Students shuffled into the room and began making themselves comfortable. Some lounged on couches, others stretched out on the floor — until someone broke the silence.
"Is everyone here?" one student asked.
"If you're not here, say something," another quipped.
So began the house meeting on Oct. 9, at the Phoenix Cooperative at 239 Oakhill Ave., one of 15 cooperative houses scattered around East Lansing. The house meets every two weeks to discuss various issues.
Cooperative housing is a system in which individuals come together to provide housing for themselves. At MSU the system is administered by the MSU Student Housing Cooperative, Inc., or SHC, which formed in 1971. The SHC currently has 196 members, and owns 12 of the 15 East Lansing co-ops.
"You have a group of students and they need housing. Rather than going to some outside group to provide it, they pool their resources and do it themselves," said Evan Dayringer, the SHC's member services coordinator.
The base cost of joining the co-op is $295 a month for a single and $190 a month for a double, said Dayringer, a mathematics senior. This money goes toward covering the costs of mortgages, property taxes and administration costs for the SHC.
"There is no RA telling you what to do, no landlord looking over your shoulder," Dayringer said. "The members of the house get to live the way that they want to."
At the Phoenix house, the total cost is about $440 a month for a single. This includes dinner three nights per week, said resident Michael Langdon, an English junior.
Lauren Beach, a social relations senior, said the reasonable price was one of the factors that influenced her decision to join the co-op.
In addition, she was looking for a sense of being part of a larger community, she said. Phoenix is the largest in the co-op system with nearly 30 residents.
Beach said she was looking for an older crowd than in the dorms, but wanted to retain a sense of community.
The co-op system is an opportunity for students to control their own living arrangements, Langdon said.
"You don't have the feeling of being exploited by your landlord," he said. "You are your own landlord."
Once members join a house, they elect a representative to the Board of Directors of the SHC, which runs the co-op system, Dayringer said.
Each house assigns other positions to its members as well. Some elected positions are more involved than others, such as handling the house's finances or maintenance. Others are more mundane, like cleaning a certain room weekly, Langdon said.
Education senior Angie Rider appreciates the delegation of duties throughout the house.
"I like the organization," she said. "There are just enough rules and processes to make it not stressful, and still have everything get taken care of."
The only qualification to join the co-op is to be enrolled in a post-secondary institution, Dayringer said.
"As long as you're a student and your willing to live in a cooperative environment, you can get in," Dayringer said.
The co-op provides a much better living environment than Langdon's previous off-campus living stints, including two different apartment complexes, he said.
"Here there is more interaction, which fosters a sense of community," Langdon said. "You get the feeling that you're not alone."
