College Houses is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides over 500 beds of affordable student housing across five properties near UT Austin and Austin Community College. Our mission is to serve as a transformative environment that empowers students through democratic, cooperative living. We provide affordable housing to foster community, support education, and promote personal development and well-being.
College Houses pools its resources and labor power to provide a student community that is affordable for all members. Unlike most student apartments which seek to maximize profit, College Houses is a nonprofit with the mission to provide quality housing and a great living experience at the most affordable price possible. By including bills, amenities, and (in most co-ops) a meal plan in the standard rent rate, we help to lower the total cost of education for students. By choosing co-ops, students can save thousands per semester.
The internship will work with College Houses staff and elected leaders to update the annual process of preparing for turnover. This will include completing inspections of vacant rooms, creating work notes for the maintenance and cleaning crews, maintaining up to date lists of rooms that are vacant, occupied, or temporarily used for another purpose.
The internship will assist with offering tours of co-op houses where elected officers or staff are not available. Each house will have a guide for offering tours.
This internship will have 2 people (each working 20 hours/week), some taks will work best with both interns working together at once, but most of the work will be held individually. The 2 interns can schedule their weekly hours in a way that meets both of their needs.
Coordinate with house officers and the College Houses Director of Operations to maintain a schedule of tasks needed in every one of the co-op’s rooms. (cleaning, painting, repairs, furniture replacement, etc)
Assist the College Houses Director of Operations with scheduling and completing common area inspections of all properties, and coordinate follow up communication with house officers before compiling a list of needed professional cleaning tasks at each house.
At the end of internship, present at least one page of a report of identified areas for improvement in CH move-out/move-in processes and cleaning/inspection procedures. Identifying areas of success is also acceptable in this report.
Internship Dates: This internship would be roughly 4 weeks of work. Ideal timing is mid/late June to mid/late July, with some flexibility.
We will provide one on one training on any software systems used (mainly Google Workspace and the Entrata Property Management platform. The New Member Experience Intern will be given an active role in collecting input from the co-op's members and working with officers and staff to balance the needs of current and future members.
College Houses members have put a significant amount of effort into increasing our occupancy rates for the future and giving new co-op members a smooth and happy introduction to the co-op. Throughout this year, members have focused on organizing their houses that would make them presentable for tours year-round, and removed unused items and furniture that would create space for events that would engage current and future members.
These changes have already made a difference and positively impacted members at the houses. However, we found this standard is hard to keep up during the summer when most members are gone and sets us a few steps back when we try to prepare for fall move-ins and all the events that quickly follow.
We created this internship position in hopes of getting an outside perspective on how the houses are looking and doing throughout the summer, and what systems would help College Houses maintain this standard of cleanliness and task management that would smoothly take us through the summer.
We would be designing a new system with the input of our members and would support the New Member Experience Intern in bringing this system to our members.