The originally intended tenants for Rochdale were screened.[9] Screenings were handled by residents of the Rochdale Houses, a precursor "dry-run" to Rochdale conducted at Campus Co-op owned houses, and they chose people who were by and large going to be associated with the University of Toronto.[2] However, a construction strike in 1967 that delayed the opening of Rochdale by half a year changed Rochdale's population from what was supposed to be a carefully selected one to a completely random one.[10] The screened applicants, most of whom had commitments to the university, could not wait for Rochdale to be completed and many found new accommodations.[10] The simple fact that the building was still in some ways a construction site may have deterred many of the students who were attracted to the idea of the hip, alternative education envisioned by its founders, torpedoing the raison d’être for the enterprise on day one.