Starting a new eco-residence

The Questions & Advice forum is a great place to ask for advice about starting a new eco-residence. You can also browse the residence profiles to find their missions and proposals.

Mizzou Sustainahouse is looking for advice

The folks from Mizzou Sustainahouse write:

We are in the process of finding a house for the 2011-2012 school year, writing up a leaser agreement and finding members to live in the house. So if you have any input, it is more than welcome.

Folks who've already gone through this: Can you offer some advice on how to get started? How did you find a house? How do you recruit house members?

starting up a house

Congrats on setting up a house! I wasn't one of the original members of ours, but I'm happy to share what I know...

Our EcoHouse is owned by our school and counts as "on-campus housing," so you might consider asking your school about that possibility. Having a house on campus makes it easier to recruit people to live in it, since it's equivalent to living in a dorm. (except better, since it's a house with a kitchen, etc.) It's also good for our school, since they can advertise the existence of an EcoHouse, and we serve as a 'testing ground' for more sustainable technologies that they're considering implementing campus-wide. Additionally, we use less energy than other dorms on campus, so we're saving the school money in that regard.

As far as recruiting goes, we've been most successful talking to other eco-related organizations on campus. Advertising campus wide through posters and such works to some extent. We've also done things like hosting open houses to let prospective housemates come visit the house, eat some homemade snacks, get to know what we're all about.


Feedback

Contribute