This paper explores causes for the partial organizational failure of a co-operative in Northern California. While the co-op was created with the purpose of providing affordable, low-income housing, it found that it typically "attract[ed] residents who are temporarily low-income but show evidence of middle class culture and resources." When the co-op developed a new property to serve those with more pervasive experiences of poverty, and in particular single parents, a number of financial, goverance, and cultural challenges arose that prevented the new co-op site from succeeding, ultimately leading to closure and sale of the property.
This paper was written by Jaime Becker in 2005. Please contact the author at <jsbecker@ucdavis.edu> before reproducing.
