Housing innovation from the bottom up: creating co-housing and co-living for economically vulnerable groups

Purpose and goal:

The initiative learns from previous project and their wealth of collective knowledge concerning collaborative affordable housing for economically weak groups by:

1) Collecting, analysing and operationalizing previous experiences from Europe and Sweden, especially from research and innovation projects carried out by project participants 2) Transform this knowledge into programs or projects in one or more Swedish municipalities

3) Jointly reflect on and evaluate how the project can contribute to an upscaling and implementation of affordable housing Expected results and effects:

The project is expected to a) contribute to the realization of one or more project with affordable collaborative housing that can demonstrate ´good practice´ for how this can be achieved in Sweden; and b) with the help of such collaborative housing as a show case and learning model promote, inform and upscale affordable collaborative housing in many more municipalities by way of a networked learning and capacity-building format that will extend far beyond the scope of this project.

Approach and implementation:

The consortium consists of Söderhamns municipality, Stenbacken´s housing and work cooperative, the Swedish Union of Tenants, Egnahemsfabriken Tjörn, the Swedish Association for Collaborative Housing, the housing network in Bergsjön and researchers at University of Gothenburg. There are three parts: 1. To process results from previous research in a form suitable for the housing situation for economically weak groups; 2.

To start programs for collaborative housing for such groups in one or more municipalities; 3. To collaboratively process and disseminate lessons learned.