Crisis at the Campbell Club | Ethos

In late summer of 2018, Meadow packed two suitcases and boarded a red-eye bus to Eugene, leaving an abusive childhood behind. They lived in the University of Oregon dorms and attended classes for a term, before receiving news that their FAFSA was never properly filed because their mother didn’t sign off on it. They could no longer continue school due to financial constraints. 

“I was only there for a term. It was like $15,000,” Meadow says. “I’m a 17 year old who’s homeless, like, how do you want me to pay for this?”

Meadow, who is using an alias to keep their story private due to concerns about their safety, says that 

taying home wasn’t an option, but given their age and economic status — as well as lack of a network — finding housing in Eugene was nearly impossible. For the next two terms, they lived in their former partner Marigold’s dorm room. They filed as an independent with the Department of Human Services, and began looking for a place to live. Eventually, once they turned 18, they were able to apply for housing at the Campbell Club. 

The Campbell Club is one of three co-ops within the Student Cooperative Association, or the SCA.  The SCA co-ops provide an affordable, landlord-free communal living experience, and keep their revolving door open to those who need it most – economically, socially or politically. The co-ops offer some of the lowest housing rates in the area, and the Campbell Club seemed like the best option for Meadow. They moved in in 2019 – marking the beginning of their four-year stay at the co-op. 

Founded in 1934 as an experiment by a group of men from Northwest Christian College, the SCA was an early pillar for progressive and radical ideas about identity, community and shared spaces. The organization was registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization in 1942. Each house holds a curious collection of stories, artwork and legacies from members’ pasts, as these spaces have largely been shared with activists and members of various counter-culture movements. Individuals from all walks of life find themselves in the SCA, some for financial reasons, some for the communal lifestyle – and some for unique exposure to life in a highly-political yet consensus-based democracy.

The SCA offers some of the least expensive housing in Eugene, as low as $322 a month. The groups residing within these houses have ebbed and flowed like the tides —  ever-changing, yet following a cycle with a longer history than any one member could have experienced.

Two of the houses are neighbors – the Campbell Club and Lorax Manner. The other, called the Janet Smith, resides down Alder Street – slightly tucked away. The other two houses mirror each other in their size, and contrast the surrounding sorority and fraternity houses in stature.

The Campbell Club is a massive, four-story co-op towering above the sidewalk, and passersby often slow their pace to gaze with curiosity. Found objects litter the front yard, strewn about like its own kind of garden. A newspaper box sits off-kilter, covered in paint, stickers and graffiti. Bicycle wheels hang from the covered porch. Few bystanders look close enough to see the rubber-bullet holes and pepper-ball stains, a sobering reminder of the Campbell Club’s role in the 2020 protests against police brutality following the police killing of George Floyd, when the Campbell Club provided asylum to protesters behind their bunker-like wooden door.

But on March 14, 2023, the Campbell Club stood empty. A week prior, nearly all of the residents were served a notice from the SCA Board of Directors, asking them to vacate the premises or reapply for membership. However, some residents claim that if they’d reapplied, the application wouldn’t have been accepted. 

A few former residents moved to other housing options. Others wound up on the streets. A select few still live within the walls of the neighboring co-ops. However, nobody sees the inciting conflict as black and white – but rather as a breaking point after years of simmering tensions. It was the completion of yet another cycle that the SCA co-ops are familiar with: tensions boil over, and the revolving door screeches to a halt. 

Meadow and Marigold are two of the residents who were served the notice. 

“We’ve seen this sort of cycle of self-targeting,” says Marigold, regarding the history of the SCA. “Until there’s a tipping point, where everyone in the organization starts believing that one of the three houses is the problem. Then there can be relative periods of peace inside each of the two houses which are targeting the other one, because they have this solidarity.”

Those who reside in the Campbell Club, Lorax Manner or Janet Smith are not renters, but members. This means that the laws that apply to renters in Oregon do not directly apply to those who live in the co-ops. The official SCA bylaws state that upon moving into one of the houses, each resident needs to sign a membership contract. 

The contract solidifies one’s pledge to contribute to the space and engage in the political structures. It acts as their lease, if a lease also dictated how a resident would interact with others in the space. The official bylaws state that the SCA membership contract essentially buys an equal share of ownership into the SCA, putting every resident on a level playing field when it comes to not only the ownership of the house, but the organization as a whole. 

“The co-op depends upon responsible involvement from each member,” an old SCA handbook reads. “As the feelings of ownership become internalized, the co-op changes from simply a place to live into a way of life.” 

Whether that way of life supports a person – or breaks them down – depends entirely on the dynamics between the individuals in each house, according to Marigold. A large group of people co-habitating in one space requires structure, structure that requires a governing body. But as outlined in the SCA bylaws, the governing body is the membership itself.

There are three levels of governance within the SCA: General Membership, House Government and the SCA Board of Directors. Each governing body tackles issues at a different level, and is made up of different individuals within the organization. However, everyone who participates in the government is currently living in one of the three houses. 

The General Membership is made up of everybody in the SCA at a given time. General Membership Meetings are held twice a term, and provide a forum for everyone in the SCA to air their grievances, elect corporate-level positions and vote on policy decisions that hold a larger scope in the organization. The House Government is unique to each co-op, and dictates smaller scale house roles and policy decisions. The SCA Board of Directors is comprised of members from all three houses, and is responsible for the “affairs, funds, and property” of the organization, according to the official bylaws. 

Although each member of the SCA comes from a unique background, many of their stories mirror one another, revealing a cycle of collective struggle among young, largely queer and low-income people. While these people join for different reasons, many end up in the SCA because it’s the only thing they can afford. Cost of living is spiking, and rent in the West University neighborhood is rising considerably due to new urban development. According to Zumper, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the area is $1,150, which is a 31% increase compared to the previous year.

Oftentimes, those who enter the SCA are coming off the street. Consequently, many who leave the SCA wind up back on the street.

Due to the way the SCA is structured, “evictions” such as the one that occurred in March are quite common, according to Marigold. However, they are not actually evictions, because the SCA does not subscribe to the typical landlord-tenant relationship. Many are classified as a “termination of a membership contract,” or in this case, a “notice to vacate.” When someone is asked to leave one of the houses, they are typically asked to do so within 24 or 72 hours – or in this case, a week. 

Meadow and Marigold left the Campbell Club for the last time on the night of March 13, and lived in their van for the following two months. They have since found housing, as of early May. 

When Meadow moved into the Campbell Club in 2019,  they moved into a version that had, in their words, descended into chaos.

“I was the youngest person there. Everyone who was living there had also been there for a few years at that point already. The entire SCA was like a pretty tight knit community,” Meadow says.

However, Meadow describes the “crust-punk” community in the Campbell Club at the time as highly toxic. They say that it was a “hoarder’s situation,” and they found themselves in intense conflict over every piece of trash they tried to pick up. As an 18-year-old, feminine presenting – but not identifying – Black individual, Meadow felt isolated and targeted amongst the largely white, male and early-30s membership. 

“I’m a pretty direct and forward person, and confrontational for sure,” Meadow says. “I get called aggressive, mean and scary – like all sorts of things. That sounds really racially charged.”

After over a year of enduring what Meadow described as an abusive living situation, Marigold also decided to move into the co-op. This marked a turning point for the population of the co-op, and slowly more of the older population began to leave as younger residents moved in. 

Among these younger residents was Summer. Summer is using an alias because she currently lives in the Lorax Manner, and is concerned about disclosing her identity and location. But at the time of signing a membership contract with the SCA, she first moved into the Campbell Club. 

Summer grew up in Eugene, and describes her living situation at home as abusive. She grew up as low-income, and her family struggled economically. Given her identity as a transgender woman, she also became isolated by her family because of that. She moved into the Campbell Club because it was the only thing she could afford. She was also excited about living in a cooperative environment, and being surrounded by people who either shared or respected her identity. However, her time at the Campbell Club did not prove to be productive, or harbor a feeling of safety. 

“​​I was scared to leave my room for many months,” Summer says. “And was so traumatized that I couldn’t talk to anyone.”

For the time before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Campbell Club was operating in relative harmony. The house had a sizable membership, and nearly everyone was participating in the SCA systems – such as the job system and the house government roles. 

Then came the pandemic. Like the rest of the world, the Campbell Club went on lockdown. The revolving door halted – and the SCA periodically stopped accepting new members due to COVID-19 concerns. Since a large number of people were living in each house, the three co-ops went on a strict lockdown. This marks the relative beginning of the tensions that ultimately led the SCA Board of Directors to issue the notice to vacate. 

“There was a fight about people feeling others weren’t being safe enough around COVID,” Marigold says. “And at that point, we really cut off accepting new members for a bit. We started to become more comfortable. We had become so insulated.”

The Campbell Club members – who used to come and go as they pleased – were now forced to spend all of their time together, isolated, inside the house. Meadow, Marigold and Summer all speak about how this not only exacerbated existing conflicts and tensions, but also led to new ones. One of these new tensions was due to Meadow’s health, and how they claim some of their housemates handled the lockdown.

“I’m immunocompromised and disabled,” Meadow says. “We need to get some measures into place. We need to do something – like this is really irresponsible. We’re a large community.”

The Campbell Club was not only insulated, but also isolated from the rest of the SCA – specifically the Lorax Manner. The two houses are neighbors, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, have not had the same close relationship as they once did. 

The Lorax Manner and the Campbell Club essentially became two entirely separate entities, with only a few people still connected with those in the other houses. The Lorax Manner continued operating in relative peace, while the Campbell Club descended into an era of factionalism. Summer felt isolated within the house, and began to never leave her room due to the state of roommate tensions. This factionalism, as Marigold calls it, was present in the Campbell Club during the time before the younger generation moved in, as well. 

“There was a tension between these two communities,” Marigold says. “This sort of factionalism started out – which we thought was new – because it was new to us. But in reality, it had been going on for a long time, and we were just a new faction.”

One of these factions included Meadow and Marigold, along with another member of the Campbell Club. After years of living within the SCA, and actively seeing how these systems functioned, they felt as if the systems were built to fail. 

These systems, however, depend on the cooperation of the individuals inside each co-op, according to Leah, a Lorax Manner resident who is staying anonymous for the same reasons as Summer. For many within the SCA, the system works to serve their needs as residents and participants in an anti-capitalist democracy. Meadow and Marigold did not have the same experience. 

“The board assigned a very passionate team of individuals to handle this issue,” Marigold says. “Those individuals were legitimately very passionate about solving this issue, about conflict resolution and anti-racism. And then those people were eaten by their own house, and were evicted. We were left, no systems, people hemorrhaging trying to get out.”

Beginning in early 2021, Meadow, Marigold and a few other Campbell Club members made the decision to stop operating under the structure and bylaws of the organization. They no longer held house meetings, didn’t assign any house roles and Campbell Club members no longer served on the SCA Board of Directors. Meadow and Marigold say, however, that they were still wholly committed to the upkeep of the house. 

“As a space, as a construct for Eugene, we wanted a place where people who could not afford to rent to either work – or contribute in some other way to our community – in order to live,” Marigold says. “After abolishing the job system that we all sort of agreed on as a plan for this space, we all had our own ideas. And we all just did them. We had to invest in the space that was ours – this is all we had. And by the end, most of those people weren’t paying too.”

It was also at this time that many Campbell Club members did not sign a new membership contract for the year. According to Marigold, this was a way to protest the policies of the SCA. They said that given the history of how things had been run, this having a current and updated membership contract was not something that the SCA Board of Directors enforced all of the time, and it often fell through the cracks. 

When it came time for the SCA Board of Directors to send the notice, this was the basis for that decision. According to the official board meeting minutes, as well as the notice itself, certain residents were in “violation of the bylaws,” and their membership was deemed “not valid.” 

On top of this, most members of the Campbell Club had stopped paying dues, which is essentially rent for living in one of the co-ops. According to Marigold, this was in protest, but was also largely due to the dire economic situations that led so many residents to the co-op in the first place. 

The official bylaws of the organization state that “accumulation of a debt to the corporation of an amount equal to or exceeding one quarter of the room and board charges for that fiscal year shall result in the termination of residence and the loss of membership within fifteen days of the incurring of such a debt.” For the residents of the Campbell Club who were served the notice to vacate, they were in violation of this bylaw for far longer than 15 days. However, Marigold claims that this bylaw was “obscure,” and hadn’t been evoked in years. 

“It’s being framed as like everyone was evicted specifically, which from a functional standpoint, that’s kind of true,” Summer says. “From a legal, technical standpoint, nobody was evicted.”

The notice to vacate was not only served to Campbell Club members. Instead, the SCA Board of Directors sent this notice to everybody in the three houses who didn’t have a valid membership contract. This essentially kept things fair, and made sure that no individual or house was being targeted explicitly with the notice. Meadow, Marigold and Summer all claim that in the board deliberations, the Campbell Club was the only house mentioned as the inciting conflict for the notice. The board meeting minutes corroborate this claim.

The notice to vacate outlined a few possible courses of action for those being asked to leave. They could (1) reapply for membership within 24 hours, or (2) apply for a guest stay within 24 hours – which would grant them 30 extra days to find housing. Both applications would be reviewed by the SCA Board of Directors, who would then decide whether or not they would grant those individuals a new contract. A few residents, including Summer, reapplied for membership. That membership was granted, and they moved into the Lorax Manner soon after the notice was sent. 

Meadow, Marigold and other Campbell Club residents applied for the 30 day guest stay. Their application was accepted, however, under a series of conditions. These conditions, as outlined in the letter from the SCA Board of Directors, included a ban on friends and outsiders from entering the house, the login information for the Campbell Club Instagram account, as well as the wifi password for the house. The conditions also required that residents not “threaten, harass, intimidate, or steal from any current SCA members, guests, or employees,” and also stated any damage to the property would terminate their guest stay immediately. 

Marigold, Meadow and another resident sent a letter back, stating that they did not agree to these conditions, and would move out on the original timeline. They also decided to get loud on social media, making a series of posts that incessantly used the words “mass eviction” and “illegal eviction.”

A few remaining residents then put together a show, dubbed the “Mass Eviction Benefit Show,” to raise funds for those who needed housing, as well as spread awareness about their side of the story. The show took place on March 11, and served as a “last hurrah” for the former residents of the Campbell Club. They took this opportunity to slather their former home in bright pink paint, scribing the words “dance if you hate eviction” on the floorboards. 

This was not an illegal eviction – on paper. Meadow, however, claims that theirs was, to some degree, illegal. In the summer of 2021, at a time where they were actively paying dues and had an updated membership contract, Meadow applied to be a work-trader. Work-traders are SCA members just as much as anyone else, the only difference is that they exchange work for their residency instead of paying dues. 

Their work trade application was accepted, but it was during a time that the SCA Board of Directors was reformulating the work-trade membership contract. Meadow claims they were told that they would be sent a new membership contract when it was completed. They also claim that they were never sent that contract. So at the time that they received the notice to vacate, because of the lack of having a membership contract, they never had one – not because of their protest to the system – but rather because of an oversight from the board themselves, they say. The SCA Board of Directors did not respond to Ethos Magazine’s request for comment.  

“Because I didn’t need a regular membership contract, I needed to sign a work trade contract,” Meadow says. “But they didn’t give it to me.”

As of right now, messages are mixed about whether or not there are currently individuals living in the Campbell Club. Meadow and Marigold say that there are not, but Lorax Manner resident Leah says that there are. Regardless, new members are incoming, and about to land in the blank slate that is now the Campbell Club. 

“So we just kind of want to be able to get over this and raise money to be able to fix up the Campbell Club,” Leah says. “For the people who are living there.”

“[The conflict] was created by the people in it, to some extent. But it involves the history of this system as it’s moved forward. There’s echoes of every period previously,” Marigold says. “But now it’s a blank canvas again.”

The revolving doors are turning once again, and waiting to welcome the new batch of residents to call the Campbell Club home – next up to contribute to the longstanding legacy that’s held in the house’s very foundation. The systems that did not work for the former residents may just work for the next, because according to two residents of the Janet Smith, it all depends on the people. 

“I can only speak from my experience, having lived in this house has been positive all around. And I felt like in my own measures of success, it’s a healthy and thriving place for me,” says the Janet Smith resident. “It’s built around reciprocity…and I haven’t encountered a structural problem, personally. I would love to see a situation where no one ever has to leave. Even within the houses, there can be this image of the SCA as this institution. But frankly, we know everyone. Everyone knows everyone. The SCA is not this ‘big brother’ thing. We are all the SCA.”