The Santa Barbara Student Housing Coop (SBSHC) is a student housing cooperative designed to provide affordable housing for students attending post-secondary institutions in Santa Barbara County. It is a member of NASCO. The first coop was established in 1976, and consists of five houses; Newman, Manley, Dolores, Biko and Merton. In all, just under 100 students live in these houses.
The purpose of the Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-op (SBSHC) is to provide low rent co-op housing regardless of gender, race, social, political, or religious affiliation. SBSHC engages in continuous educational programs that further the principles of cooperation through mutual, self-help living at a minimal cost.
The co-ops are located in Isla Vista and are centers of artistic expression, alternative thought, social activism and creativity in the frantic party boom and bust community that is Isla Vista. The co-op system organizes the annual "Co-opula" festival featuring local musical talent, spoken word, local organic food and outdoor entertainment in Anisq'Oyo' Park in Isla Vista. In 2006, the massively successful and now institutionalized "Chillavista" festival was organized out of the Biko co-op, and featured musical talent from the Isla Vista community including many bands spawned from and frequently performing at Isla Vista Co-ops. Chillavista was powered through renewable energy, featured local organic produce, screened several films on progressivism and sustainability and proved to be a highly successful zero waste event featuring national touring acts such as Delta Nove, Blue Turtle Seduction, Elijah Manuel & The Revelations and local psychedelic jam masters Silent Wei.
In 2006, the Isla Vista co-ops provided pivotal support to the over 200 residents evicted from their homes in Isla Vista by Conquest Housing. Many in the Isla Vista community regarded these evictions as racially motivated, since nearly all of the 200 men, women, and children who were evicted were Hispanic and had little access to legal representation on their behalf. In response, some residents of the co-ops rallied support for the families by throwing benefit concerts, establishing a protest "tent city" in the center of the UCSB campus and staging marches throughout Santa Barbara to raise awareness of these families' concerns. The efforts have contributed to the larger emerging front in Isla Vista united against the ongoing pattern of discriminatory eviction followed by student rent gouging.
SBSHC also has a long-standing partnership with the Isla Vista Food Cooperative through purchasing most of its common houses' food through the food co-op, being the food co-op's biggest customer, making food co-op staff eligible to live in SBSHC houses, and shared leadership.
During the summer of 2005, Manley received a remodeled kitchen, new roof, new windows, a converted storage to study room, a complete solar panel system, landscaped garden area and refinished upstairs deck. Residents now participate in a full meal plan with both meat and vegetarian/vegan options. The house charge covers electricity, gas, water, trash, laundry, and cable internet.
The Manley house has eleven bedrooms in two separate units. Three bedrooms are located upstairs, where there is a large deck and living room. Downstairs are eight bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining room, and study space.
The house is named after Steven Manley, who died August 15, 1979, battling a brush wildfire near Santa Maria. He was 21 years old and a Junior Environmental Studies Major at UCSB, working the summer as a firefighter with the California Division of Forestry.
Although Newman has nine separate apartments (six two-bedroom/one-bath units and three studios), Newman is a housing community. There is no meal plan for the Newman building but some members participate in optional potlucks. The homemade fire pit in front, worm bin composting system, gardens, and mural painting projects on the Newman's doors and walls, allows members to be creative and communal. The House charge for Newman's residents covers laundry, parking, water, trash and cable internet.
Newman House is named after Patti Newman, the first Executive Director and staff member of SBSHC.
Dolores, formerly called Dashain, is a vegetarian/vegan house. Dolores strives to buy local food and cultivate a partnership with their neighboring organic and whole foods cooperative, the Isla Vista Food Co-op. Of the co-ops, Dolores is the closest to the beach situated on the 67 block of Sabado Tarde Road. Sunsets can be viewed from the window of the top three rooms, and fire loving occurs in the backyard. Dolores maintains its own garden space out back which once hosted a family of chickens.
The house has nine bedrooms and three bathrooms. Dolores has traditionally never had television in common space but have hosted community screenings in the living room or front and backyard. The house charge covers water, trash, electricity, gas, cable internet, parking and laundry.
Dolores is named after Dolores Huerta, a civil rights activist and co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association (now the United Farm Workers (UFW)) .
Named after Stephen Bantu Biko, founder and martyr of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, Biko has been SBSHC's "People of Color" Co-op. Biko's theme provides a safe, respectful space for people of color in a predominantly white college campus community. A social justice house, Biko has been known to host ethnic studies events and socials for the Queer Student Union (QSU). Biko has twelve bedrooms and six bathrooms. Its kitchen is large and spacious, with industrial-strength cooking facilities and a stocked pantry. Biko has a mandatory meal plan that always offers both meat and vegetarian/vegan options. The House charge includes gas, electricity, water, trash, and laundry, and cable internet.
The garage space out front functions as central storage as well as an all-purpose community space for radical meetings, music, art exhibitions and dance. Biko Garage is funded by donation only, and is run and operated by house members. The basketball court and front garden and porch space, as well as ample parking, are some of the other benefits of living at the Biko.
The Thomas Merton Interfaith House was completed in April 2013, with the first residents moving in June 2013. The co-op house, located on the second floor of the building, has a large kitchen and living room, with semi dorm-style bathrooms. There is a sizable garden on the north side of the building, as well as bike storage lockers, SBSHC's office, and an auditorium and kitchen used for five SBSHC events per year.
The theme of the house is Interfaith, continuing the legacy of the University Religious Center who previously owned the building. Through continuing funds, co-op members are enabled to attend interfaith conferences, host interfaith-themed events, and make connections with faith groups around the community and the world.
SBSHC members who live at Merton House, are students at University of California, Santa Barbara, and who qualify as low income by the standards set by the County of Santa Barbara receive a scholarship that is a significant reduction in their rent, making Merton House the most affordable UCSB student housing in Isla Vista.
Merton House is named after Thomas Merton, an Anglo-American Catholic writer and Mystic who was an advocate of spirituality, social justice, pacifism, and interfaith understanding post-World War II.
Isla Vista is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Barbara County, California, in the United States. As of 2020 census, the community had a population of 15,500. The majority of residents are college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, or Santa Barbara City College. The beachside community of Isla Vista lies on a flat plateau about 30 feet (9 m) in elevation, separated from the beach by a bluff.
Kresge College is one of the residential colleges that make up the University of California, Santa Cruz. Founded in 1971 and named after Sebastian Kresge, Kresge college is located on the western edge of the UCSC campus. Kresge is the sixth of ten colleges at UCSC, and originally one of the most experimental. The first provost of Kresge, Bob Edgar, had been strongly influenced by his experience in T-groups run by NTL Institute. He asked a T-group facilitator, psychologist Michael Kahn, to help him start the college. When they arrived at UCSC, they taught a course, Creating Kresge College, in which they and the students in it designed the college. Kresge was a participatory democracy, and students had extraordinary power in the early years. The college was run by two committees: Community Affairs and Academic Affairs. Any faculty member, student or staff member who wanted to be on these committees could be on them. Students' votes counted as much as the faculty or staff. These committees determined the budgets and hiring. They were also run by consensus. Distinguished early faculty members included Gregory Bateson, former husband of Margaret Mead and author of Steps to an Ecology of Mind; Phil Slater, author of The Pursuit of Loneliness; John Grinder, co-founder of Neuro-linguistic programming and co-author of The Structure of Magic; and William Everson, one of the Beat poets.
A laundry room is a room where clothes are washed, and sometimes also dried. In a modern home, laundry rooms are often equipped with an automatic washing machine and clothes dryer, and often a large basin, called a laundry tub, for hand-washing of delicate clothing articles such as sweaters, as well as an ironing board. Laundry rooms may also include storage cabinets, countertops for folding clothes, and, space permitting, a small sewing machine.
The North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) is a federation of housing cooperatives in Canada and the United States, started in 1968. Traditionally, NASCO has been associated with student housing cooperatives, though non-student cooperatives are included in its network. NASCO provides its member cooperatives with operational assistance, encourages the development of new cooperatives, and serves as an advocate for cooperatives to government, universities, and communities. NASCO teaches leadership skills, provides information, and serves as a central link in facilitating the fruition of the cooperative vision for students and youth.
Community of Urbana-Champaign Cooperative Housing, or COUCH, is an association of student housing cooperatives in Urbana and Champaign, Illinois. It is a member of North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO).
Crown College is a private Evangelical Christian college in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota. It is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
The Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan (ICC) is a student owned and operated housing cooperative serving students and community members in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The ICC is an active member of NASCO.
State housing is a system of public housing in New Zealand, offering low-cost rental housing to residents on low to moderate incomes. Some 69,000 state houses are managed by Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, most of which are owned by the Crown. In excess of 31,000 former state houses exist, which are now privately owned after large-scale sell-offs during recent decades. Since 2014, state housing has been part of a wider social housing system, which also includes privately owned low-cost housing.
The Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) is a student housing cooperative serving primarily UC Berkeley students, but open to any full-time post-secondary student. The BSC houses and/or feeds over 1,300 students in 17 houses and three apartment buildings. Food is provided to residents of the 17 houses, which also offer boarding meal plans to non-residents. As part of their rental agreement, residents of the houses are required to perform workshifts, typically five hours per week. The BSC is led by a board of directors which is primarily composed of and elected by student members.
A student housing cooperative, also known as co-operative housing, is a housing cooperative for student members. Members live in alternative cooperative housing that they personally own and maintain. These houses are designed to lower housing costs while providing an educational and community environment for students to live and grow in. They are, in general, nonprofit, communal, and self-governing, with students pooling their monetary and personal resources to create a community style home. Many student housing cooperatives share operation and governing of the house. As with most cooperatives, student housing coops follow the Rochdale Principles and promote collaboration and community work done by the members for mutual benefit.
Student housing owned by the University of California, Los Angeles is governed by two separate departments: the Office of Residential Life, and Housing and Hospitality Services, and provides housing for both undergraduates and graduate students, on and off-campus.
On February 23, 2001, a vehicular homicide and assault occurred in the student community of Isla Vista, California, near the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus. Four people were killed and a fifth, who suffered critical injuries, died in October 2016. The driver, David Attias, was ruled legally insane and sentenced to 60 years in a mental institution. In September 2012, a court approved Attias' release after 10 years.
Deltopia, originally known as Floatopia, is a social event started in 2004 which takes place annually in Isla Vista, California. Deltopia was originated by University of California, Santa Barbara students and occurs at the start of UCSB's spring quarter around Del Playa Drive. Participants consist primarily of college students. In early years, attendance was estimated at a few hundred participants with later years seeing an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 attendees.
The Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (PLE) is a year-round ecology field station of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences located in Linesville and South Shenango Township on the shores Pymatuning Lake in Pennsylvania. The station contains research facilities and equipment, conducts undergraduate education and courses, and serves as center for conferences, symposia, and retreats. The Pyatuning Laboratory hosts researchers from the University of Pittsburgh as well as those from universities throughout the nation and world, which have included, among others, researchers form Duke University, the University of Virginia, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami. Likewise, course instructors at the lab come from the University of Pittsburgh, but also have included instructors from other institutions including Georgia Tech, the University of Connecticut, and the National Aviary. In addition, the University of Pittsburgh has instituted a collaborative program for study at the Pymatuning Lab with other area universities in which students that are enrolled through any of these institutions register, pay tuition, and receive credit at their home institutions. Schools participating in the collaborative program include Clarion University, Edinboro University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Slippery Rock University.
Escher Cooperative House, named after artist M. C. Escher, is one of the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan's (ICC) 16 student housing cooperatives. It is located at 1500 to 1520 Gilbert Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The only North Campus-located cooperative, it is the ICC's largest community with over 150 spaces of residents and 9 separately themed "suites." It is also the only building in Ann Arbor built specifically for cooperative housing.
Isla Vista Arts is an organization at the University of California, Santa Barbara with the goal of promoting art and culture in the small, neighboring community of Isla Vista, California. It is affiliated with the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and Associated Students. Isla Vista Arts provides free and low-cost entertainment to college students and community members.
The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) is a non-profit corporation founded in 1962 that feeds and houses Oberlin College students. Located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, it is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College. OSCA is one of the largest student housing cooperatives in North America, though membership has declined in recent years.
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus is located around 10 miles west of downtown Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara County, California.
Kim Teru Yasuda is an American artist known for her sculptures, site-specific installations and public art projects exploring themes of memory, identity, and social engagement in public spaces.
