nibot | berkeley co-op stories: living on boats

The housing shortage caused by the veteran’s return was not solved by Cloyne Court and Ridge House alone. Board members of the U.C.S.C.A. sought other means to put up all the applicants. ... [O]ne abortive project deal[t] with surplus Navy barges then in mothballs at nearby Port Chicago.
These barges had stainless steel kitchens and facilities ideal for a floating co-op. The first deck had a huge mass hall, the second quarters for the men, with officers’ or managers’ rooms at one end. “We got awfully excited about this.” Davis said, “We learned that we could get these things for nothing. . . We went up and inspected them two or three times with the head of the U.C. Naval department, Captain Bruce Canaga, who was very much interested. . . Our idea was to bring them down and board them at the Berkeley Yacht Harbor somehow. We would hook-up facilities, water and so on, and run these things as long as we needed them in order to get over this critical housing shortage.” Norton and Davis figured out that the co-op could run the barge-co-ops for $35 per month per person, room and board. It was also figured that disposal of the barges after the crisis was over would be no trouble. They could be sailed out to sea and scuttled, if need be.

The deal itself was scuttled because of an uncooperative, indeed competitive, attitude on the part of the University. U.C. had just built a veteran’s center in Richmond and officials feared that the co-op barges would siphon applicants from it, and put pressure on city officials. They in turn pressured the co-op with such city type weapons as fire protection and drummedup sanitation objections, all of which could have been solved. The barge idea never came off.

— The Green Book

berkeley co-op stories: living on boats

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