The Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-ops [SBSHC] was started in 1976 by a group of students at UCSB concerned about housing rates and slum conditions in Isla Vista. The students decided to form a cooperative to master lease buildings, thereby lowering rates and giving members greater control over the quality of the housing they occupied. The co-op was incorporated as the University Students' Rochdale Housing Project (USRHP), named after the Rochdale Co-op in England, which is recognized as the first successful modern consumer cooperative.

The USHRP co-op opened its first leased building in the fall of 1977 at 6520 Cervantes. The building had 31 one-bedroom apartments and held 61 members. The second building that the co-op master leased was at 6503 Madrid, and is still in the co-op’s possession to this day. By the fall of 1980, the co-op had master leased seven buildings and housed almost 200 members.

1981 

USHRP passed a major milestone – the purchase of its first building. The co-op bought 6503 Madrid, which it had previously master leased, and named it after Patti Newman, one of the co-op's founding members and one of the first Executive Directors. Newman House comprises of 9 one and two-bedroom apartments. During the early 1980's the co-op continued its strategy of expansion through master leasing, eventually housing 480 university students and staff. The co-op's own staff grew quite large in order to accommodate a range of activities from building maintenance to member education.

USHRP purchased its second building, the Manley House. Manley was the co-op’s first group house, meaning members slept in bedrooms and worked together to organize the rest of the common household. The building is named after Steven Manley, an active co-op member who was killed over summer vacation while fighting forest fires in Los Padres National Forest.

At this point, the co-op's history takes an ominous turn. USHRP became engaged in a lawsuit with one of the property owners from which it leases several buildings. After a legal battle of several years, the co-op ended up losing the lawsuit, quite a bit of money, and many of its master-leased buildings. Eventually, USHRP ceased master-leasing altogether, and operated only the two buildings it owned: Newman and Manley. Although the lawsuit caused a lot of changes at the co-op, and a great deal of financial trouble at the time, the co-op is now in a financially stable position and is looking ahead to the future.

The members of the co-op voted to change its name to "Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-ops," (SBSHC) in order to be more descriptive of its activities and to emphasize its relationship with the UCSB campus. The co-op also began a management arrangement with the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO), an umbrella student co-op organization. NASCO provided SBSHC with an executive director that also served as the West Coast Developer and combined consulting efforts to get the co-op back on it’s feet.

The tireless work and dedication of co-opers led to the acquisition of Dashain House. As a themed vegetarian house, Dashain was the first building within the co-op to have it's own meal plan. Initially it was going to be called the House of Seitan, but Dashain sounded friendlier as it also paid homage to a house pet. Dashain maintains its own garden space out back, at one time hosting a family of chickens. The house has nine bedrooms and three bathrooms. Dashain has traditionally never had television in common space.  

The co-op bought Biko House in 1997.  Named after Stephen Bantu Biko, founder and martyr of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa, Biko is SBSHC's "People of Color" themed Co-op. Biko's theme provides a safe, respectful space for people of color in predominantly white campus community. Biko house has twelve bedrooms and six bathrooms. Its kitchen is large and spacious, with industrial-strength cooking facilities and a stocked pantry. Biko has a mandatory meal plan that always offers both meat and vegetarian/vegan options.