Collaborative Housing moves from the fringe to the main stage

Back in 2019 the Co-Habitat Network held a fringe ‘Collaborative Housing’ event in Lyon to run alongside the International Social Housing Festival (ISHF).

Fast forward three years, the collaborative housing sector is growing and diversifying across Europe and worldwide and has now found its rightful place on the main ISHF 2022 programme.

Taking place at the at the Central Library Oodi, in Helsinki on the 15^{th of} June the Collaborative Housing Day hosts a day long programme combining discussions, roundtables, workshops and networking sessions including;

• An introduction of the day by World Habitat, Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Housing Europe and the City Council of Helsinki
• Roundtable: Collaborative Housing: building resilience against crises – hosted by urbaMonde (France-Switzerland) with Co-Lab Research – TU Delft (the Netherlands), Sostre Civic (Spain) and Legacoop Abitanti (Italy).
• Roundtable: Financial frameworks for collaborative housing in Central and South-eastern Europe: scaling up the MOBA Housing Development Fund, hosted by MOBA (Serbia – Slovenia) with the Confederation of Cooperative Housing (UK), the Housing Fund of the Republic of Slovenia, and Bauverein Halle & Leuna (Germany).
• Networking event: “Speed-dating” with collaborative housing projects and networks from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, and the UK
• Workshop: Co-Lab Mapping project: a visualisation tool for collaborative housing in Europe, hosted by Co-Lab with the Ministry of the Environment of Finland, Housing Europe, and Legacoop Abitanti (Italy)
• Roundtable: What are the key conditions to foster collaborative housing? Lessons from across the globe -hosted by HIC with urbaMonde, Cooperative Housing International, Coop Cameroun, We Effect (Philippines),
• Workshop: Community Land Trusts and Social Housing: Collaborating for the Right to Housing – hosted by the European Community Land Trust Network, with Middlemarch Community-Led Housing (UK), Barcelona City Council (Spain), UniAbita housing cooperative (Italy) and Self-organised Architecture (Ireland).

Networking is a key theme of the day and there will be plenty of opportunity during and after the event for informal interactions and discussions. Promoting and enabling collaborative housing is key to guaranteeing the right to adequate housing and the right to the city, and to ensuring that residents are at the core of the processes that shape their habitat and cities

The event provides a valuable opportunity for housing professionals, community, and project leaders (including local initiatives), representatives of local authorities and professional housing associations, researchers, and students from across the world, representatives of organisations able to provide finance for collaborative housing, as well as EU institutions and anyone interested in learning about community-led and non-speculative housing provision.

The event is free to all, so please to register via the festival registration form. If you cannot make the event sign-up for our newsletter here where we will share the stories and outcomes from the day.

The Collaborative Housing Day programme is an initiative by the CoHabitat Network, through several of its partner organisations: Cooperative Housing International (CHI), Co-Lab Research – TU Delft (Co-Lab), European CLT Network (EUCLTN), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), MOBA Housing SCE (MOBA), urbaMonde, World Habitat.