Culture clash at Berkeley student co-ops
A culture clash is unfolding inside Berkeley’s venerable co-op student residences, between people who need affordable housing to attend a university and those who simply want a fun, alternative place to live.
The dynamic mirrors the tension occurring in Bay Area communities where gentrification has spurred a debate over belonging and neighborhood identity. The campus conflict turns on whether the independent, nonprofit Berkeley Student Cooperative — 17 houses and three apartments near UC Berkeley — is living up to its mission.
Berkeley Students formed the co-op in 1933 to provide affordable housing to those who might not otherwise be Ella Smith, resident of Berkeley student co-op able to attend the university. Today it gives low-income students priority and offers rooms at about $850 a month in a market where average rents are more than $3,000 for a one-bedroom.
Yet some people say the cooperative isn’t serving lowincome students as well as it should. Only about half of the 1,300 students qualify as low
“You see some people prioritize the alternative hippie experience, while other people are here because they don’t have anywhere else to go.”
income by the school’s standard — and in the houses it’s just 40%.
In part, that’s because the co-ops have gained a reputation as being more than just affordable housing — they’re an alternative, community-oriented place to live. The houses in particular offer a Greek-life experience for students who don’t want to join a fraternity or sorority — and don’t mind clothing-optional parties and contentious house meetings.
“If you ask every person, ‘Do you believe in the mission of the Berkeley Student Cooperative?’ they’ll say yes,” said Ella Smith, who lives in Lothlorien, known as Loth, a 58person vegetarian co-op near campus. “But you see some people prioritize the alternative hippie experience, while other people are here because they don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Smith is part of UC Berkeley’s Equal Opportunity Program for low-income students, those first in their family to go to college and underrepresented minorities; she is white. She moved to Loth in August because she heard low-income students got priority. “The housing crisis is so much to deal with,” she said. Finding a place to live for about $850 a month, food included, was a dream.
Yet Smith struggled to study amid raucous house parties and was unable to sleep at times, when loud music pulsed through the floorboards at odd hours of the night. So while she’s grateful for the low rent and has made some close friends at Loth, she often feels like an outsider in a home that’s supposed to be for her.
Students who don’t qualify as low-income say the co-op residences are more than just discounted rent, though that is essential. “We also don’t have enough housing options that offer that type of community, people coming together to have hard conversations and have fun,” said Conner Smith, a 24-year-old from North Carolina who is no relation to Ella.
Smith said he was unaware of the dynamics between lowincome students and other co-op residents in 2014 when he moved in. He was drawn to the sense of community, the general willingness to have interesting, sometimes difficult conversations.
One conversation that came up early and often was Conner Smith’s presence in the house and his role as a manager. At the time, most of the managers were white and male, and Smith was no exception. “We checked off all the boxes of privilege and got criticized a lot for that,” he said. “Like OK, I understand how this is an issue, but how can we work together so our identities don’t get in the way of our job? At the end of the day, I have to manage this kitchen and no one else is going to do it for me.”
The tension was apparent at a Loth house meeting in April, when students debated whether to host their annual “food orgy.” They were technically on a party ban, the result of an incident with the Berkeley Fire Department the semester before. But this event, with its chocolate sauce and occasional party drugs such as ecstasy, was considered an important bonding experience for the community.
The students weren’t sure what would happen if they hosted it. Perhaps the managers — students who handle house operations in exchange for subsidized rent — would lose funding.
“The fact that there was even the discussion was kind of upsetting,” said Smith, a kitchen manager and sophomore studying political economy at UC Berkeley. “We were the ones stopping the community from having this great party, but I’m sorry,” she said. “Well, I’m not sorry. The managers’ home security and financial security comes first.”
Cassidy Irwin, a fifth-year senior studying sociology, agreed that the culture clash creates problems. “There’s definitely contention that comes up about Loth being a lot of trust-fund hippies who want to live in a party house but could afford to live elsewhere,” she said. “Like the festival culture. Before I was there, around 30 or 40 people would go to Burning Man. Some people are very much like, ‘You shouldn’t live here if you can drop a month’s rent on a festival.’”
In 2009, when the Berkeley Student Cooperative did its first demographic survey of the co-ops, it found that only 27% of students were lowincome. This was because of a rise in middle- and highincome applications and a drop in low-income applications, according to Kim Benson, the cooperative director, though she noted that students who aren’t low-income may still fall under other “underserved community” categories, like being undocumented or having a disability. There was, she admitted, an unfortunate “lack of focus on the mission.”
Since then, the cooperative has tried to increase the number of low-income students and even out the racial disparities with “targeted recruitment” and scholarships. They even put low-income students at the top of the co-op wait list, which is about 700 students long.
At two of the co-op-owned apartment buildings, which operate more like dorms and less like free-flowing communes, low-income students now make up more than 80% of residents. That’s higher than the houses, bringing the total number of low-income students across the entire co-op system to 51%.
Back in April, Ella Smith and another manager voiced their concern that the food orgy could put their housing at risk — so the idea was immediately squashed. Loth makes decisions with a consensus, and all students have to agree on major initiatives for them to pass. Students can also voice a “major objection,” meaning they’d consider moving out over the decision. If just one student does this, the initiative is killed, no questions asked.
A month later, the ban was lifted, and the food orgy commenced. “I went to sleep at 11 p.m. that night,” Smith said. “But I think everyone else still had fun.”