The Campbell Club and its neighbor, the Janet Smith, are landmark buildings on Alder Street.
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 they spent their whole life fending for themselves, and taking care of their siblings in the process. They grew up near MLK Jr. Blvd in East Portland, a traditionally low-income area.
"I didn't really get to have child experiences. I just worked, went to school, worked and went to school. I didn't have any friends, and I didn't have a phone to talk to friends on. I didn't have any money – and any money I was making from work was going back to my siblings to pay for their food," Meadow says. "My parents both grew up very poor, and we were very poor for a really long time. They were also really manipulative...and any power they could take, they would take it."
Meadow attended one of the only high schools in Oregon that has a majority Black student population. This school is historically underfunded, and the accompanying neighborhood is in the trenches of gentrification. Among the families that moved into the gentrified neighborhood was the family of Marigold. Marigold, who is also using an alias for the same reasons, started dating Meadow in early high school. They came from a wealthy, white family, and had college completely paid for, while Meadow endured the consequences of poverty and systemic barriers beyond their control.
After finding out that they could no longer continue at the University of Oregon, Meadow had nowhere to go for almost a year. Essentially houseless, Meadow slept in Marigold’s dorm room and stayed with friends. 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. 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. 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’s massive, four-story build towers 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 house provided asylum to protesters behind its bunker-like wooden door.
But on March 14, 2023, the Campbell Club stood empty. A week prior, the SCA Board of Directors served nearly all of the residents a notice 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.”
Eclectic items fill the Campbell Club, from paintings lining the walls to this assortment of an old television, shoes, and a small pot.
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 everyone who participates lives 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 organization-level policy decisions. The House Government is unique to each co-op, and dictates smaller scale house roles and house-level 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 organization’s 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. Many of these people join 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 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 come off the street. Consequently, many who leave the SCA wind up back on the street.
Due to the SCA’s structure, “evictions” such as the one that occurred in March are quite common, according to Marigold. However, these events are not technically evictions since the SCA hosts members, not tenants. These events are classified as a “termination of a membership contract,” or in this case, a “notice to vacate,” according to the official notice that residents received. 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 community in the Campbell Club at the time as highly toxic. 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. Marigold’s move marked a turning point for the population of the co-op, and older residents began to leave as younger ones moved in.
Among these younger residents was Summer. She is using an alias to protect her identity because she currently lives in the Lorax Manner. Summer grew up in a low-income home in Eugene, and describes her home life as abusive. She moved into the Campbell Club because it was the only thing she could afford. As a transgender woman, she was also excited about 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 a time before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Campbell Club operated in relative harmony. The house had a sizable membership, and nearly everyone participated in the SCA systems – such as jobs and house government roles.
Then came the pandemic. The Campbell Club went on lockdown, and its revolving door halted when the SCA periodically stopped accepting new members due to health concerns. The lockdown 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.”
Campbell Club members had to spend all of their time together inside the house, which exacerbated existing tensions and led to new ones, according to Meadow, Marigold and Summer. 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 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 continued operating in relative peace, while the Campbell Club descended into factionalism. Summer felt isolated within the house, and began to never leave her room due 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 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 using an alias for the same reasons as Summer.
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 because they say the system did not meet their needs. They no longer held house meetings, didn’t assign 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 2022-2023 school year. According to Marigold, this was a way to protest the policies of the SCA. They say the SCA Board of Directors did not always enforce having current and updated membership contracts, and membership contracts often fell through the cracks.
Campbell Club members’ lack of current and updated membership contracts provided the basis for the SCA Board of Directors to send them the notice to vacate in March 2023. According to Feb. 13 board meeting minutes, as well as the notice itself, certain residents were in “violation of the bylaws,” and their memberships were deemed “not valid.”
Additionally, most members of the Campbell Club had stopped paying dues, which operate as rent. 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.”
Since SCA members are not classified as members, Summer says, technically, nobody faced an eviction. The notice to vacate was not only served to Campbell Club members. The SCA Board of Directors sent this notice to everybody in the three houses who didn’t have a valid membership contract to keep things fair. However, Meadow, Marigold and Summer all claim the Campbell Club was the only house mentioned in board deliberations as the catalyst for the notice. The board meeting minutes corroborate this claim.
Following the notice of eviction issued on March 7, the SCA logo outside the Campbell club was found spray painted with a red circle and "x."
The notice to vacate outlined a few possible courses of action for those being asked to leave. They could reapply for membership within 24 hours or 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 applications were accepted, however, under a series of conditions. These conditions, outlined in a letter from the SCA Board of Directors, included a ban on friends and outsiders from entering the house, request for 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. Leah is also using an alias, as to not reveal her residency to the general public. Regardless, new members are incoming, and about to land in the blank slate that is now the Campbell Club.
“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 SCA has been a positive force to many who’ve gone through its revolving door. Although the crisis at the Campbell Club is not an isolated incident, many members have encountered the opposite experience, says a Janet Smith resident who chose to remain anonymous.
“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,” they say. “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.”
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. Marigold doesn’t discourage incoming residents from applying, they say.
“[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.”