Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks Co-op
- 505 West Green Street,
- Urbana, Illinois
Welcome to Brooks Co-op!
Brooks Co-op opened its doors as a member-controlled co-op in August, 2001. Each week our 15 members eat five meals together, perform household chores and enjoy each others' company in a friendly atmosphere. Our house has 14 bedrooms, 1½ kitchens, a dining room, two living rooms, five bathrooms and a basement.
Check out our member handbook for lots of details about how the house runs.
Food
Brooks Co-op believes that vegetarians and non-vegetarians can live together in harmony. Our five weekly house meals are vegetarian-friendly in that meat may appear, but there has to be enough to eat for vegetarians.
Members
Our members are graduate students, undergraduates, and community members from diverse cultural backgrounds. Our membership policy is described in our member handbook. Many of our members become friends and do things together outside the house.
Bedrooms
We have 14 bedrooms, which are usually used as singles. Double occupancy is permitted in our larger rooms. Room rates for 2008-2009 vary from $266 to $420 per month, depending on room size and niceness. Utilities are extra ($40-$80) and so is food ($100).
Location
Brooks is conveniently located about half-way between the University of Illinois campus and downtown Urbana (about a 10-minute walk to each). The Green bus line goes right by our house. The street has a mixture of housing for students and permanent residents.
Labor
Keeping the house in good working order is an important part of life at Brooks. Each member cooks, cleans after meals and does weekly chores like cleaning bathrooms, washing the dining room floor and taking out the garbage. Some members also take on co-ordinator positions. These people are responsible for house finances, maintenance, food shopping, membership, labour, and other loose-ends. Once a semester, we all spend a day making improvements to our house.
Decision-Making
House meetings occur every two weeks, and give us the opportunity to make democratic decisions about the running of the house. We use a modified-consensus model in which two or more members' disagreement with a proposal makes the proposal fail. In honor of our namesake, the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, we sometimes read a poem at the beginning of house meetings.
Amenities
The house is equipped with wireless internet and there is access to cable modem internet in every room. For more old-fashioned communication, we have a modified business phone system. We have a great big compost bin in the back yard for vegetable waste. We try to recycle or compost as much as possible. We have a washer and dryer in the basement.
Connections
Brooks is one of four houses in the Champaign-Urbana co-operative system, COUCH. We are members of NASCO, the North American Students of Co-operation, and are among eleven fellow houses across the US which form NASCO Properties.
For more information about the house, email Caroline Davis.
Please click on the photo below to visit Brooks' blog