You can find our values here.Haight St. Commons is a network of not-for-profit co-ops and intentional communities in the heart of San Francisco. We believe that human beings are not meant to live alone. We believe that community provides purpose and joy to modern life. We are here to help make this reality for everyone who believes the same.
JOIN A COMMUNITY
The only precondition for joining a community is that you want to live in a community. You have already qualified, the rest of your journey will be finding the right fit.
Haven't made up your mind? Just curious? That's OK, we'd still like to talk to you. Email us, or come visit one of our houses and experience it for yourself.
Below you will find a list of our member communities, their basic information, and what values they hold. All will be glad to hear from you. If their contact information isn't listed, please contact us and we'll connect you.
START A COMMUNITY
We are very glad that you found us. Starting or founding a community is not easy. Some of us did it alone without understanding that there are dozens who have done it before who would gladly help. Welcome to our network.
We have made an effort to share much of our collective knowledge here. Below you will find legal documents, mission statements, and other forms that are easy to digitize. These are open source and you are encouraged to use them.
Take a look at our guide book: How to Start a Commune!
Our most valuable resources, however, are not digital. We would love to help you any way we can.
Upcoming Events
The Houses of Haight St Commons
We are a group of four folks in our early to late twenties looking for two housemates for our new living co-op! Our house is focused on inclusiveness, mutual support, and emotional connection. We would love for you to play an active role in defining and refining our vision, goals, values, and culture!.
Our Values - Transparency and honesty - Inclusiveness - Emotional connection - Mutual support - Curiosity
We are a ten year old intentional community in the Lower Haight of around roughly 13 people). We live together with the hope that we can be greater that the sum of our parts. Our goal is the creation, maintaining and diversifying the commons.
Day to day our community runs as as a doocracy, with participatory decision making filling the gaps where doocracy falls down. We use collaborative funding to put our surplus towards projects we believe are important. Sometimes these are self serving (making an area of the house nice), sometimes these are community serving (subsidized housing, provision of child care for our events etc).
Open source documents:
The Radical Reading Room is a community space in the lower haight with library norms - a space for reading the rad things, writing to find comrades and so on. This is a quiet space to be together. ~ Restrictions ~ // No talking, no calls or meetings to be done in this space. // This is an alcohol, drug & weapon free space.
Template House is an intentional community space in lower Haight. We inhabit a mixed use building, which is both a home and also a semi public community living room known as Revolution Sunday. We are 5 residents (so far) exploring co-creation, commoning, fluid use of space, and new ways of being in solidarity with one another. Template is home to our Second Life community - an autonomous, self-determined intentional community, built around transformation and empowerment, with and for the formerly incarcerated community, manifesting alternative justices approaches and values. In order to be inclusive to the needs and safety of our formerly incarcerated community, this space cannot have alcohol, weapons/anything that looks like a weapon or drugs/ controlled substances. Please never bring any of these things into the building.
We are a group of 9 awesome people in the heart of the Mission. We love to make art, play music, and dance. We love spontaneous weekend brunches with housemates and friends. We love hosting events like clothing swaps, art nights, dinner parties, and dance parties. We love improving our space with plants, murals, and decorations.
15-person community in Berkeley at the border of Oakland, with family-style living. Chrysalis is a transformative intentional living community designed to nurture and support those at life's major transitions; career changes, new parents, starting a new company, taking on civil service. We offer a unique blend of communal living, regular shared meals, and a supportive environment for parents, kids, and singles alike, it's the perfect place to grow and evolve, just like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.
People at Chrysalis are a mix of technologists, parents, future moms, artists, scientist, teachers and comedians (just kidding but we all think we’re pretty witty). People have their personal space and have large shared spaces. We would love for you to apply and come over for dinner.
Crest is a tight knit community of 9-10 humans who prioritize self-development. The seed of Crest was a Burning Man camp. A few aspects of our culture that are meaningful to us include: 1) Self Development & Diversity 2) Mission-driven 3) Cooperative orientation Competence 4) Value having a beautiful space 5) Empathy 6) Burner flavor
RGB is a community of 11 residents, mostly long-term, founded in January 2016. We believe life is better together. We believe in living by design, not by default. We believe the power of cities is in proximity, and the same can be true of our homes. We believe the people we surround ourselves with can make us a better, happier version of ourselves.
We govern ourselves through a mix of doocracy, adhocracy, Slackocracy, and gentle loving nudges to take out the trash.
At the core, we are life experimenters and social tinkerers. We want to see if there's a better way to live. RGB is our laboratory. The colors blend a different way everyday.
We support creatives to connect and be in action around impactful projects. We host a number of events for the wider community, from life drawing, to monthly art shows and a weekly lecture series. Our newest addition to the community is a maker space.
Open source documents:
The Center SF is an anchor of transformation in The Bay of swirling change. We honor the old and welcome the new. We are turning our best practices into ritual. We are thriving.
Our collective is a community of healers, artists, mystics, and visionaries, comprised of 20+ unique and amazing individuals. We are committed to conscious evolution through the arts, self-awareness, social change, activism, sustainability and the rejuvenation for our Earth, and compassionate living. We work, both individually and collaboratively, to make the world a more vibrant, loving, and better place to live. Our home is a magical 3-story mansion, consisting of 19 bedrooms, a 5-office healing sanctuary, a tea house, and a movement, arts and events space. This former rectory is filled with stories of its own as it has served as a community anchor and place for healing on Fillmore for over 100 years.
The Center SF Teahouse, located in our basement, is 3,000 sq. ft. of transformational space open to the public for events, movement, arts, tea, and workshops. It serves as the nucleus for a dynamic social hub that curates a selection of fine teas and like minded people.
We'd love it if you came over for tea.
Manzanita is a co-created intentional family woven together with the fibers of love, gratitude and acceptance. Manzanita is a hearth and a home. Manzanita is a 12 person co-operative living creation in the thick of Haight Ashbury, founded on November of 2016.
Our home is a melting pot of humans; brewing constantly with a mix of self expression, artistic creation, civic engagement, friendship, collaboration and community.
The values that our community were founded upon are the pillars of our home and the veins of our collective heart. These values are (but not limited to): radical self love, kindness and curiosity, collective and individual sustainability practices, self-reflection and growth, deep and unending expressed gratitude, awe and wonder, radical inclusion, play for play's sake, empathy and assumption of best intent in others, respect and non-violent communication, and shared food and resources. Our co-op exists to create a safe and loving space for its community members to call home while also bettering our immediate and surrounding communities through outreach and engagement.
The location of our home allows for a vibrant and unique experience in SF living. Our two story house features 10 private/single bedrooms and one master suite, warm and cozy common spaces, an office-room/guest-bedroom, 5.5 bathrooms, a renovated kitchen that opens up onto a spacious living/dining room, wood floors throughout and a hot tub and firepit in the backyard.
We love dreaming big together, making music and dancing together, cooking together, learning together and most of all loving and laughing together.
AGAPE IS AN INTENTIONAL LIVING COMMUNITY OF FOURTEEN FRIENDS AND WAYWARD TRAVELERS IN THE MISSION DISTRICT OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The residents are all very different, but we share a couple core values, including loving our Earth and the people that it is comprised of. Staying at Agape is likely very different than most living situations you've grown accustomed to and relies on the collective effort of everyone involved to keep our home running efficiently. Each of us have our own unique areas of responsibility that help sustain our community at large and we ask that anyone who stays with us contributes in a way that feels right to them.
Open source documents:
An autonomous, self-determined intentional community, built around transformation and empowerment, with and for the formerly incarcerated community, manifesting alternative justices approaches and values.
The Real House is a pretty new co-op, founded in May 2019. It was created with the intention of creating a space to “get real” with a loving community. We’re a vivacious, psychedelic and intentional bunch who like to host small gatherings, potlucks, teatime, etc. We’ve liked hosting Hippie Happy Hours, Sad Parties, Yoga Nidra, Acro Yoga.
We have a beautiful home that doubles as a small event space, and a place for gatherings and workshops with a spacious peaceful garden out back with apple and plum trees and black berries! We’re two blocks away from Alamo Square park, a couple blocks away from the Center teahouse, Church of 8 Wheels, and the Zen center, as well as the very lively Divisadero.
Founded in 2011, and still going strong with 7 lovely humans (with educators, therapists, students, communicators, and artists among our ranks) and 2 lovely hens. We're into creativity, community, and sustainability.
We're a cozy little family in the Inner Richmond with regular family dinners and house camping trips, and we host a (mostly) monthly house concert and potluck, some art-themed events, neighborhood potlucks, and occasional fundraisers/service events aimed at contributing to the wider community.
NuHaus is an 11-person community living together in a gorgeous Victorian home near Alamo Square in SF. It’s a diverse group, but the vibes are generally kind, chill, creative, crafty, and a bit Burner-y.
We were founded in January 2016 by a group leaving their warehouse home - at which point this was, literally, the "new house." We’re either "intentionally unintentional" or "unintentionally intentional" depending on who you ask, and prefer organic over structured interaction. In any case, we’re all very close, supportive of each other, and love spending quality time together.
We are a house and community of ~20 adults, kids, parents, non-parents, and families of different shapes. We are a mix of folks in many different stages of life who are interested in living in community with children.
We bring more joy and ease to life by sharing cooking, adventures, babysitting, teaching, late nights telling stories, shoulders to cry on, and everything in between. We aim to raise kids together rather than exasperated and alone, and we dream of being like family to each other’s kids. We know that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts and we’re putting that into action.
We're a group of late-20s to mid-30s adults who work in a range of professions, from data engineering to founders to design to doctors to social impact and public health. Our hobbies are even wider-ranging - we have jazz aficionados, survival enthusiasts, wrestling queens, bread bakers, runners, bikers, plant lovers, skilled cooks, beach volleyballers, roller skaters, and many more. From deep conversations to hanging out around the fire, we generally try to make space to connect and really get to know each other.
We are currently looking to fill one room (June 1st)
Here's the link to our application page: https://eucalyptushouse.notion.site/Join-our-Eucalyptus-Community-ee7a7b66afbe4b8fa4a89ecf32883575
McAllister House is a joyous cooperative community living in a 13-bedroom 6.5-bathroom Victorian in the Alamo Square/NOPA neighborhood, San Francisco. We’re a diverse crew of thirteen ranging from early-20s to early-30s. We have a wide range of interests, but we’re fairly active/sporty and often bond by cooking/sharing meals with one another or working on projects to improve the house. We have a strong culture of hopping onto activities/events that housemates propose, be it water-coloring, rock-climbing, beach raves, or county fairs.
Unlike some community houses, we do not have an explicit theme. Instead, we deliberately aim for a low key community with minimal hard rules. More info and pictures here (if a room is available, it will be shared on this site).
Thriving Mushrooms is an intentional community anchored in self-growth & mutual support for mindful living and collective impact. Our events evolve around four pillars: Mindfulness & Healing, Playfulness, Art & Creativity, and Social & Planet Justice.
Through fostering a regenerative environment that prioritizes connections with our deeper selves, others and nature, our vision is to cultivate a soil for personal and collective transformation in this space we call home.
Website | IG | Email
We’re a group of late 20s -early 30s people who believe that living with friends you love isn’t something you grow out of. We’re an international crew of community living veterans and started a brand new, ~7 person multi-generational community (🐣 due in Jan!) near Alamo square. It’s community living, but nicer, cleaner, and more spacious than your typical SF group house. We’re looking for a few more humans to expand the pack and put down roots with us, and if you’re reading this, that might be you.
You’d be a good fit if you value community, connection, warmth, and are keen on multi-generational community living. We’re looking for someone who’s conscientious, a strong communicator, and keen to show up, contribute, and add their own spice to the community. We like to cook, bike, play music, create art, fight with foam katanas (it’s true), and wrassle our golden retriever in the evenings. If (some of) this sounds fun to you, we’d love to say hi!
Learn more about us here: https://atrium-house.notion.site/Welcome-to-Atrium-c1a616358156493685ea5b717669bb21
Houses of Our Past
The Convent Arts Collective is a beautiful communal live-work space in the Lower Haight, home to 24 artists of various creative disciplines. This is the perfect place for a creative individual who loves creating their own family. The Convent is host to a variety of gatherings in its chapel, including music, comedy, film & art shows, yoga, and the occasional art-themed party. Our home is a gorgeous 2-story former nunnery with an expansive rooftop filled with resident artists’ murals and a basement filled with art studios and music rehearsal & recording rooms. We inspire one another in our daily lives as well as inspire our community through our private and public-facing gatherings.
Where chaos and order coagulate in a creatively engaged community. Chaortica is a new, 13 member community founded in April, 2016 with values around creation and collaboration.
Chaorticats share food and and self-govern through a mix of consensus and do-ocracy. We resist rules and hierarchy wherever possible and substitute trust and communication. We are creating a better world by living it every day.
Open source documents:
We’re a community of folks from all walks of life, who believe in a lifestyle grounded in sharing and common values. We host food and music gatherings, explore the vast and beautiful terrain of the Bay Area and beyond, and work together on all sorts of community projects. And we do it all from a French Victorian Mansion in the heart of San Francisco.
The Red Victorian is a Haight Ashbury institution. Built in 1904, it now serves as intentional community and guest space for a large number of people. We are part of the Embassy Network, and the community is now two years old. We are a mix of around long term (roughly 14 people) and short term housing. We also have remote residents and members who contribute to the community and culture from afar.
We support creatives to connect and be in action around impactful projects. We host a number of events for the wider community, from life drawing, to monthly art shows and a weekly lecture series. Our newest addition to the community is a maker space.
The Rabbithole is an experiment in a better way to live, where we share more of our lives with the people closest to us, grow together, and cultivate a uniquely kind, playful, odd space.
RGB House put it best: "We believe the people we surround ourselves with can make us a better, happier version of ourselves."
We’re a long-term coliving house near Dolores Park in San Francisco. We believe that a community that cares for and empowers each other is key to a fulfilling and impactful life. We're just a group of reasonable adults who believe life is happier and more interesting when you're surrounded by diverse people who inspire you. We're introvert-friendly, have weekly group dinners, organize occasional retreats, and host friends and acquaintances for semi-regular potlucks.
The Manor of Being (MoB) is a community of heart-centered, embodied thought leaders. Founded in Dec 2017, we have family dinners with other community houses, music jams, book clubs, discussions on complex social issues / personal growth and physical challenges from running up Bernal heights to the pull-up competitions!