East Bay Cohousing - Berkeley/Oakland/Emeryville/SF

Group Houses and Co-ops

Cohousing in the United States mostly follows the Danish model of private home ownership with shared ownership of outdoor space, a common house and other shared facilities. Most often cohousing is legally structured as condominiums which are (mostly) financed, owned, and managed by residents themselves using standard mortgage, real estate, and architectural professionals.

But, there are many other opportunities for shared living in the Bay Area. These include informally organized but long-term shared rentals such as group houses, communes, and collectives. Others have legal membership and ownership structures such as limited equity housing cooperatives, and age-specific communities such as student and senior housing cooperatives (and some senior affordable housing communities).

Cooperatives may or may not have a strong sense of community, use consensus-based decision-making, and may rarely share things like regular meals together. And don't mix up housing cooperative with "cohousing!" - get to know the legal, financial, and social differences. Housing cooperatives have much longer history, that's very distinct from cohousing - and some cooperators still don't want to be lumped in with all that is associated with the ideas behind the terms cohousing, intentional community, or eco-village.

Below are openings we have shared with our EBCOHO members: (roll over community names to see live links and click for community profiles):

611 EcoVillage a 2-building shared rental property on MLK between the Uptown Oakland and Temescal neighborhoods, had an short-term rental opening (now filled) as of January, 2012.
Fort Awesome is a nonprofit-owned affordable community near Ashby BART in South Berkeley, with a December Sublet available in December, 2011.
Walnut House Cooperative between the UCB campus and Gourmet Ghetto, had an opening as of December, 2010
Parker Street Cooperative , an EBCOHO Supporting Group Member is one that occasionally has an opening.
Prudence Crandall House is a North Oakland group house near Telegraph Ave. looking to find aligned members to buy/rent adjacent properties, becoming a sort of retrofit cohousing neighborhood.
Berkeley Town House, a long-established nine-story 55+ market-rate co-op building in South Berkeley (nextdoor to Parker Street Co-op), has several openings and regular Sunday open houses.
Addison Court Housing Co-Op (West Berkeley near University & San Pablo) had a share available December 2010.
The Church of Soul, a deep-hearted community house near West Oakland BART, was looking for another member to rent a room there in September, 2010.
Etna House had an opening advertised on Craig's List in January, 2010.
Mango House near downtown Berkeley had an opening advertised on Craig's List in mid-2010.
Fairview House, near Ashby BART
Brigid House Collective in West Berkeley had an opening in late 2009.
Ninth Street Co-op is a six-unit project in West Berkeley, in the process of becoming a Bay Area Community Land Trust (BACLT) member.

You can find (overlapping) lists of links to cooperatives and shared housing at Bay Area Coop Network (created by the founders of the Bay Area Community Land Trust) and at the SF Bay Area Cooperative Housing Directory (created by alumni of the Berkeley Student Coops), and the student] Berkeley Student Cooperatives.

You may also find a few coop openings through the Northern California Land Trust .

Back to Main Page

Page title	Most recent update	Last edited by
Fort Awesome	November 27, 2011 12:35 PM	Raines Cohen
Summer Sublets	May 11, 2011 4:13 PM	Raines Cohen
Doyle Street	May 5, 2011 4:34 PM	Raines Cohen
Golden Gate Cohousing	January 11, 2012 10:59 AM	Jeff Billings
Eastlake Cohousing	March 31, 2011 10:46 PM	Raines Cohen
Oakland Morehouse	June 9, 2011 10:35 AM	Oceana Lott
MultiCoho	December 27, 2010 9:22 PM	Raines Cohen
Churcha Soul	August 5, 2010 2:41 PM	Raines Cohen
Berkeley Town House	July 10, 2010 8:08 AM	Betsy Morris
Group Houses and Co-ops	December 24, 2011 12:37 PM	Raines Cohen
Established Cohousing Neighborhoods	November 28, 2011 2:51 PM	Betsy Morris
Forming Groups	November 28, 2011 6:05 AM	Betsy Morris

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Berkeley, CA

Founded Oct 22, 2003

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Imagine lively people-scaled communities dotting the San Francisco Bay Area - places co-created by their residents for raising kids, for retirement, for growing food or simply living well by sharing more. The Bay Area already has ecovillages, and cohousing neighborhoods, resident-owned housing cooperatives, and group houses -- real world places where we can live more sustainably through a more cooperative way of life. You can have both privacy and community when you know your neighbors on purpose, in day-to-day relationships based on common vision and values.

East Bay Cohousing (EBCOHO) is a Bay Area-wide MeetUp. We connect a wide variety of kindred spirits and resources. We support individuals wanting to learn more, forming groups looking to create community together, and members of existing communities. We are mostly in the East Bay and San Francisco; others are from the North and South Bay, Los Angeles, Nevada, and other parts of the US and Mexico.

There are over two dozen cohousing communities in the greater Bay Area, (more cohousing in Oakland than any other U.S. city). There are also dozens of other emerging and long-established intentional communities. EBCOHO members have recently bought or rented homes in cohousing neighborhoods and cooperatively owned apartment buildings in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland , Pleasant Hill, Grass Valley, Santa Rosa, and Nevada City. We have members living in Swan's Market Cohousing, Triple Point, Temescal Commons, Berkeley Cohousing, Parker Street Coop, Berkeley Town House, Addison Court Coop and established forming groups like East Lake Cohousing (formerly North Oakland Cohousing).

Extra bonus for 2012: The National Cohousing Conference is coming to town in June!

We host EBCOHO events for members, and link you to other events featuring a global network of friends and allies: pioneers in cooperative culture and sustainable communities: urban farmers, affordable housing developers, green builders, and creative visionaries in the movements for more open, user-friendly and collaborative technologies, economies, and governments. There's a global reinvention of communiies going on - both on the ground and online -- and the Bay Area is one of the world's epicenters.

EBCOHO has more events than our MeetUp-based home page can show fully, so please click on our Calendar to see more. Join for free to get involved! There's no charge for basic membership, but supporting members get discounts on some events, including socials, and workshops, cohousing books, and Cohousing Coaching.

Join us for an orientation, for social events, discussion, talks with exciting speakers, and hands-on workshops to learn the tools for developing good group relationships, and the real estate development process.. Find others who share your vision for supportive neighbors. Do it for yourself, for your family, for your parents, do it for the Earth! Make 2012 the year to deepen YOUR community connections.