Santa Cruz's Co-Op Triad

While in Santa Cruz, I visited three cooperative houses in Santa Cruz: the Laurel Manor (a.k.a. Food Not Lawns House), Zami, and the Chavez House.

My friend, Alley, lives at the Laurel Manor in a hay-bale room that shares a wall with the building. Hay-bale construction is an interesting building alternative, and although tarps were needed to keep it rain-proof, it was a pretty cute and cozy room. Alley planned to insulate it with fabric and got a space heater to beat the winter cold. The house has gardens in the front and back and a large banner that reads "Food Not Lawns" hanging on the front with an email address and offer of help with at-home gardening.

I was invited over for their house dinner on Thursday. It was a plethora of make-your-own-taco fixin's including guacamole, salsa, fresh bell peppers, and lettuce. Mostly organic and freshly made, yum! The meal was topped off by candied orange peels one of the house members made. The folks at the Laurel Manor certainly have the DIY drive, and seem that they are able to do it themselves easier in a group. Some say DIO- Do It Ourselves, in order to emphasize the importance of a community in self-sufficiency.

Alley also took me to the Chavez House, where I returned to do some interviews the next day, and Zami, where we saw a couple of bands play- the Ghostpuppets and Done Been Had. Nothing super-amazing to me, but it was nice to see some local artistry. Zami is the crustier, punkier of the Santa Cruz co-ops and sits at the bottom of Laurel St. There are two buildings on the property plus a municipal bus cum residence. Certainly a place for alternative lifestyles.

I walked up to the Chavez House to see if anyone would entertain me with an interview, and found someone sitting on the front porch with a book and a cigarette. I told him about my field trip, and he agreed to do an interview, putting down his book and offering me a cigarette. His name is Angelo and is a student at UCSC as a Feminist Studies major. His friend had introduced him to the folks at Chavez House, and he later moved in. The community-orientation of the house attracted him, but he felt that even in the apartments on campus he had lived on had a strong sense of community as well.

What he likes about the Chavez House is the diversity of people living there, and although most of the residents are students and have privilege that way, he believes they "care collectively" with projects like the house garden, concerns and actions in support of sustainability, and a sharing of ideas. Living in a co-op already says something about you, Angelo said, since you are choosing to live in such a community setting.

He described the 24 people living at Chavez as anarchist, feminist, and Marxist, but as no one unified -ist. Rather, they are all left/radical, but diverse in their specific views, and that is actually a strength of the community, because they are able to discuss their leanings and learn from each other. "It's not a radical house, but the people here have radical ideas."

Angelo hopes to attend graduate school in philosophy or another discipline outside of Feminist Studies, and would like to become a professor and teach. He feels that his studies have given him more of a "way of going about things" rather than specific world change. When I asked him if he thought we were going to hell in a handbasket, he said, "Well, we may or may not be, but I'm going to pretend that it's not... Ideas need to change, but it's not sufficient to only change when we