CCRI Legacy

Campus Co-op Residence Inc. was formed by four University of Toronto students who, after seeing
Toyohiko Kagawa speak at a conference in Indianapolis during the 1935 Christmas break, returned to
Toronto determined to start a co-operative of their own. Our first house at 63 St George was leased for
a nominal fee from Victoria College starting in October 1936 and was strictly male-only. The co-op was
entirely member-run, with all operations managed by students - including our first student general
manager, Arthur Dayfoot. General meetings were a monthly occurrence, and kitchen and house
committees dealt with all maintenance, food, and house issues, and members were expected to
contribute 5 hours of volunteer labour to the co-operative every week. There was also an element of
class consciousness to the early days of CCRI - the U of T residential colleges were much more expensive,
and populated by the children of the elite, and there was a quiet but firm expectation that if a student
could afford to live in one of the colleges they would not move into CCRI.

CCRI expanded rapidly throughout the 1940s and 50s by leasing many new properties. Leasing
properties was seen as unstable, however, as we lost and gained new leased properties on an almost
yearly basis. A semblance of continuity was maintained by giving new houses the names of houses we
had lost. Some houses were purchased, but it was difficult to balance the desire for cheap rents with the
need to build capital to purchase properties. We did purchase some houses in this period which we still
own, however, including 95 Willcocks (1950), 582 Spadina (1956), and 596 Spadina (1958).

In the 1950s CCRI began its first experiment with hired staff - a “Summer Manager” position, which in
1961 became the position of General Manager when then-Summer Manager Howard Adelman
convinced the board to hire him full time. Adelman spearheaded a campaign for growth within the co-
op, buying 14 new houses between 1961 and ‘64. This required raising the rents, which provoked
resistance from the membership. However, in the end Howard won the day and, at a general meeting in
1962, the members voted for a substantial fee increase to make possible the purchase of more new
houses. The houses purchased included all of North Division, the former Sussex Division, and in ‘67
Annex Division began to emerge with the purchase of 120 Madison and 614 Huron. The liberal 60’s also
saw the decline of gender-segregated housing at CCRI. Also, in 1968, Campus Co-op was a founding
member of the North American Students for Co-operation (NASCO), a North-American wide network for
the advancement of student housing co-operatives and the student co-operative movement.

The now infamous Rochdale College was originally CCRI’s plan to build a modern student residence.
However, CCRI’s original vision for Rochdale was precluded when the land we had purchased was zoned
high density, turning our modest notion of 4 story residence to an unwieldy 18 story tower block. Also,
disagreements emerged over whether the residence would be operated as an educational college, and
this led to CCRI separating itself from the Rochdale project, and Howard Adelman leaving Campus Co-op.

The failure of Rochdale College cast a shadow over the student co-operative movement, which may
have contributed to the beginnings of a material and social decline in CCRI during the 1970s. We
suffered problems such as member apathy, inadequate maintenance and legal problems from the City.
Worse, a decline in applications led us to eliminate the previously stringent member selection process,
and even drop the requirement to be a student to live in CCRI during the school year (this condition

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would not be renewed until the 90s). There was even a proposal at the April 1974 General Members
Meeting to dissolve the co-op entirely. Maybe it was the organizational nightmare that Adelman’s
expansion had caused - the now larger co-op lost the cohesive unity of the previously smaller member-
run organization with its monthly general meetings. Or maybe it was that the early 60s ethic of building
a better tomorrow had fallen way to the late 60s “let’s get high and burn shit”, and the Co-op was
paying the price. Either way, the greatest success story of CCRI is that despite hard times, we continued
to survive.

The 1980s saw the first co-op wide renovation project. Previous to this, house maintenance was
generally performed by regular members, often coming from rural, farming backgrounds, but these
upgrades were done by paid staff. Between 1976 and 83 we operated a successful hostel operation
which raised significant funds for the Co-op, and was ended only due to legal issues with the city. Like
the Toronto Heritage Residences program we operate today, it showed that CCRI can utilize its assets
creatively and for the benefit of all its members.

In the early 1990s CCRI began to take on the form we are familiar with today. Financial matters were
centralized to the office at 395 Huron (previously, rents had been collected at the division level, and
often weren’t). The vacancy rate in Toronto was very low and we took the opportunity to evict our non-
student year round residents, who made up about 20% of our membership at the time. However, this
was also a period of financial recklessness; rising property values of our houses allowed us to borrow
funds at a dangerous rate, costs ballooned and CCRI ran deficits year after year.

In 2004 CCRI adopted “Restructuring” which continued the shift towards centralization in our
governance structure, and in 2012 we began hiring House Managers. These changes reflect a trend in
CCRI, which is that over the years we have shifted from a broadly participatory, member-run
organization, to an organizational structure more consistent with our size. While we are less “directly”
democratic, we apply progressive business principles which balance affordability and concern for
community with financial prudence. In early 2015 CCRI hired Wayne Brandt, our current General
Manager. Since then we have seen an upsurge in summer revenue thanks to his Toronto Heritage
Residence initiative. We have also embarked on a sustainability initiative which will make Campus Co-op
better off both in terms of our energy costs as well as our carbon footprint. Our largest challenge for the
future, however, is a project to undergo significant repairs to all of our century-old houses. By accessing
grants and maximizing summer revenue, we hope to have upgraded all of our houses by 2022.