Co-Housing For Life

Co-housing is a housing concept originally developed, in its modern form, in Scandinavian countries of Finland and Denmark, then quickly exported to Great Britain and other European countries. It has gained a significant toehold in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but has been less well received in the United States. This may be because, at its heart, the cradle-to-grave idea seems socialist, almost communist in its formulation. It is, and it is not.

Co-housing is an expansion of congregate housing, such as many assisted living concepts have become. Seniors retirement communities and independent, affordable living complexes sometimes include meal programs, recreation facilities, health centres, small convenience stores and even beauty shops and massage kiosks. However, every unit in the average retirement complex is intended to be comparable to every other unit in the complex. With co-housing, you are able to design a variety of housing options.

The cradle-to-grave concept of communal living is nothing new. Rather, it is as ancient as the first human village, established to protect against marauding animals or enemy tribes. However, the modern approach offers several unique ideas.

At its heart, co-housing builds in a couple of common features: common greenspace and recreation areas and common gathering points for socialization and cooking.

The Hutterite colony comes to mind as similar in its basic operation. The members of the colony each have separate sleeping quarters and a bit of living space beyond that, but they consume their meals in a shared hall, work in a community machine shop or workspace, share infrastructure and have shared recreation or gathering space. There the similarities end.

Co-housing units generally do have a communal kitchen and dining area, but taking meals in the shared setting is optional. The recreation areas, including swimming pools, exercise rooms, party areas and so on also are optional-use.

The individual units also have their own living and dining areas, their own kitchens, their own patios and decks and often, even their own garden spot. The units may be anywhere from 450 square feet for s studio or bachelor unit to 1,200 feet of space for a two- or 3-bedroom unit.

Members may rent or may own their unit, with the same restrictions as are placed on condominiums.

Each person may opt in or out of the meal program, with the caveat that, if one opts in to the program, he or she commits to working in the kitchen, prepping, cleaning or cooking for a day or two each month, in exchange for access to the meals for the entire month. Trading off two days of work for 30 days of no work offers a real incentive to participate in the program.

With the shared recreation and meal options, working families find the co-housing approach to have real allure. However, there is another, less obvious advantage to community-style living. Older residents also find congregate facilities appealing. And, in many of the projects, a local resident will start up a cleaning business, cleaning neighbours’ homes for a fee. All that seems to be missing is daycare.

It is not. The feel of family means that some residents rely on some of the older residents to become surrogate grandparents, providing babysitting services. Others, like the cleaning service entrepreneurs, set up a daycare facility.

The assembly of scores of potential customers is a real aromatic bait for grocers, beauticians, massage therapists, and so on, who sometimes rent space in the common area for a day per week, in order to provide services to the residents. In one operation, a credit union set up a mobile, two-days-per-week bank for residents.

Even the type and range of prices of homes is not limited. Some projects have built $500,000 homes in a facility where the average home price is under $95,000, and these upscale houses have sold quickly.

Even the financing options make co-housing attractive, particularly to developers.

Co-housing is communistic in name only. It is a capitalistic concept that has a socialistic benefit. In many ways, it is the answer to Canada’s affordable housing crisis.