Boulder Housing Coalition

In 1995 the director of the University of Colorado Environmental Center Will Toor tasked the then Co-op Coordinator Lincoln Miller with a mission to, “Create co-ops on campus and create co-ops off campus”. In order to create co-ops off campus Will and Lincoln created a non-profit called the Boulder Housing Coalition (BHC). In 1996 the Boulder Housing Coalition hosted the first annual co-op summit for about 20 people at the Brick House Co-op. One of them was Ben Lipman. Ben was the director of the Solstice Institute a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to creating sustainable community in Boulder. They agreed to sponsor the BHC and give us free office space. At the next Co-op Summit Jim Harrington got involved. Ben found a way to hire Jim as an Americorps: VISTA Volunteer.

Jim got 501(c)3 and Community Housing Development Organization status for the BHC, and the BHC president Cedar Barstow kept the organization moving forward. We went for two grants from the City to create affordable cooperatives but we were turned down.

In the mean time the student co-op project was moving forward. It got started by forming a student organization and a Working Group with campus administrators, students, housing staff and student government representatives. The group decided to run a student referendum that would ask each of the 25,000 students to give $2 per semester for 4 years. This would raise 100,000 a year for student co-ops. Around that time an old friend of Will’s from the Chicago co-ops came to the University of Colorado to study Business and Law. Tony Sanny moved into our new rental co-op called Limpopo and began working on the co-op referendum with Lincoln. In 1998 the referendum passed by a mere 200 votes and Tony took over as the new CU campus co-op coordinator. The Students for Co-op Housing now had $400,000 for co-ops but we still needed Board of Regent approval to collect the money and a co-op house to move into.

Birth of the Masala Cooperative

In 1994, nine Boulder residents collectively purchased 744 Marine Street and organized the Slovo Cooperative. In 1999, the Slovo residents wanted to sell the house, but wanted the house to remain a cooperative. Tony convinced a national co-op developer called NASCO Properties to buy the 744 Marine street house from the Slovo co-op and the new Masala Co-op was born. NASCO Properties (NP) used deferred interest loans, a line of credit from the co-op bank and a $70,000 equity gift from Slovo to buy the house for NASCO Properties. NASCO Properties lack of a down payment ment this plan could only hold the house for 2 years. The Students for Co-op Housing began to build administrative support for a plan that would create a non-profit that would use the referendum money in combination with university loans to buy Masala house from NASCO Properties and start the first student cooperative housing system in Colorado. The Student Government, The Treasurer of the University, the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, two members of the Board of Regents and all the top university financial brass supported the plan.

However, we still needed the support of the President’s office in order to go before the Board of Regents for final approval. The lawyer for the presidents office would not sign off on the plan. She favored a plan that would give complete control of the Co-op system to the University and take an additional 18 months to implement. We had already asked for a one year extension on our deferred loans and we could not extend them any further.

The year was 2001 and there were only 9 months left until NASCO Properties would be forced to sell the house to the highest bidder. Then the state debt crisis hit. Only University projects on the priority list would receive loans. Co-ops were not on the list and for all practical purposes the university co-op project was dead.

Later that same year the three participants at the Boulder Housing Coalition 6th Annual Co-op Summit were wondering what we were going to do to save Masala. Time was running out. We needed a plan B. Will Toor now the mayor of Boulder rode up on his bicycle and said, “Go for another city grant.” The plan was for the BHC to go for a grant to buy Masala from NP and create the first house in a community co-op federation. The whole house pitched in to help the BHC board.

All federations must begin with one house. In May of 2002 the Boulder Housing Coalition purchased Masala, the first permanently affordable rental cooperative in the state of Colorado. This 10 bedroom 4-plex located at 744 Marine Street was purchased with a $435,000 loan from Vectra bank and $102,000 grant from the city of Boulder.  The project also received a $70,000 equity contribution from the members of Slovo co-op, $2,500 in private donations and $2,000 from the Community Foundation. Talk about cooperation, over a seven year period it took the combined efforts of: The Boulder Housing Coalition, The Solstice Institute, NASCO & NASCO Properties, AmeriCorps: VISTA, The Fellowship for Intentional Communities, Kagawa Fund, The National Cooperative Bank, The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, The University of Colorado Student Environmental Center, The members of Slovo and Masala Cooperatives, Thistle Community Housing, The Enterprise Foundation, The Institute for Community Economics and numerous volunteers working for hundreds of hours just to give us this one shot. Since 2002 we have received on going technical support and consulting services from Thistle Community Housing. All of Thistle’s invaluable services have been provided at reduced cost or no cost. We continue to have the support of the Community Foundation.

In 2004 the BHC purchased our second permanently affordable rental cooperative and created the first affordable co-op housing system in Colorado. The Chrysalis Cooperative is a 4 unit 13 bedroom house located at 2127 16th street. It is home to a mix of low income singles and families and it has been in continuous operation for the past 7 years. The house was purchased with a $110,000 grant from the city of Boulder. On November 19th 2004 the BHC used tax exempt bond financing to refinance our current property, the Masala Co-op and purchase the Chrysalis co-op. Us bank will serve as the lender and the City of Boulder will serve as the bond issuer.