Housing Coordinator

Somebody's got to live in BACH's houses and somebody's got to find them and make them sign their housing contracts.

Mark Mayer, Finlandia 2004, Watermyn 2005:
Oh boy, housing coordinating can be a lot of work. Responsibilities include: 1. planning open houses for prospective food coopers and bachers 2. designing advertisements for the open houses 3. hosting open houses and giving a spiel to explain how the co-op works 4. organizing other co-opers to advertise in the post office, table slip, hang posters, etc 5. running the lottery 6. emailing with new co-opers 7. collecting occupancy agreements from new co-opers as soon at they agree to move into the co-ops 8. collecting $500 rent deposits from new co-opers or promissory notes for the same 9. coordinating move-in/move-out 10. mediating house conflicts 11.keeping the kitchen first-aid kit stocked Wisdom about 1-11 1. make sure current co-opers come to the open houses and talk to all the new co-opers. Prospectives want to see the kind of community we have, so you want a crowd. welcome everyone, serve good food, chat, and give your spiel after a few minutes.
2. tableslips and posters work well. I've focused on open community and new friends, saving money, escaping the insularity of brown, eating good home-cooked food, finding a new home, etc.
3. I usually explain the co-ops with a what-you-give/what-you-get comparison. Give a tour too, folks are curious about our buildings.
4. pass around a sign up sheet at house meeting
5. we weight our lottery for race, economic need, previous co-oping, and previous rejections. as you're giving your spiel, pass around lottery forms. everyone should get two slips of paper with the same number at the top: on one they put their contact info--name, email, phone--and on the other they put their "confidential" information--# of previous rejections, # of past semesters co-oping, (optional) self-defined ethnicity, and (optionally) have them write "joining the food co-op will help relieve a significant financial burden." When you run the lottery, rather than putting names in a hat, put slips of paper with each candidates code number in a hat. Every candidate get one slip in the hat plus one for each time they'd been rejected, plus one for each previous semester co-oping, plus one if non-white, plus three for economic need. Toss in the numbers and pick them out, writing them down in order as you go. Then (to preserve confidentiality) have someone else translate the numbers back into names. Good work.
6. Email out the lottery results and give people 24 hours or so to respond and claim their spot. People are indecisive--don't wait forever before offering their spot to someone else.