A Brief History of MOSAIC

The idea to start a co-op at Northwestern was conceived by a small group of friends in 1997, who were frustrated by the lack of an off-campus community at NU. Using a handbook downloaded from the Internet, the group recruited others to join their endeavor for "constructive inspiration, empowerment, and environmental conservation". A house at 2013-2015 Ridge Avenue was founded, and in September of 1998, the first 12 co-op members moved in and began to organize a system by which to run the house.

After a year of trial and error, the co-op was running successfully and ready to welcome new members for the following year. Membership grew steadily, prompting MOSAIC in 2002-2003 to expand to its first apartment, which was maintained as an extension of the main house until summer 2003. The last year at the Ridge location housed just under 30 co-opers from 2003-2004.

MOSAIC relocated to our current 13-person house at 2000 Sherman Avenue, now known as the Zooo, in June of 2004 and briefly rented a 4-person apartment next door. For more than 12 years the Zooo has anchored MOSAIC, providing a cherished space for generations of new co-opers. MOSAIC's current mission statement, adopted in 2007, has provided direction for the further development and growth of the co-op since then.

While the Zooo has survived and thrived since 2004, most of the co-op's attempts to expand beyond the Zooo were unsuccessful. Between 2004 and 2014, members tried expanding MOSAIC to additional apartments and even houses beyond the Zooo, including houses at 906 Hamlin Street ("Castle Danger") and 2149 Sherman Avenue—all of which were short-lived, lasting a year or two at most. For years, the co-op's long-standing dream of expanding to more houses seemed beyond reach; the idea would come up every year, but rarely bore fruit.

A New Era (2015 - ?)

In the fall of 2014, the members of MOSAIC decided to seriously pursue the idea of expanding the co-op beyond the Zooo to a second house the following year. With the co-op's several failed past expansion attempts in mind, members began hunting for a new house at the very beginning of the school year. By the end of fall quarter, a house had been found at 1427 Elmwood Avenue; by the end of winter, enough new members had been recruited to fill both houses; and by the end of spring, new Bylaws for MOSAIC had been written to ease the transition to being a multi-house co-op. Finally, in September of 2015, the newly christened Treehouse opened its doors to its first generation of co-opers!

The first year as a two-house co-op was filled with both successes and challenges. The Treehouse successfully set up its own internal house systems, and both houses proved able to carry out their day-to-day activities mostly independently. Furthermore, members elected the co-op's first Board of Directors in more than a decade, and the Board established new policies to help coordinate finances and recruitment for the two houses. At the same time, the co-op faced difficulties integrating the two houses and making them feel like one cohesive community.

As we enter our second year as a multi-house co-op, MOSAIC has lots of opportunities in front of us to continue to grow the co-op into a more inclusive, creative, sustainable, empowering, and cooperative community. With our first year in this brave new era of MOSAIC under our belt, we're ready to build on our achievements and learn from our challenges to better serve the needs and aspirations of everyone in the co-op.

More on MOSAIC History

Prospectus Document - This was written by the founding members of MOSAIC way back in 1998, as a kind of statement of purpose for MOSAIC. In it, they declared what they intended MOSAIC to be and what they hoped MOSAIC would become.