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Background Housing is considered a social determinant of health. In Catalonia and Spain, ensuring affordable housing is challenging and cooperative housing under a grant-of-use emerges as an alternative, challenging traditional housing models. This study aims to quantify its impact on health before and after moving to the cooperative house. Methods A longitudinal study of individuals in cooperative housing projects in Catalonia (July 2018-April 2023) was conducted. Data, including sociodemographic, housing information, and health-related details, were collected through baseline and follow-up surveys. Results Seventy participants (42 women, 28 men) showed positive changes in housing conditions during follow-up. Improved perceptions of health, mental health, and social support were observed. Despite limitations in sample size and short follow-up, initial findings suggest improvements in health. Conclusions Cooperative housing under a grant-of-use in Catalonia appears promising for improving health and living conditions. Further research is warranted to explore its full potential as an alternative amid housing challenges in the region.

In many countries, rental housing is associated with insecure occupant rights and limited control for residents and homeownership is linked with ontological security. In the literature on homemaking, ontological security comprises a set of attributes, i.e., secure occupancy, autonomy and control, but these are often bundled, or treated jointly. In this paper we draw on the lived experiences of residents in Rental Housing Cooperatives (RHC) in Honduras and Australia, and ask how the experience of ontological security in RHC is shaped by its distinct characteristics? We argue that, if the experience of ontological security can be ‘unbundled’, wellbeing in rental housing, particularly for population groups increasingly locked out of homeownerships, can be advanced through housing policy innovation that enhances these, or specific, attributes of ontological security. Methodologically the paper draws on relational thinking, interview data (n = 15) and qualitative analysis of homemaking practices within RHC in Honduras and Australia. The paper utilises a four-quadrant qualitative assessment framework for evaluating occupants’ sense of security and autonomy/control, relative to their sense of home and simply being housed. Our results suggest that secure occupancy more fundamentally underpins a sense of home, than autonomy/control. Implications for rental policy and research are considered.

This paper tries to assess the relevance of intermediary technical stakeholders drawing from the experience of Uruguayan mutual aid housing cooperatives (Cooperativas de Viviendas por Ayuda Mutua – MAHCs). Their Institutes for Technical Assistance (Institutos de Asistencia Técnica – IATs), which promoted and fostered this housing model, continue, to this day to support the endurance of MAHCs’s experiences and commul principles.The study focuses on IATs’ working practices, which foster participatory processes through knowledge transfer and co-creation with cooperative members. It explores the intermediary role of IATs between the cooperative community and policymakers, positioning them as gatekeepers of the commoning process. Central to this alysis is the concept of “participatory accompaniment,” which serves as the key instrument in the IATs’ intermediary function.

In Freedomland , Annemarie H. Sammartino tells Co-op City's story from the perspectives of those who built it and of the ordinary people who made their homes in this monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice. Located on the grounds of the former Freedomland amusement park on the northeastern edge of the Bronx, Co-op City's 35 towers and 236 townhouses have been home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and is an icon visible to all traveling on the east coast corridor. In 1965, Co-op City was planned as the largest middle-class housing development in the United States. It was intended as a solution to the problem of affordable housing in America's largest city. While Co-op City first appeared to be a huge success story for integrated, middle-class housing, tensions would lead its residents to organize the largest rent strike in American history. In 1975, a coalition of shareholders took on New York State and, against all odds, secured resident control. Much to the dismay of many denizens of the complex, even this achievement did not halt either rising costs or white flight. Nevertheless, after the challenges of the 1970s and 1980s, the cooperative achieved a hard-won stability as the twentieth century came to a close. Freedomland chronicles the tumultuous first quarter century of Co-op City's existence. Sammartino's narrative connects planning, economic, and political history and the history of race in America. The result is a new perspective on twentieth-century New York City.

The lack of affordable housing remains a major problem in Spain. Following the decline in public and affordable housing production caused by the economic, political, and social crisis of 2008, efforts to produce public housing were reactivated in the mid-2010s, gaining increasing importance. In Barcelona, housing policies have played a central role in recent political discourse, particularly with the tenure of housing rights activist Ada Colau (2015–2023). With traditional approaches failing to address the housing emergency, the local government introduced five new procurement strategies to increase the affordable housing stock. These involve new forms of council housing, delegated developments, limited-profit investments, zero-equity housing cooperatives, and urban refurbishment. This article uses a mixed methods approach to analyse these strategies. The analysis spans all design phases, from inception to construction, and includes post-occupancy evaluations. Methods include typological analysis, expert interviews, and spatial performance analysis using ethnographic methods and inhabitant interviews. The results evidence the importance of diversifying procurement models, tailoring approaches to different user profiles, and enhancing emerging opportunities by including new stakeholders in the development process.

Housing cooperatives are a common form of housing in Nordic countries, being tasked with responsibilities such as maintenance, renovation, and, when needed, radon mitigation. This study analyzed the radon level variation in nearly 16,000 apartments across 3552 housing cooperatives. The analysis explored how radon levels varied based on the number of measurements conducted within each cooperative, assuming that apartments sharing the same plot address belong to the same cooperative. The radon concentrations in the apartments of the cooperative typically followed a log-normal distribution. The geometric standard deviation (GSD) specific to each housing cooperative varied considerably. The median GSD ranged between 1.5 and 2.0, depending on the number of apartments measured. A predictive model was developed to estimate the likelihood of apartments exceeding the radon reference level based on the housing cooperative’s geometric mean radon concentration. The results highlight the importance of measuring radon levels in all apartments within housing cooperatives to ensure radon safety. Additionally, the model offers support for housing cooperative decision-makers and epidemiological studies, helping to address uncertainties and to account for spatial variations in radon exposure.

The study explores the collective settings of Hallenwohnen (hall dwelling) as a section of the Zollhaus settlement, which is the follow-up project by the Kalkbreite housing cooperative, functioning since January 2021 in Zurich, Switzerland. Hallenwohnen is the first legal hall cohousing arrangement in Switzerland. The private and semiprivate spaces of Hallenwohnen consist of a large open hall with collective basic structures and mobile residential towers (rollable spaces) as the core concept, which offer an affordable, self-managed/self-build, collaborative living and coworking arrangement in the center of Zurich. The qualitative case study method has been applied through the face-to-face semistructured interviews mainly with three occupants of Hallenwohnen as representatives of this residential community, in-situ observations, spatial investigations and document analyses. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in the concept of collaborative housing. The results reveal that the innovative socio-spatial potentials of the collective spaces have been activated through the participatory intentions of the microcommunity and intended functional mix of the setting. Living as one collective household , multiplicity usage of hybrid spaces and the spatial activation of intermediate spaces have enabled participation-capable residential spaces and have resulted in optimal usage of housing spaces. Nonetheless, constraints and points of conflicts, which trigger the (re)negotiations and reinterpretations of the usage of collective housing spaces facilitate collective solutions of the residential community. A bottom-up initiative such as Hallenwohnen is helped along, through the long-term planning and top-down support of the cooperative housing model of Zurich.

Without a national or cantonal policy for the provision of affordable, so-called social housing, Switzerland`s way is unique in Europe. Finding appropriate housing is left to the people themselves. The challenge of building sustainable communities in urban centres in Switzerland has to address the tight housing market due to economic growth, immigration, and the renewed attractiveness of urban living. In the absence of a national low-cost housing policy, every growing city thus has to design its own strategies and implement local policies and programmes in order to counteract such developments. The role of housing cooperatives is important now and in the future. The paper gives an overview on the Swiss situation after the GFC and discusses the successful strategies of the provision and protection of affordable housing in the major city of Zurich.

Nonprofit organizations have become pivotal actors in the delivery of services. Many of them receive public funding to carry out their activities. However, this funding can be interrupted or even stopped for various reasons, political or not. This article examines how 26 housing nonprofit organizations in Québec, Canada, coped with the withdrawal of federal government subsidies to house low-income households. Drawing on structured interviews with managers, this article reports how they perceived this withdrawal and what they reported as the main challenges and the most effective strategies or “best practices” for addressing these. The discussion ends by positioning the housing case in relation to other organizations in the third sector. Les organismes sans but lucratif (OSBL) sont devenus des acteurs indispensables dans la prestation de services. Plusieurs d’entre eux reçoivent des fonds publics pour mener à bien leurs activités. Cependant, ce financement peut s’interrompre ou même s’arrêter pour diverses raisons, qu’elles soient politiques ou non. Cet article examine comment 26 OSBL de logement au Québec (Canada) se sont adaptés à une réduction de subventions provenant du gouvernement fédéral pour loger des ménages à faible revenu. Cet article se fonde sur des entretiens structurés avec des gestionnaires pour montrer comment ceux-ci ont perçu cette réduction, et quels étaient selon eux les principaux défis et les stratégies les plus efficaces ou les meilleures pratiques pour relever ces défis. Ces réflexions se concluent en situant ce cas sur le logement par rapport à d’autres organismes du tiers secteur.