# Housing as a Collective Responsibility The following resource set is intended to support discussions on the concept of *housing as a collective responsibility*. For more detailed resources, please enquire about the ongoing [research project into existing collaborative models/approaches](https://hackmd.io/@CoHousingNetwork/cohousing_research_project1) I'm conduting to support a potential [working group for developing housing justice focused approaches to collaborative](https://hackmd.io/@CoHousingNetwork/housing-justice_working-group). Contents: - Glossaries - Resources for navigating precarious housing (location specific) - Resources for developing community-led approaches to housing - Contextualising housing stratergies - Examples of community-led housing - Discussion prompts - Link-dump of further resources ## Glossaries of Key Concepts - In progress spreadsheet of key terms/concepts available on request - [Atlas of Ownership's 'library of building blocks that can be used to describe any form of ownership or tenure'](https://atlasofownership.org/patterns) - Crabtree-Hayes, Louise. 2023. ‘Establishing a Glossary of Community-Led Housing’. International Journal of Housing Policy 0 (0): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2022.2155339. - Monk, Sarah, and Christine Whitehead. 2010. ‘Glossary’. In Making Housing More Affordable: The Role of Intermediate Tenures. Hoboken, UNITED KINGDOM: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. - Griffith, Emma Jo, Mirte Jepma, and Federico Savini. 2022. ‘Beyond Collective Property: A Typology of Collaborative Housing in Europe’. International Journal of Housing Policy 0 (0): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2022.2123272. - De Vos, Els, and Lidwine Spoormans. 2022. ‘Collective Housing in Belgium and the Netherlands: A Comparative Analysis’. Urban Planning 7 (1): 336–48. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v7i1.4750. ## Resources for navigating **precarious housing** within the social/legal/economic context of systems set up by the Federal Government of Australia: > **Precarious housing** is a situation where housing is only available at a high costs relative to income (i.e., is not affordable), is insecure (e.g., of a tenure type which is subject to forced moves); and/or is unsuitable (e.g., overcrowded, unsafe, poorly located, etc.,) ([source: a VicHealth research synthesis examining the relationship between housing and health, 2011/2015](https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/search/precarious-housing-and-health-inequalities#)) * [AHURI (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute)](https://www.ahuri.edu.au/) - an organisation focusing on delivering peer reviewed primary research across housing, homelessness, cities and urban policy arenas; disseminating findings to government, industry and the community; and creating engagement opportunities with the AHURI evidence-base. * [Renters and Housing Union](https://rahu.org.au/join-rahu/). * [**Creative Ownership and Tenure Options for Australian Housing**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgmj_wp9EOs), NENA Housing Week 2022 - with panellists: Jasmine Palmer, Karl Fitzgerald, Sidsel Grimstad, and Elena Pereyra ...within context of the systems set up by the State of Victoria: * [Tenants Victoria - Financial Hardship Resource List](https://tenantsvic.org.au/advice/financial-hardship/) * [HAAG - Housing for the Aged Action Group](https://www.oldertenants.org.au/), Australia * [Zero-Homelessness Campaign](https://www.launchhousing.org.au/melbournezero) organised by Launch Housing, Melbourne * Victorian State housing services: * [Housing options finder](https://www.housing.vic.gov.au/housing-options-finder) * [National Rental Affordability Scheme](https://www.housing.vic.gov.au/national-rental-affordability-scheme) * [Public Housing](https://www.housing.vic.gov.au/public-housing) * [Community housing](https://www.housing.vic.gov.au/community-housing) ## Resources for developing **community-led approaches to housing** > **Community-led housing approaches** refers to approaches that seek to build housing options that contribute to the resilience of communities by reducing the risk of precarious housing for all. This includes housing projects that are developed and/or managed in through governance practices that are overseen by people who live in the locality and/or are directly impacted by housing practices within the area. (see: Crabtree-Hayes 2023) ### Legal/financial terms for cooperative housing approaches - **Collaborative housing** - "a modality of dwelling that meets three criteria: (a) a complex form of ownership that surpasses solely individual or state property, and that includes some degree of collective or cooperative tenure; (b) collective (self ) management involving the dwellers in the estate; (c) and an architectural design that promotes everyday sharing of space" (Griffith et al. 2022, p.2, as quoted in Crabtree-Hayes 2023, p.12) > [A web guide to collaborative housing, developed by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney](https://www.collaborativehousing.org.au/) - **Collective Housing**: an approach to housing where a opt-in group of people collaborate on physical housing forms that display a degree of collectivism in the built form, such that individual spaces that are complemented by shared space. Note that this is distinct from *housing-justice colletives* that focus on the more broader level of improving access to housing, which may support collective housing and other forms of collaborative housing as a tactic in this broader goal. * [Community Land Trusts (CLTs)](https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/what-community-land-trust): nonprofit entities dedicated to maintaining community control of real property outside conventional, speculative land and housing markets. Features of CLTs vary by country and may serve various ends – including the stewardship of green space, and the provision of permanently affordable housing for low-income individuals and families. For one example in Victoria, see [Gounded](https://grounded.org.au/). Also see: [Enabling Community Landtrusts in Australia](https://arena.org.au/product/enabling-community-land-trusts-in-australia/) * Shared Equity Homeownership approaches: "Davis (2006, p. 3) refers to shared equity homeownership as that which focuses on the three principles of: the owner-occupancy of residential property; the fair allocation of equity between one generation of lower-income homeowners and another; and the sharing of rights, responsibilities, and benefits of residential property between individual homeowners and another party representing the interests of a larger community." (Crabtree-Hayes 2023, p.20). Note that this term is used in ways distinct from both more specific uses of *shared ownership* (where residents own part-equity in a house while paying rent on the rest to a community-led housing association or community land trust) and non-community-led *shared equity* (where the household and an external housing provider share equity, with each equity component based on market value and residents are not involved in the design, construction, development, or collective governance of the homes. Resident co-owners can sell their proportion of the property at market value to the equity partner who uses the returned equity to partner with another buyer, such as [KeyStart Shared Ownership Services](https://www.keystart.com.au/guides-and-tips/guides/all-about-shared-ownership)). * [Housing Cooperatives](https://www.housinginternational.coop/what-is-a-housing-cooperative/: a legal entity that operates under the cooperative legal framework that usually exists at the regional or national level and constituted of member-based organisations holding title to housing stock. This is consistent with the broader practice of forming **[cooperatives](https://open.coop/co-operative/)** - i.e., legal structures for cooperation that have generally developed around groups of people who do not have fair access to political and economic power. By joining together as a co-operative, members combined their social, financial and/or political clout to obtain a more socially just outcome against the odds. Co-operatives are governed by Seven International Co-operative Principles which guides their equitable conduct. [In Australia, cooperatives](https://fed.coop) are registered by the states and territories under nationally consistent legislation (Co-operative National Law). There are lots of different shared [equity-models](https://www.nasco.coop/development/handbook/equity) for housing co-operatives (e.g., group equity, mixed-equity, limited-equity, etc.,. See: * [1301.0 - ABS Year Book Australia, 2012: Regulation of Co-Operatives in Australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Regulation%20of%20co-operatives%20in%20Australia~287) * * Limited (or zero) equity housing cooperatives: "Housing cooperatives with contracts or covenants containing restrictions on resale values, which ensure that housing remains affordable into the future. Usually residents collectively own the building, rather than each member owning their own flat or apartment" (Monk and Whitehead 2010) * * Co-housing: individually-owned homes located within a property that includes some shared facilities (these include a wide range of structural and governance practices that are intended to enable greater levels of inter-household interaction). For context, "initially conceived from a desire to build housing that enabled greater levels of inter-household interaction... Cohousing can be delivered through a variety of organisational and tenure forms and may or may not address affordability; however, as with ecovillages, the majority are delivered as market-rate homes that due to their high amenity and high quality design, can tend to be relatively elite, expensive, and exclusive products. Cohousing projects can and do exist as various forms of housing co-operative, although other organisational forms and titling systems are also used" (Crabtree-Hayes 2023, p.9). * Stewardship: the concept of stewardship can be realised through several legal structures that, while varying across legal jurisdiction, each ensures that the entity's independence and purpose is protected over the long-term by separating economic and voting rights. Stewardship legal structures include the ‘Golden Share’, ‘Single Foundation’; ‘Trust Foundation Two-entity Model’; ‘Trust partnership’. These stewardship structures differ from other purpose-driven ownership structures. For example, unlike B-corps, which commit a company to its purpose, steward-ownership changes the fundamental power structure by decommodifying corporate control to ensure long-term independence. Likewise, while stewardship structures can be cooperatives, the stewardship structure separates economic and voting rights (meaning that the cooperative can not vote to sell). And, in contrast to inheritance-based ownership, successive stewards are selected based on ability and values-alignment. Examples of stewardship of property in Australia include the [EVA ‘Collective Stewardship’ model](https://www.ecovillages.au/post/collective-ownership) ### Overlapping terms: * Housing associations: "A not-for-profit housing provider that is regulated by a government agency" (Monk and Whitehead 2010) * Co-living design: used primarily in the for-profit housing sector to refer to medium- to high-density housing that take inspiration from the design orientation of cohousing (to provide compact individual housing units alongside shared spaces),yet do not involve residents in the design or governance processes. ### Services for navigating legal/financial barriers to collaborative housing * [A 'web guide' to collaborative housing, developed by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney](https://www.collaborativehousing.org.au/how-it-works-legalities) * [Younger Hill](https://youngerhill.com/) and [SheLords](https://www.shesellsvic.com/leasing)- buyer's agent & property managers with potentially compatible values. "Earth is only ours to rent" * [Mortage Mates](https://www.mortgagemates.com.au/information-centre/) * [Kommuniti HQ](https://kommuniti.tidyhq.com/) - a profit for purpose social business started in response to personal experiences of homelessness and aiming to implement the [Community Wealth Building (CWB)](https://community-wealth.org/content/defining-community-wealth-building) model in Joondalup, Perth. * [My Care Space's Disability Housing Guide](https://mycarespace.com.au/resources/disability-housing-ndis-sda) * [Merri-bek Council's Planning Disabled Access Checklist for Planning Permit Applicaitons](https://www.merri-bek.vic.gov.au/globalassets/areas/planning/_checklists/planning-permit-applications--accessibility-disabled-access-checklist.pdf) ### Networks for supporting community-led housing experiments * [Common Equity Housing Limited, CEHL](https://www.cehl.com.au/AboutCEHL/IntroCEHL) * [CoHabitat](https://www.cohabitat.io/) - a global database of community-led housing * [Foundation for intentional community](https://www.ic.org/) - includes a database of intentional communities * Directory of [Community Wealth Building](https://community-wealth.org/map) projects ### Housing Experiments & Activism * Housing Justice Collectives: Collectives whose actions focus on creating more just housing practices for all, these may support collective housing and other forms of collaborative housing as a tactic in a broader set of practices (including resistance and prefiguratice activist practices). * [Resources for Australian Housing Justice and Unwaged Rights Campaigns](https://commonslibrary.org/resources-about-australian-housing-justice-and-unwaged-rights-campaigns/) * [Embassy Network](https://embassynetwork.com/) - a network of place-based communities experimenting with new forms of governance and solidarity. * [Land and Freedom Housing Collective (LAF)](https://lafhousing.org/about/) - whose "mission is to take real estate out of the profit-driven real estate market so that the space can be used to create an affordable, sustainable community." * [Save Public Housing Collective Victoria](https://www.savepublichousing.com/about-sphc) - a grassroots collective made up of local public housing estate residents and resident groups, neighbourhood friends of public housing, activist and advocacy groups, churches, legal professionals, academics and researchers... fighting for the protection of public housing residents’ rights to dwell in safe, secure and affordable homes and places. * [CEHL](https://www.cehl.com.au/OurProjects) is a non-profit housing association that works in partnership with member co-operatives to deliver an effective, sustainable housing program that empowers people and builds strong communities in Victoria. * [Asian Coalition of Housing Rights](https://changemakerspodcast.org/series-2-ep-8-asian-coalition-housing-rights/) - Change Makers Podcast, Series 2, Episode 8 (2018) ### Housing co-operative networks - [Housing International - What is a Housing Co-operative?](https://www.housinginternational.coop/what-is-a-housing-cooperative/) - [Cohousing Australia](http://www.cohousing.org.au/) - promotes collective models of housing, housing diversity, and housing choice. Also see: https://transitionaustralia.net/site/cohousing-australia/ - [Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons, edited by Shareable 2018](https://www.ic.org/community-bookstore/product/sharing-cities/) - [Co-Operatives Federations](https://fed.coop/), with resources such as the [Co-operatives in Australia: A Manual](https://fed.coop/co-operatives-in-australia-a-manual/) - [NASCO](https://www.nasco.coop/development/handbook/equity) - network supporting group equity housing cooperatives in the US and Canada ## Contextualising Housing Stratergies - [Pay the Rent](https://paytherent.net.au/) - a campaign and associated project to facilitate financially supporting local community-controlled Aboriginal organisations as one way to [follow-through](https://genius.com/Briggs-thats-money-lyrics) on acknowledgments of benefiting from the settler-colonial systems in Australia. - [Commmonground](https://www.common-ground.org.au/about), an intentional social change community established in 1980 that also functions as a social change resource service - [Housing for Degrowth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities](https://www.routledge.com/Housing-for-Degrowth-Principles-Models-Challenges-and-Opportunities/Nelson-Schneider/p/book/9781138558052), Edited By Anitra Nelson, François Schneider 2019. - [From Urbanization to Cities e-book The Politics of Democratic Municipalism](https://www.akpress.org/fromurbanizationtocities.html) by Murray Bookchin, 2021 - [No Place Like Home: Repairing Australia’s Housing Crisis](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/no-place-like-home-repairing-australia-s-housing-crisis), by Peter Mares (2018) - Series on *Housing Beyond and Within the Market* by Susanne Schindler (2021) [Part 1: Cooperative Housing and the Racial Wealth Gap](https://www.platformspace.net/home/housing-beyond-and-within-the-market-part-1-cooperative-housing-and-the-racial-wealth-gap), [Part 2:Cooperative Conditions in Zurich](https://www.platformspace.net/home/housing-beyond-and-within-the-market-part-2-cooperative-conditions-in-zurich), [Part 3:Cooperatives in Boston](https://www.platformspace.net/home/housing-beyond-and-within-the-market-part-3-cooperatives-in-boston) - Intentional communities: "Intentional communities are housing developments designed, built, and/or occupied by groups of people who have decided to live in some form of community, with varying degrees of sharing of property title, living arrangements, activities, and physical spaces. Often, they focus on a specific suite of lifestyle and living objectives, such as low environmental impact, which forms the basis of the group’s intentionality... articulated through a range of appropriate tenure, design, organisational, and property title arrangements."(Crabtree-Hayes 2023, p.18). ## Examples of Community-Focused Housing Projects ### Examples from Victoria/Aus - [Commonground](https://www.common-ground.org.au/about) "an intentional community and not-for-profit social enterprise that has been supporting social justice, environmental, disadvantaged and community groups since 1984" based in Victoria, Australia. - [Victoria Street Collective](https://www.dropbox.com/s/wls7v3900nnd54b/1806_Victoria_Street_Collective_Architecturals.pdf?dl=0), purchaced land in 2018 and the housing/land development aiming to complete in 2023 (supported by [PropertyCollectives](https://propertycollectives.com.au/projects-archive/collective-9-victoria-st-west-brunswick-westwyck/). - [Wesrwyk Eco-village](http://www.westwyck.com/#/about_community.html), Bunswick West - [Urban Coup](https://www.urbancoup.org/): Urban Coup is an initiative of a group of Melbournians with a shared vision of creating not just housing, but community, who have taken a 14+ year journey to create an inner urban co-housing development in Melbourne. Contact: info@urbancoup.org - United Housing Co-operative - see interview on 3CR, [United in Housing - Cooperatives and the Big Housing Build](https://www.3cr.org.au/haag/episode-202112081730/united-housing-cooperatives-and-big-housing-build) - [Murundaka](http://murundakacohousing.org.au/): an all-rental, housing co-operative (members of Earth Common Equity Rental Cooperative and the Common Equity Housing program). - [Moora Moora co-operative](https://mooramoora.org.au/) - a community living together intentionally since 1974 (currently made up of about 50 adults and 20 children) and in the process of permanently conserving and protecting our land with a Trust for Nature covenant. - [Mannawood Community Land Trust](https://www.ic.org/directory/mannawood-community-land-trust/) - previously known as Bunjil Community, this is an Ecovillage Cohousing project currently being developed as a pilot project by The Global Foundation for Sustainable Communities and the Global Standards described by GIDIFA (specialised UN agency) with capacity for 625 adult members, 225 child Members, and 95 Non-Member Residents. - [The Clarke street Collective](http://propertycollectives.com.au/projects-archive/collective-2-clarke-st-northcote/) - 2014, the 7 member collective established in 2014; 2016, secure the permits to build seven 3-4 bedroom triple-storey townhouses; 2017, construction commenced; 2018 (late), construction completed at a cost circa 1.05m per house (and valued of 1.2m). - [Northcote Rental Housing Co-operative](http://nrhc.coop/)- is [one of seven rental co-operative in Victoria](https://www.unitedhousing.org.au/learn-about-co-operatives/). It has operated since 1983 and now functions within the inner north western area of metropolitan Melbourne "an inclusive, member-governed Co-operative that provides quality affordable homes for current and future members on low to moderate incomes". - CHIA supported [housing co-operatives in Victoria](https://chiavic.com.au/housing-co-operatives/) ### International examples * [Mondragon](https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/) - the outcome of a cooperative business project launched in 1956 in Spain, Mondragon is now a massive cooperative ecosystem with world-wide operations. * [Spreefeld Berlin](https://www.cohabitat.io/en/projects/57e1d962-fd20-4221-9a19-118849321699) - a cooperative created to democratically build and manage mixed-use housing projects (running since 2011). * [Tamera](https://www.tamera.org/) - In Tamara, Portugal, the community started in 1978 with a small group, now ~200 people who are working towards autonomous decentralized models for a post-capitalist world. * [San Jose Boundary Balutakay Neighborhood Association](https://www.cohabitat.io/en/projects/0ac36a2b-c967-4d42-829a-e5a630c7f010) - with help from the Homeless People’s Federation Philippines, two groups came together, registered themselves as an association, negotiated to buy the farmland cheaply and then planned and built new houses for themselves, using a variety of cost saving techniques. * [Familia Feliz](https://www.familiafeliz.eu/) a decentralized living community with common economy - the community does not dictate where a member should live or that all members have to live in one place at all times. Currently including spaces in Spain and Germany, our community life is based on a shared economy, decisions by consensus, veto for each and solidarity with each member. * [La Balma](https://sostrecivic.coop/projectes/la-balma/) located in Barcelona, Spain, La Bama is a heterogeneous and intergenerational group made of 33 people grouped in 19 dwelling units. The project began in autumn 2016 and in spring 2021 the building was finished and members moved ib. La Balma is a project of the housing cooperative Sostre Cívic, that promotes, facilitates and guides several projects. It aims to ensure collective property and the promotion of the grant of use housing cooperative model. * [Co-Operation Housing](https://co-operationhousing.org.au/) - a not for profit company supporting housing co-operative in Western Australia. * [Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust](https://www.qlcht.org.nz/) (NZ) - [see context in media article by Vic Crockford (2022)](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/home-ownership-is-dead-long-live-progressive-home-ownership?amp=1) * [Village Kit](https://villagekit.com/) a project aimed at providing "accessible building blocks for abundant living" ## Discussion prompts: - [A Housing Justice Models, A Working Group - Discussion Prompts](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/housing-model) - [A Multi-House Collectives Network - Discussion Prompts](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/HkkAT5Ka_) - [Co-living across Multiple Houses - Discussion Prompts](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/ByqjfUc6O) ## Studies of Housing Cooperatives at a Systems Level 1. Avilla-Royo, Raül, Sam Jacoby, and Ibon Bilbao. ‘The Building as a Home: Housing Cooperatives in Barcelona’. Buildings 11, no. 4 (April 2021): 137. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11040137. > "While the activist groups tackled immedidate housing problems, the cooperatives sought a more radical answer to the housing crisis by developing alternative noncommodifable housing models distinct from existing private- and public-sector ones" > Cases studies of cooperatives in Barcelona that "entered into a legal agreement with the municiplality to transfer 'suface righ' (dret de superficie): a leasehold agreement giving the cooperative the right to build on public land and use the building for a period of 75 years (and an option to extend this by a further 15 years) after which both land and building are returned to the municipality. The legal relationship between the cooperative who ones the building and the dwellers is defined by a 'grant of use (cessio d' us) of the dwellings and common areas, which also includes a clause prohibiting property speculation". > " ## Link-dump of further resources - https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/whats-the-big-driver-for-co-op-housing-we-askand-find-many-answers/ - --- [![hackmd-github-sync-badge](https://hackmd.io/tDX3bsDKTzqrkWlqjjMNCQ/badge)](https://hackmd.io/tDX3bsDKTzqrkWlqjjMNCQ) ###### tags: `housing` `resource-sets` `collaborative-practices` Date created: 2021 Version: in-progress draft, V2 (2022) Created for: personal use Attribution: created by [E. T. Smith](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/Bio) on unceded lands of the [Wurundjeri people](https://www.wurundjeri.com.au/). <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> [CC BY-NC-SA](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) {%hackmd /E20qKLmUSK2xloQxRNbdYw %}
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E. T. Smith
I am a researcher and resource curator. Here I share fragments from these activities that overlap multiple projects or otherwise 'don't fit' elsewhere.
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Kumara Pod Reflections1

During the Winterfest gathering there were several discussions about ‘what is Enspiral’. These discussion prompted reflections on how some people can experience arriving in open spaces as daunting due to the difficulty of finding their way forward though the many options available. At the same time, people who were newly-arriving into Enspiral were asking questions about how to join and Hailey (a member of the Kumera Node Culitivation Working Group) facilitated an asycnhonous chat for those interested.

4/22/2024
Research Idea: Collectivising Housing in Merri-bek & Darebin

Proposal summary: a survey of existing collaborative housing approaches that include on or more of the characteristics associated with treating housing as a collective responsibility, rather than a commodity. To ensure a feasible scope, this review will focus on collaborative housing approaches implemented in, or proposed for adaption to, Australian contexts. This research also aims to feed into larger collective projects, such as the one proposed for looking at developing a housing justice collective and cultivating a network of collectives experimenting with prefigurative forms of housing justice.

4/17/2024
Values Calibration

Values are typically understood as the set of attitudes, unique to each individual (or group), which govern our behavior and guide the way we look at the world. Values are not about what you want to get or achieve; they are about how you want to behave or act on an ongoing basis.

4/15/2024
Example Responses to Value Questions

My decision to contribute reflects the value I place on:

4/15/2024
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