as the Guesthouse Manager of SSJE, he spent two years as the Children's & Family Minister at Grace Episcopal Church in Newton, before transitioning to life as an artist's spouse and nonprofit president.

Our Households
Saint Mary's House
Neighborhood: Dorchester
Congregation: St Mary's Episcopal Church
Located in the heart of Dorchester by Ronan Park, the St Mary’s House is just under twenty minutes from St Mary’s Episcopal Church on foot. With six bedrooms, a beautiful porch, a spacious backyard, ample common space, and a sauna in the basement, the Saint Mary's House is well-equipped to house a vibrant community. The St Mary's House is also Creche's first partnership with a historically Black congregation, and we could not be more excited!

Emmanuel House
Neighborhood: Allston
Congregation: Emmanuel Church
Emmanuel House is committed to cultivating community space for contemplative repose, urban agriculture, and arts events. They live in a historic “Tudorbethan” single-family home in Allston. Their community life involves a morning prayer routine, and maintaining a community garden in their yard where neighborhood members are invited to relax, connect, and help themselves to the harvest.

Trinity House
Neighborhood: Newton Centre
Congregation: Trinity Parish
Trinity House is a graduate student community located right next door to Trinity Parish in Newton. Residents engage in cross-discipline dialogue, commiserate about the demands of school, and share the joys and responsibilities of a communal home life. Residents set aside time to tend to their shared and individual spiritual lives, and value the unique and generative experience of living in community during the liminal space of graduate school.


Our Community

Our Partners
Each CRECHE community is formed in a year-long discernment process with a partner congregation. Our partner congregations are:
Grant funding and loans support the work of building intentional community, from operations funding to the recent purchase of a house in Dorchester where we will launch the St Mary’s community. We receive funding from: