Housing

Can studying cooperative housing in Sweden teach the U.S. how to overcome the moderate-income family housing crisis?

“Mutual aid is putting the saying ‘We are all we’ve got’ into practice, and trying to meet some of the survival needs of struggling people, including ourselves, while building community and working towards [long-term] solutions that don’t depend on the state.”

Entrepatios, a cohousing building in Madrid, is now home to 17 families and boasts the title of the first zero carbon footprint housing cooperative in the city.

As World War II ended and Americans turned their attention to problems at home, union leaders and other prominent New Yorkers came to believe that cooperative housing would solve the city’s century-old problem of providing decent housing at a reasonable cost for working-class families. In Working-Class Utopias: A History of Cooperative Housing in New York City, Robert Fogelson, one of the nation’s foremost urban historians, tells the story of this ambitious movement from the construction of the Amalgamated Houses after World War I to the building of Co-op City, the world’s largest housing cooperative, four decades later.

On today's show, we learn about the potential of housing cooperatives with Anne Reynolds, former Director of UW Center for Cooperatives.

Cooperative ownership offers a way for residents to not only have a say in their community’s decision-making, but also to prevent rent hikes and keep their housing costs affordable.

How one program tried and failed to carve out autonomous "free space" within a large affordable housing non-profit.

Co-op City is the largest housing cooperative in the country.

To make housing truly affordable, governments need to support non-profit housing cooperatives.

Kim Capen, the ROC Association Director for the New England Region, talks about his work on the ROC Association, including specific initiatives regarding stigma and branding.