City Awards Co-op $45,000

By Jennifer Heller

Communications Coordinator

The Berkeley City Council unanimously voted on April 25 to award $45,000 to the USCA. The grant will be used to install a disabled accessible ramp at Hillegass-Parker House.

Fifty-seven graduate, re-entry students, visiting scholars, and faculty call Hillegass-Parker House home every semester. The project, scheduled to start this summer, represents the first phase of making the house accessible to students with mobility impairments, to visit, attend meetings and events and, ultimately, to live.

Co-opers rallied to show their support for the proposal. Oscar Wilde House resident Kat Moore, who uses a wheelchair, told the Council, “Wilde is not only my home. It’s the first place I’ve ever felt comfortable being myself.”

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said, “The USCA is our community’s most important provider of affordable housing to college students.”

This will be the fourth grant the USCA has received through the City of Berkeley’s Community Development Block Grant program, bringing the total amount awarded to the Co-op since 2000 to $150,000.