Maite: I have been working for the last 10 or 12 years on innovation in housing policies and my interest in Collaborative Housing has only grown with time. I truly believe Collaborative Housing is the most disruptive alternative in housing access taking place in Europe and beyond. After working in EU projects and as a civil servant I took a work break to study for a European Master's Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation, writing my thesis on a comparative analysis of the Right to Adequate Housing movements and their achievements. Following that I started to collaborate with UN Habitat and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, and subsequently worked mostly for Barcelona supporting the European and international agenda and networks on housing. That was a fascinating time; I learned a lot and to some extent it felt like being in a policy lab, testing and learning with -and from -cities together with the very active social movements that were pushing forward debates and research agendas. In that context I had a chance to promote a network called Network of Cities for Collaborative Housing – NETCO – which has its own website1 and is based on the exchange of ideas, knowledge and policies directed towards officers and staff working at the Municipality or housing agencies. These were the main target, people who were trying to do things differently in the public sector but with little knowledge, and the network supports them through peer learning and so on.

Introduction

Scholars claim that living in cohousing or communities cultivates social capital and empowerment among residents (Saegert and Winkel, 1996), two assets acknowledged to have the potential to promote better later life (Labit, 2015; Arrigoitia et al, 2018). Many are drawn to cohousing because of its values of solidarity and mutual aid, values which make sense especially for an ageing population (Labit, 2015). However, ageing in such communities raises a number of questions, most notably: what can solidarity in ageing mean in practice, and can mutual support be a viable alternative or complement to professional care or family support? This chapter seeks to provide preliminary answers to these questions based on the findings of the RAPSoDIÂ1 research project – a nationwide participatory action research project undertaken in France between 2019 and 2022. It also aims to reconceptualise the relationship between Collaborative Housing, care and ageing by proposing the concept of ‘co-caring’ to integrate cooperation and collective dynamics in caring for older people in cohousing.

RAPSoDIÂ was established in collaboration between a group of academics and Hal’âge,2 a French advocacy organisation that promotes alternative homes for older people. The research supported social innovation at the intersection of collective living and ageing and explored how cohousing could be a solution for older people to preserve their autonomy and social bonds, collecting data about this understudied topic. Cohousing is often seen as a solution which avoids the risk of social isolation in later life, or as supporting ‘ageing well’ or ‘ageing better’ (Labit, 2016).

Commonalities in European Collaborative Housing

This edited collection has provided concrete examples of how caring in later life is imagined and practised in different Collaborative Housing settings in Europe. Together, they demonstrate that the intention of living together with informal relations of care among neighbours makes it possible to envision and enact collective support in later life. All the case studies illustrate how codesigning flexible structures of shared domestic life – both social and physical – improves everyday interactions, facilitates adaptations over time and sustains the shared life of the schemes.

Some commonalities cut across all of the chapters. It is perhaps unsurprising that the longer individuals spend in groups, the more they trust and bond with other members – a ‘symbiotic’ relationship, as the authors of Chapter 5 describe it. These strong ties provide a kind of backbone that supports informal care during times of personal crisis. Indeed, in groups where end-of-life care was required, some residents exceeded the usual terms of mutual aid by providing personal palliative care or assuming intermediary care roles (Chapter 4), liaising with family or staff from home care services. These ecosystems of care (Chapter 3), or co-caring, allowed the ailing residents to stay at home for longer. The ties could involve people of all ages, and one case study (Chapter 7) featured ‘a significant example of intergenerational solidarity, surpassing the ordinary mutual support shown by the younger generation towards the older generations’ (p 138).

Introduction

Collaborative Housing in Sweden

Globally, the number of older adults (people aged 65 and older) is expected to double to 2.1 billion by 2050 (World Health Organization, 2022). In Sweden, with its ten million inhabitants, there are currently approximately 60 Collaborative Housing arrangements around the country.1 In the Swedish context, Collaborative Housing has a history that dates back to 1935, when modernist ideas of rationalising housework were translated into ‘the shared paid services model’, which was replaced by ‘the self-work model’ in the 1980s. The shared paid services model (1935– 79) focused on rationalising housework through a central kitchen and shared housemaids, the aim being to liberate women who were active in working life from housing chores so that they could have time for leisure activities (Wisth, 1992). In the self-work model (1980– ), residents’ active participation, self-organisation, completion of cooking and other housing chores together, and mutual support form the basis for everyday life (Arroyo et al, 2021a). Collaborative Housing (kollektivhus), based on the self-work model, is ‘a multifamily building with normally equipped apartments with kitchen, living room and bedrooms, which also has common premises where the residents can cook and eat together, carry out a hobby or just socialize. Residents decide themselves what and how much they do together’ (Grip et al, 2015, p 5).

In this chapter, Collaborative Housing communities are understood as a socio-spatial infrastructure or system that facilitates living in a community, ‘where neighbours have a high degree of social connection, share common spaces and responsibilities, collaborate with each other, make collective decisions and have high influence over their living environment’ (Arroyo et al, 2021a, p 5).

Introduction

This chapter examines the experiences of caregiving in everyday life and the management of dependency through a case study of Trabensol, a senior cohousing project for older people (over 50) located in Torremocha de Jarama in the mountains of Madrid. An ethnographic approach is used to explore what it means to care for, be cared for, and care for oneself in senior cohousing in Spain through the experiences of people living there; the concept of care is understood from the point of view of maintaining and sustaining life (Carrasco et al, 2011; Tronto, 2013; Durán, 2018). Drawing on Alba Artiaga (2021), senior cohousing is framed as a new approach to the social organisation of care, understood as involving wider political and ideological notions of the term and, economically, as being beyond capitalist precepts of care, and in which kin is considered as something broader than blood ties or legally constituted entities.

Senior cohousing has emerged in the broader context of cultural change in care and the conception of old age (Fromm, 2012), and it is socially significant in that it encompasses the potential to transform the current social organisation of long-term care. The model has a long history on the continent but is still nascent in Spain.

Cohousing communities – specifically senior cohousing communities – are designed as a commitment to self-managed ageing and aim to respond to the precarious organisation of current care, and to isolation and loneliness, by promoting private housing with shared facilities, where the activities and experiences of collective care can take place (Offenhenden et al, forthcoming).

Introduction

This book addresses one of the most pressing social policy issues of our time: the growing housing and social care needs of an ageing and increasingly diverse population. It is well established that global demographic changes, alongside the coinciding crises in housing and care, are shifting contemporary practices of caregiving, homemaking and ageing. While people are living longer (Eurostat, 2020, nd), prolonged longevity is accompanied by higher (and more costly) health risks, which puts pressure on financing the necessary resources for social care (Copeman and Beech, 2022; Buffel and Phillipson, 2024). This is taking place in the context of austerity and reduced public welfare support in many countries. At the same time, the more traditional top-down, medicalised models of care, which include supportive housing and institutional environments (Cutchin, 2013; Oswald and Wahl, 2013; Golant, 2015), are increasingly failing to meet the needs of ageing populations with varied levels of health and financial resources. This situation is exacerbated by an ongoing shortage of suitable or affordable housing for older people in most Western cities (Rajagopal, 2023; OECD, nd); and a trend towards the commodification (or for-profit ‘corporatisation’) of care homes and services for seniors (Tronto, 2013; Farris and Marchetti, 2017; Dowling, 2021) as well as ‘scarce care provision alternatives of the intra-familial or non-waged variety’ (Gallagher, 2018; McDowell, 2014 in Winter, 2024).

Against such unprecedented societal challenges, Collaborative Housing groups across Europe and further afield are bringing forward more diverse and collective forms of living and ageing that have the potential to challenge traditional models of ageing in place, as well as disrupting conventional understandings of what care can look like for the older person (Fernández and West, 2020; Peace, 2023; Izuhara et al, 2024).

Introduction and UK context

Collaborative Housing that is aimed at older people sits at the intersection of two crises in England and the wider UK – those of housing and social care. The chronic lack of supply that in part underlies the housing crisis includes a lack of quality housing that would stimulate older people to leave larger family homes and move to smaller homes that are designed for their later life needs. On the social care side, a chronically underfunded system is failing to meet the needs of some 1.6 million people over the age of 65 (Age UK, 2023). In the context of these twin crises that leave older people stuck in housing that is unsuited to their changing physical needs and without recourse to publicly funded social care, there is a widely acknowledged and urgent need for innovation at the intersections of housing, ageing and care that better responds to contemporary ageing trends, including the rise of lone living (Best and Porteus, 2012; Office for National Statistics, 2013; House of Commons, 2018; Taylor, 2018).

Specialist later life housing with built-in care is generally regarded as the primary solution (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities et al, 2023), but retirement communities and other ‘clustered’ later life living arrangements are largely in the private domain and suffer from three reputational deficits: lack of affordability; the complexity of onward saleability; and the lack of resident autonomy. Collaborative Housing – that is, housing that is user led, self-organised and community oriented (Stevens, 2016) – represents a potential response to each of these, but especially (in the context of ageing) to the need for greater autonomy.

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is the Coteau de la Chaudanne Collaborative Housing Community in Lyon, France. This case study offers a unique opportunity to explore the implementation of intergenerational care practices and their impact on residents’ well-being. Intergenerational care practices in this setting include both paid services and mutual support for older adults in their daily activities, emotional support and mental stimulation. Families also receive various forms of assistance, such as childcare and emotional and mental support from older residents in the community. The collaborative design of living spaces allows residents to engage with nature, their surroundings and each other, nurturing a strong sense of community and belonging, which is crucial for effective caring exchanges (Aksümer and Lussault, 2023).

Our case study places a strong emphasis on intergenerational living. Bringing together individuals of different ages helps address social isolation and loneliness, which are common issues in urban France, but also has other, related benefits. The presence of diverse age groups encourages strong relationships and frequent social interactions, strengthening social connections and support networks (Bigonnesse, 2017; Beck, 2020; Röhr et al, 2022). Such projects allow older residents to gain exposure to different perspectives and fosters a sense of community and belonging, reducing feelings of isolation and improving overall well-being (Evans et al, 2019). Having older adults in the community provides valuable learning opportunities and mentorship for younger residents, helping them develop empathy and social skills. Positive interactions with children contribute to higher life satisfaction and a reduced likelihood of depression among older adults (Stafford et al, 2011; Sneed and Chan, 2023).

Introduction

Care has become a central concern for the emerging senior cohousing1 movement in Spain (López and Estrada, 2016a, b). On the one hand, Spanish feminist care scholars see it as a community-based response to the care crisis (Pérez-Orozco, 2006), with the potential to turn social reproduction into a collective responsibility and foster a fairer and more democratic distribution of social support and care work (Artiaga Leiras, 2021). On the other hand, Spanish gerontologists see senior cohousing as a more social and deinstitutionalised solution to the rise of long-term care needs (Pinazo Hernandis et al, 2021).

These initiatives have gained popularity among people in their sixties and seventies who are seeking alternatives to nursing homes, care home services and family care arrangements, ‘as a way to revolutionise ageing’ (Saiz, 2019). In their view, the current long-term care model, which promotes ageing in place, is not solving problems like social isolation and loneliness and is actually worsening exploitation in home care. Care is generally undertaken by families and low-paid home care workers on precarious contracts, most of whom are migrant women. But as the coverage of home care services is very limited, and public nursing homes are scarce and the private ones expensive, many people are motivated to explore alternatives (Hernández-Velasco, 2016).

Like others of their generation, members of these new cohousing schemes were often compelled to take care of their ageing parents and do not want the same for their own children (particularly their daughters). Therefore, they establish self-managed communities of equals and nurture new bonds with a view to caring for each other.

Introduction

The Netherlands has been experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis in the last decade, characterised by growing disparities in the housing situation of different generations (Hochstenbach and Arundel, 2019; Hochstenbach, 2024). While many older people live in spacious homes, young people and families can barely find a suitable dwelling. Older people are therefore expected to move out of their homes to make room for younger families, but often feel unable to do so due to a lack of smaller senior-friendly housing alternatives in the market. Furthermore, since 2012, the national government has decreased its support of welfare initiatives (by decreasing budgets and raising medical thresholds for nursing care home admissions) and stimulated an ‘ageing in place’ approach (Kroneman et al, 2016). As a result, community centres have dwindled, and retirement homes are only available for those who are unable to live on their own (Bastiaans, 2021). At the same time, suitable senior-friendly homes (Levensloopbestending, or life course-proof housing) are either of poor quality, unaffordable or not provided at all. Moreover, policy makers approach senior-friendly housing primarily as a place for formal care, which disregards older people's emotional attachment to their homes and neighbourhoods through lived experiences.

Against this background, new types of Collaborative Housing projects are emerging for older people who are still fit enough to live independently with a combination of mutual help and formal care provision (Bastiaans, 2021; Czischke et al, 2023a).