FAQ - Radio Eden

Who Runs This?

Our residential advisers (RA's) live on campus.

Katy Levinson

Founder

Katy is a former NASA roboticist, an ex-Googler SWE, and a jack of all trades. She helped run Hacker Dojo during its more community-centrered phase and a lifetime total of 12 community houses. She likes video games, PJs, power tools, and fiction media which discusses societal structures and incentives.

Eric Bahr

Strategy

Eric is a physicist, mathematician and former grad student who joined a house in March 2015 so he could continue his research without interruptions from academia. He helps with strategy, and focusing on what is highest impact to the resident's happiness and the dorm's overall health. He likes philosophy, movies, books of every kind, and being right.

Derrick Lin

Logistics

Derrick started as an economist but since then has spent a lot of time studying math, languages, literature, programming, machine learning and playing Marth in SSBM. He has been intermittently with the crew since 2013, now focuses on logistics. He likes anime, ironing, neoclassical music, and extremely specific lightbulbs.

More Questions

Who is welcome at Radio Eden?

A Place For Everybody

Radio Eden is a safe space that welcomes everybody regardless of age (with an unfortunate exemption of those under 18 due to an insurance requirement), gender identity, race, nationality, sexual orientation, country of origin, social class, or level of education.

What if I can not afford to live in Radio Eden?

Money Isn't Everything

Radio Eden is proud to offer hardship scholarships in 3-month increments to otherwise financially-independent individuals employed 50 weeks a year 40 hours a week by an external employer (read: not founders). During this program we cap your housing costs at 30% of your take-home pay after minimum payments on most student loans, most medical debt and similar circumstances on a case by case basis.

We believe that most of getting better paying work is connections, and hope that you will leave here with the knowledge and connections to get a better-paying job if you want one.
 
Some work we consider to be chronically underpaid public service also often qualifies for a scholarship with less strict conditions. Examples include K-12 education, and certain types of federal research.

Can housemates have private rooms?

The Right Community Space For You

All space is communal, including sleeping spaces, and most space is open to all genders. Space is zoned so housemates can find a place to study, play, or sleep at any time of the day or night. Sleeping spaces are zoned snoring and non-snoring and also by what time housemates prefer to go to bed. In larger houses, there are also a non-compulsory female-identified-only and male-identified-only sleeping spaces during certain seasons.

Why does short-term housing matter?

Part of a Greater Whole

The financial commitment of signing a 12 month lease prevents many people from pursuing great opportunities they are more than qualified for. By giving people a low-commitment place to land for their first few months, we believe we can empower true economic mobility.

We also believe we can play a key role in solving the housing crisis. By removing a portion of the renters who previously had to sign no matter the price and conditions in order to be able to accept one-in-a-lifetime opportunities, we hope to create a more renter-friendly market which serves to preserve and contribute to our neighborhoods and broader communities.