Working Group for Housing Justice Collective. Model Development - Discussion Prompt

# Working Group for Housing Justice Collective. Model Development - Discussion Prompt Building on housing-related discussions, one possible direction is to identify and undertake three distinct elements of implementation (that may develop alongside each other). 1. Cultivating collective practices within and across individual properties 2. Forming multi-property housing collectives with explict social justice goals. 3. Participating in a network that supports the formation and ongoing flourishing of multiple housing collectives. This document is focused on the second element: researching and articulating a detailed legal/financial model for setting-up multi-house collective with explicit social-justice goals. This phase would be undertaken by a small group funded by donations, and the outputs a contribution to the public domain. Complementary to this, a larger group of interested parties could form to co-create a housing network with a specific vision, hopefully something boldly utopian. Within such a network, groups of like-minded people who want to live together could connect and plan specific houses with their own governance and principles. We also hope that the model will allow existing properties to be brought into the network, so having a perfect model need not be an obstacle to people starting now on expermments in shared living and/or home ownership. # Brief This working group will either identify or produce a working legal, financial and operational model which can be used to start housing organisations which meet the criteria described in this brief. This output should include template legal documents ready to be used to form the correct legal entities for such a group, which are valid under Australian law. ## Organisation type (housing collective) A housing organisation founded using this model should represent a step towards improving housing justice by de-coupling it from speculative financial gain, and instead focus on sustainable community wellbeing. Many housing organisations already exist, but several characteristics which are desired in this model may not be present in these: * The organisation spans multiple properties, allowing for a growth model which eventually moves more properties into the network and thus this way of providing housing. * The organisation provides housing which is accessible to both to people who do not have the capital needed for purchasing a house and to those who do. * The organisation has a specific way of benefiting society in general, not just the residents of the organisation's dwellings. ### A collective of properties, supported by a network of collectives. The desired output of this process is the ability to start an organisation which, while initially consisting of a single property, is capable of expanding to the provision of a collection of properties. In addition, we envision other such housing collectives forming a network of mutual support. There are already organisations in Australia which provide multiple properties for social housing reasons, and these should be examined as part of this process. While the provision of multiple properties is desirable in that it grows the stock of housing under equitable ownership, this should not stop the residents of individual properties from being self-governing. Similarly, participanting in a network supports further pooling of resources and supports those seeking collaborators with whom to start new collectives without intervening in the self-governance of either housing collectives or indovidual properties. ### Housing type There are some co-housing and social housing models which are designed to work predominately with newly purpose-built housing. This group should focus on models which, at a minimum, support the use of existing properties and housing stock. This is desirable because it creates the ability to run housing networks that aspire to convert sections of the existing housing landscape into equitable housing, and also to address shortcomings about the health and sustainability of such housing. ### Social mission The are many ways in which most existing forms of cooperative housing can be said to be advancing a social mission. They often provide important models for living which focus more on community democracy and environmental sustainability, which ensures that their residents can lower their environmental impact and hone their skills for being better participants in a just society. Such housing projects may have benefits outside of the group of members or residents in that they provide a model that can be copied by others, and they may generously share the ideas and materials needed to start similar organisations. However, the organisational model designed here should have an explicit and substantative model for achieving a social mission that benefits non-residents. In the model, this should be flexible enough to allow different organisations using this model to have unique social missions and to evolve their strategies for achieving them over time. However, the model may want to ensure that there is a realistic governance structure for ensuring that resources are well directed towards the social mission without this being subsumed by the needs of the residents. ### Acknowledging the great Australian dream In order to achieve success in Australia, it is envisaged that collective housing organisations need to grapple with the historical narrative of owning your own home, and the systemic pressure to do so as part of retirement strategy. Meanwhile, it is also true that home ownership is increasingly innaccessible in Australia. A model developed by this group should take into account this narrative, and consider the underlying needs that it represents. It should not attempt to replicate the use of property as a speculative financial instrument used to build wealth and increase one's standard of living, but it may wish to find ways to provide other factors which cause many Australians to dream of owning their own home, such as the security of not having to move regularly, the ability to make changes to a house, or the ability to pay less for housing during illness, unemployment or retirement. In taking into account these factors, the intent is to develop housing options which are attractive both to those who are unlikely ever to be able to afford home ownership, and those who are. This may lead to the ability to leverage the capital of those who have more, to help provide housing for those who have less, while ensuring that all have their essential human needs met. ## Research A big component of this project is research. Rather than starting a new housing project blind, the goal is to investigate existing initiatives in Australia (and to some extent abroad) to see what is already being done. Useful elements and lessons from existing organisations should be surfaced and built into this model through this research process. Additionaly, it's possible that the research will uncover a model or organisation which works in it's entirety and invalidates the need to develop a new model. Adjacent to organisation models for mission driving cooperative housing, the research should investigate other programs which address housing justice issues. It is important that this model does not act an an impediment to other projects, whether grassroots, NGO or govenment based, which provide social housing or advance housing justice. If possible, it is desirable that this model is in fact complementary to these programs. As this model is to be applied in Australia specificially, research should be undertaken as to the relationship between collective housing models in settler society with First Nations land rights and practices. While specific organisations applying this model might have a more detailed approach to addressing the historic injustices of colonisation, research is needed at this stage to ensure that the model creates explicit room for this to be addressed and guidance where appropriate. While uncovering the rich history of cooperative housing projects in Australia, this project should also compare and contrast that to emerging approaches including new legal and operational structures that may not have been present when previous organisations formed, such as equity crowdfunding and blockchain based DAOs. ## Outputs It is envisaged that the output of this project should be either one of three possibilities. ### Existing organisation recommendation A clear recommendation for why an existing organisation serves the needs outlined in this brief, written up explaining why this organisation is a good fit and how to get involved. ### Existing model recommendation An existing model, perhaps already developed for an existing organisation, is deemed acceptable and is available for use. This group provides all the materials needed to understand and apply the model, including template legal contracts ready to use in Australia. These may have already been provided by those who developed the model, and if so, this group will ensure that there are no intellectual impediments to new groups using them. ### New model development A new model is developed, perhaps based on many ingredients and ideas from existing models and organisations. A clear write-up of the model is produced, as well as all template legal contracts and other materials needed to start one or many organisations using this model. If the model contains new elements, or elements in a substantively new combination that requires some thought to understand, this group my choose to ensure that explanatory materials are produced to allow others to easily understand the model, which could include articles, videos, infographics, etc. In the case of new model development, this group will ensure the model is available for public use by those in no way affiliated with this project, and shall ensure that all necessary materials are licenced appropriately to ensure this use in perpetuity, such as using a creative commons or other open source or public domain licence. ### Additional info - [Resource Set on Housing as a Collective Responsibility](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/CollectivingHousing/edit) ## Task list: ### Before group formation - [x] Write the brief - document describing the desired outputs from the group - [x] Circulate brief for discussion among those we've been discussing various options for implementing collaborative housing - [ ] Conduct initial research on existing collective approaches to housing that support (aspects of) housing justice aims. - [x] [Research-project-1 proposal outline](https://hackmd.io/@CoHousingNetwork/cohousing_research_project1) - [ ] Literature review (in progress) - for updates and/or to contribute, please contact @Teq - [ ] Detailed research proposal for feedback - [ ] Data collection and analysis - [ ] Research reports/presentations - [ ] Contact potential auspicing organisations that are registered as a charity and ask about whether it is possible to donate funds for allocation to our specific workgroup - possibilities include: - [Communities Economy Institute](https://www.communityeconomies.org/about/community-economies-institute) - [FoE(Melbourne)](https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/organise), - [CommonsLibrary](https://commonslibrary.org/), - [Brunswick Neighbourhood House](https://bnhc.vic.edu.au/about-us/) - [ ] Contact researchers and organisers working in this area and/or may be interested in collaborating: - [Anitra Nelson](https://anitranelson.info/bio/) an activist-scholar affiliated with the [Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-)](https://infur.msd.unimelb.edu.au/) at the University of Melbourne and active in the Planning Working Group of Cohousing Australia and editor of [Housing for Degrowth](https://www.routledge.com/Housing-for-Degrowth-Principles-Models-Challenges-and-Opportunities/Nelson-Schneider/p/book/9781138558052) and author of [Small is Necessary](https://anitranelson.info/small-is-necessary-shared-living-on-a-shared-planet/) and more - [Katherine Gigson](https://www.communityeconomies.org/people/katherine-gibson) - one of the founders of the Community Economies Institute as a NFP to support (non-academic) research - for context see interview [on the Frontiers of Commoning Podcast](https://david-bollier.simplecast.com/episodes/katherine-gibson-and-the-community-economies-research-network). - [Claire Daniel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-daniel-3418304a/) urban planning reseracher at UNSW specialising in cooperatives - [Melinda Marshell](https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-marshall/) urban planing consultant with a focus on housing cooperatives (based in Perth) - [ ] Estimate time commitment(s) for group - [ ] Estimate group running costs including possible payment model - [ ] Identify the number of people and sets of skills required for working group ### To form group - [ ] Write up group charter - [ ] Recruit members ### During group process - [ ] Sketching several potential instansations of the model - [ ] Post regular updates for supporters/interested parties - [ ] Contribute to formation of a [network](https://penga.network/) of housing collectives that seek to prefigure more just futures. --- Date created: 2021 Status: ARCHIVED ###### tags: `housing` `collaborative-practices` ---