Solar Community Housing Association

The Solar Community Housing Association, or SCHA, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that owns and operates two housing co-ops in Davis, California: Sunwise Co-op and J Street Co-op. SCHA's board of directors is comprised of members of these houses and community members. Members are low-income individuals (less the 80% AMI). SCHA can be contacted through either of its co-ops. From 1996 to 2006, SCHA also managed the Homestead Co-op but sold the property to Community Housing Opportunities Corporation/Yolo Community Care Continuum.

SCHA exists to “to encourage and create community and respect for environment through affordable, cooperative housing.”

SCHA's mailing address is: PO Box 72408, Davis, California, USA 95617
email: SCHA.Davis@gmail.com
SCHA on Facebook

News!

SCHA is developing a new co-op house in Davis!! and we need help! On July 28, 2009 the City Council (acting as the Board of the Redevelopment Agency) accepted our proposal to develop the now-vacant lot on the corner of J and 3rd Str. See the City of Davis RFP site for project documents. Habitat for Humanity Yolo County also submitted a proposal. Both organizations do very valuable work and can help advance the city's low-income housing plans. The support of neighbors and the proximity to the existing J Street Co-op may have lead Council members to recognize that this is a precious chance to meet the overwhelming demand for cooperative housing in Davis. Thank you for your help!

Other news: In may 2009 we received a generous $300 grant from the Davis Cooperative Community Fund, to create a series of outdoor educational signs on cooperative housing, organic gardening, beekeeping...and chickens. Thanks DCCF!

If you would like to participate in the works of SCHA, consider becoming a community director. Community directors are people from the greater Davis community that are interested in being involved with cooperatives, and want to offer their advice to make the association better and stronger. The basic time commitment involves attending one board meeting (2-3 hrs) per month. If interested in knowing more contact us at 753-7657 or 753-3039.

by DougWalter:

Student housing cooperatives have a strong tradition on the West Coast, most particularly at UC Berkeley. Davis, in the 1970's, had nothing as well-established as the Berkeley co-ops, but there were the Davis Student and Agrarian Effort Co-op. Each was housed in old buildings into which the University was not pouring investment (They're still in the houses, along with Pierce Co-op; I've little idea if the maintenance and investment situations are better or worse.)

A group of students believed that they could extend cooperative housing, and have more control over their ultimate destiny, if they could secure ownership of an off-campus site. These folks were able to connect up with Mike and Judy Corbett, who were in the process of developing the innovative Village Homes subdivision in 1978. The Corbett's liked the idea of permanently-affordable housing in their neighborhood, owned by an organization, and they co-signed the original financing for what was to become the Sunwise Co-op. SCHA, a tenant-controlled non-profit organization, was founded to control the property, expand the amount of affordable housing, and educate people about environmentally-sensitive lifestyles.

Sunwise was truly a community-built project. The prospective tenants hired one experienced individual to serve as the construction foreman and volunteer coordinator; the balance of the labor was supplied by volunteers. They built a structure (occupied in 1979) that incorporated several important principles of passive solar architecture — such as the water-filled culverts providing thermal mass. They soon enhanced the structure using moveable window coverings from exotic materials, financed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Village Homes turned out to be a very pleasant and successful neighborhood, which meant that the value of Sunwise climbed steadily into the 1980's. As a non-profit, SCHA was eligible to receive a donation of property from another non-profit, the Davis Art Center, as the assets of both groups are irrevocably dedicated to charitable and educational purposes. So, when DAC wanted to move to spiffy new quarters in Community Park, their former building at 234 J Street was made available to us. The building that housed renters in the 1950's and 1960's, but it now needed rehabilitation. A group of prospective volunteers, raised a new roof on the east side, adding two new rooms and dramatically opening up the structure. The expansion was paid for by refinancing Sunwise, and putting a new mortgage on both properties.

SCHA had now almost doubled our "number of beds," and added diversity to our maintenance challenges. But after only five years of working together in this new configuration, Directors, members, and community activists decided at a retreat to attempt a third expansion, to serve single-parent households. Pursuing this vision, in 1992 we secured the donation of an old house in downtown Davis that was going to be demolished to make way for a hotel. We moved it on the streets to a holding site in east Davis, where it was joined the next year by another, smaller house, formerly belonging to Davis Community Church. The City of Davis lent SCHA the money to pay for the moves.

A "homestead" of buildings clustered around a court was our concept, and a land dedication in an east Davis infill development seemed like a good possibility. But, although we were able to secure significant financing from the State of California, gaining control of the site took far longer than expected. We were very fortunate that the "landlord" storing our buildings let us keep them there for one-and-a-half years longer than promised. Foundation were poured in the fall of 1995, and buildings moved in spring of 1996. The two old buildings were rehabilitated, re-roofed, skylighted and otherwise enhanced with a variety of recycled plastic, steel and aluminum components. The new "common house," with enough kitchen and dining space for the community to share meals, was constructed with a passive solar design and an active "roof pond" heating and cooling system. The new community formed in fall of 1996, with a grand opening on October 3.