During the school year, the houses have single, double, and triple rooms (a few houses have quads).  For the summer, all rooms are considered singles with the exception of quads which become two-person rooms.

The houses have from 10 to 94 bedrooms and features such as:

• large communal kitchens and dining rooms
• shared common spaces (living rooms, tv rooms, porches, roof decks, backyards, gardens and other hang-out spaces)

• various amenities depending on the house (hot tubs, view of the bay, basketball court, sauna, tree house, ...)

Sharing common spaces connects people and builds a sense of community.  Sharing chores and running a house democratically creates the trust and positive relationships among housemates that can be absent in other living situations.

Food

In Summer 2008, the only houses whose costs will include all meals along with room charges are Kingman, Lothlorien, Oscar Wilde House, and Hillegass/Parker.  The full meal service in these houses during the summer is just like the food service in all houses during the academic year.

The other 14 houses do not include meals in the residence charges (and thus cost less).   In the room-only houses, members ususally vote to charge a small fee for keeping food staples on hand for everyone's use, thus taking advantage of the economy of buying in bulk. Examples of staples a house might keep on hand are milk, eggs, flour, oats, rice, pasta, etc. Each house democratically decides what to keep in stock.

All the houses have very large communal kitchens with plenty of refrigerator space to store your own food.  There are also stoves, ovens, pots, pans, dishes, cups and utensils for all to use.

Workshifts

We keep our costs low because members run the day-to-day operation of the houses.  By setting up an orderly division of labor, we can better ensure that everyone does their share and no one gets stuck with all the work.  Everything that needs to get done is divided into “workshifts”.  During the summer, every member is expected to complete a certain number of workshift hours:

For the houses with meals included (Kingman, Lothlorien, Wilde, and Hillegass/Parker), residents are expected to complete 5 hours per week, just as is required by all houses during the academic year.

For the 14 room-only houses, residents are expected to complete 2 to 3 hours per week.

Workshifts include: washing dishes or pots, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming common areas, cleaning the hot tub, weed the garden, working in the Central Office, ....

A resident of the house is elected the semester before to be the Workshift Manager.  This manager will collect information from you when you move in about when you are available and if you have any special talents or chore preferences.  The workshift manager assigns regular workshifts with consideration for the information you provide.

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