1. What is Cohousing and what does it offer?
Anna Kear
Executive Director UK Cohousing Network

2. Cohousing is a way of living, sharing and mutual support
Cohousing brings people together in neighbourly groups to share common space and facilities while also enjoying their own self-contained accommodation and personal space

3. Cohousing – a lifestyle

4. Cohousing principles
Intentional - set up and run by their members for mutual benefit
Members live consciously as a community
Self contained dwellings plus shared space - balance between privacy and communality
Designed for easy informal communal contact - size and scale to maximise community dynamics (usually households)
Common house facilitates shared activities like communal meals

6. and what it is not.. A commune Income sharing A gated community
Separate from the local community
Tenure specific

7. What does Cohousing offer?
A community - mutual support and friendship
Sustainable living - sharing = less stuff, more resilient
Control - co-producing your housing & self managing
Security - looking out for each other
Enterprise - working from home sociably
A choice - Cohousing is not for everyone but it can be a solution to what some people are looking for

8. “When I came back with the news (breast cancer diagnosis) within 2 minutes 6 women were in my sitting room opening the brandy. There were offers from people to stay the night, a rota to take me to chemotherapy, a rota for bringing me soup – it was amazing”

9. Cohousing Groups
Groups are mostly self-forming around common values and location
Groups have to date tended to form as either:
Inter-generational
a mix of many household types and ages often with a significant numbers of families or
Senior
specifically for people aged 50+ and excluding children

10. Older Women's Cohousing (OWCH)

13. to reflect local opportunities
Routes to Cohousing
Diversity
of form
to reflect local opportunities
New Build
Building Conversion
Retrofit to existing housing

14. Routes to Cohousing Grass roots to market
Existing groups - have properties for rent & sale
Developing groups - looking for people to join
Forming a group
Developer led
Facilitated - working with Housing Associations, Co-operatives etc

15. A brief history & context
Started in Denmark in 1960s. Now 8% of housing in Denmark
Across Europe - particularly the Netherlands, Switzerland & Spain
USA & Canada – mainly home ownership -130 exist & 100+ in development
A sprinkling in Japan, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia & elsewhere

16. UK Cohousing
Cohousing started to develop in the UK at the end of the 1990s
19 established cohousing groups
75+ groups developing; 15 senior cohousing groups
Many individuals seeking group to join
6000 hits on our website in typical month
Public and media interest - cohousing identified as 1 of top 10 solutions to the housing crisis

17. UK Cohousing

18. About UK Cohousing Network
Member-Led organisation
support for forming, developing & existing groups
Manifesto
Genuine affordability for all
Support for rental as well as ownership forms of tenure
Joint working with other community housing organisations
An advocate for Cohousing
raising awareness & providing advice to support policy development
Currently applying for charitable status

19. Big Lottery Accelerating Ideas
UKCN Current Projects
Big Lottery Accelerating Ideas
Opportunities and challenges of an ageing population in the UK
Evidence of benefits of Cohousing and mutual support - link to social care issues & wellbeing
Demand survey & community identification
Design templates
Support offer & expertise required to make the process easier
Financial modelling - tenure options and particular issues for older people
Retrofit pilot to existing older persons housing

20. ESRC Seminars & parliamentary launch 22nd June 2016
HAPPI 3 recommendation:
We encourage more housing associations to use their development skills and experience to assist the edging “senior co-housing movement”, custom building for groups of older people.

21. “Radical public services innovation will only come from a markedly different starting point. The key will be to redesign services to enable more mutual self-help, so that people can create and sustain their own solutions. Enabling people to come together to find their own, local solutions should become one of the main goals of public services. Services do a better job when they leave behind stronger, supportive relationships for people to draw on and so not need a service.”
State of Loneliness - Guardian 1 July Charles Leadbeater founding partner of Participle, which works with communities to devise solutions to intractable social challenges.

22. Anna Kear
Executive Director - UK Cohousing Network
Skype:  annakear | Web: cohousing.org.uk  | 
Facebook: UK Cohousing
NB I generally don’t work on Fridays