Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing that is characterized by being a type of home where residents share community spaces to interact with other people, but maintaining a private home.

 

HISTORY

The concept of cohousing appeared in Denmark in 1964 by the architect Jan Gudman-Hoyer and a group of friends who created a new way of living together by sharing common areas while maintaining their private area.

Since that decade, the Nordic countries have been committed to integrating housing, health and social services policies, promoting housing with support services for people in a situation of dependency. Housing in very small groups of residents (10-12) that share common spaces with private apartments is frequent. In Denmark since 1987 (Housing for the Elderly Act) the construction of traditional residences has been abandoned.

Also in the United States in the 80s, an important movement began, the so-called Culture Change in nursing homes. The aim was to move from an institutional health care model to a true home model based on person-centred care. American architects Charles Durrett and Kathryn McCamant who had been involved in cohousing projects in Northern Europe spread the concept of collaborative housing in North America.

In the 90s, the European Commission sponsored the creation of the Salmon Network (Saumon Group) precisely to promote these alternative accommodations. In these years, the so-called Cohabitation Units were created, many of them designed for people with dementia, also called shared housing or Cantou (in France) and spread from the Nordic countries to others such as Holland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Different studies carried out offered positive results in terms of people's quality of life.

 

SITUATION IN SPAIN

We can divide the evolution of cohousing in Spain into two waves:

 

  • First wave: They aim to share the costs of care services through a cooperative of elderly people that builds and manages their residence center directly. They try to fight loneliness and isolation.
  • Second wave: Housing as a space for coexistence for people with certain values and lifestyles: older people who want to turn their centre into a space open to the neighbourhood, LGTBI people who want to live in a "safe environment" that respects differences, or people who want to develop a more sustainable way of life. They are not so much articulated around the sharing of care resources but around the construction of a community life project based on specific values and with a much more marked intentional and collaborative character.

 

BENEFITS

  • Joint learning of the participants.
  • To meet the costs of accommodation together.
  • Environmental sustainability.
  • Generate security. Encourage social interaction.
  • To promote the active life of the elderly and enable social integration.
  • To allow older people to continue to maintain control of their lives, making their own decisions and having the necessary services and care in their aging process.

 

COHOUSING VS COLIVING

The Coliving respond more to life cycles, to the change in the family model: such as family emancipation, problems of conciliation, existence of increasingly smaller families, absence of the figure of the family caregiver... We are talking about temporary rentals. The traditional "sharing a flat". They are not usually complete homes, but accommodations where the private spaces are a room with a bathroom, and sometimes an office. The rest of the spaces are communal, kitchen, laundries, lounges, dining rooms, physical activity, leisure and social rooms.

In the case of Collaborative Housing or Cohousing, the development comes from the people that resides and self-manages it. They have the character of a long-term residence. The dwellings are complete, and are complemented by common spaces for meeting and development of activities directed and self-governed by the residents (gymnastics, cognitive activities, manual activities...). It has a more permanent character, linked to the creation of a sustainable community of people, who are committed to solidarity and human values.