Grand Rapids Alliance of Cooperative Communities (GRACC) provides key pieces to the puzzle of creating affordable housing in a thriving inclusive community. 

  • We welcome and embrace people of diverse experiences and identity groups, recognizing that diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging helps us all to grow stronger and more resilient.
  • The people who reside in our homes are referred to as members who have “rights commensurate with ownership.” This means that members govern themselves. More than being mere housemates or tenants, our members are stakeholders!

Member “SHARES” of Cooperative housing:

  • Shared Community
  • Housing that is affordable
  • Accomplishment
  • Resource Sharing
  • Everyone on the Same Page
  • Shared Governance

When people have ownership of their living situation and the community support to make their initiatives happen, oftentimes projects that improve the whole neighborhood and beyond are created.

Shared Community

GRACC intentionally provides opportunities for promoting member interaction which contributes to a strong sense of community within our cooperative. People who live in cooperative housing often find they have greater social support than when they lived alone or in a non-cooperative housemate situation. Studies show that community and social support contributes to improved mental health and overall well-being and happiness for many. Here are some of the programs we offer to promote community building and engagement:

Heart Circles – small group gatherings which often center around introspection of the self and/or our interpersonal relationships, which may be in the form of mindful meditations, book clubs, yoga sessions, or other iterations.

THRIVE – monthly gatherings of GRACC members where we celebrate and edify our members and community. These gatherings include a potluck meal, a time of sharing personal and house highlights, a “Many Hands Learning Lab,” announcements of info and events, and planning together for upcoming monthly THRIVE gatherings. THRIVE also coordinates movie and game events, and prepares Founder’s Week Celebrations.

CULTIVATE – is our leadership development program to onboard members in taking on leadership roles and the skills necessary for leading well.

ROOTS – gatherings of members focused on combining arts & social justice awareness and advocacy on issues including housing, economic, environment, LGBTQ+, and others.

Shared Meals – members of each house have 1 or 2 (sometimes more) shared meals each week. Members may opt to dedicate some of their stewardship time to grocery shopping, meal preparation, and clean up, so that we can enjoy being with one another over a meal.

Many Hands Building a Cooperative Future

Housing that is Affordable

Housing prices in the Grand Rapids area have risen much more quickly than the wages provided by many careers making it difficult for working people to live in Grand Rapids. We help ensure a successful and resilient community by providing permanently affordable housing.

By sharing in the work of maintenance, grounds keeping, operations, and programming, we significantly reduce the costs of housing.

We are making it so that people who work in our community are able to live in our community, because GRACC believes everyone should be able to have stable affordable housing while enjoying the amazing experiences of Grand Rapids and achieving a sustainable quality of life.

Accomplishment

Stewardship
All this doesn’t happen without many people doing the work that is involved! Instead of paying significantly higher rent to a landlord who contracts out the operations of maintaining housing properties, our members are expected contribute 10 -14 hours a month of their time and effort to this work. We have a variety of opportunities to which you can devote your stewardship time toward:

  • Property Management – minor house repairs, painting, mowing, planting, yard care, mowing, snow shoveling, cleaning common living areas, resource & equipment maintenance and acquisition
  • FORK – meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning
  • Development – seeking grants, conducting fundraisers and seeking underwriting/sponsors
  • Information Technology – maintaining website, communications, internet, and tech setup.
  • Member Communications – newsletter, posters and announcements for members
  • Community Communications -marketing & branding with blog posts, advertising, earned media, graphic design, and video/audio media productions.
  • Event Planning – coordinating, planning, preparing, making it happen and reporting on results
  • Community Building & Engagement – ensuring our programming is on track and collecting & reporting data on programming outcomes.
  • Education -teaching/training of skills or developing online learning courses on cooperative living
  • Stewardship – posting available tasks and ensuring members are meeting stewardship expectations
  • Member Resiliency Supports – including conflict resolution mediation
  • Leadership – various roles of coordinating, representing and promoting our organization.
  • Secretary – taking and posting minutes
  • Mentoring – helping new members with orientation and on-boarding
  • and more!

Celebrating Accomplishments
Members get recognition for their contribution that makes cooperative living possible; in the form of dharmas and highlights, and recognition at our celebratory events and impact reporting.

Resource Sharing

Each month, members pay:

  • Rent – goes toward operating costs
  • Utilities Fee – goes toward utilities costs
  • FORK – goes toward bulk purchasing of household care needs, toiletries, and grocery for shared meals.

    What you do not see on this list is profit. GRACC is the landlord, and as a member you are the landlord too – collectively with the other members of GRACC. So instead of putting a profit in the pocket of for-profit landlords, you save on the cost of living by sharing common spaces in our houses.

    Plus, in a shared space, the cost of utilities trends lower than single household units. And the practice of bulk purchasing for household care supplies and grocery helps to bring down those costs for all our members.

    In addition to cost savings, we work toward sustainable practices by reducing energy consumption, gardening, reusing and recycling, and working to improve the local sustainability of everyone.

Everyone on the Same Page

As members of GRACC, we agree to a shared vision, mission, foundational focus, and shared values.

Shared Governance

We utilize principles of democratic representation and sociocratic decision making in our governance practices. This means that each of our cooperative houses elect representatives to the Board of Directors, who serve with member elected at-large officials. Coordinators are also elected at-large. House Leads are elected by house members, and house members meet on a regular basis making decisions by consensus.