Cohousing

Cohousing is a form of grouped housing set up and run by the people who live in it. It combines private self-contained accommodation with common space. The idea is that you ‘grow the community’ first, rather than find a building and hope people will get to know each other. A lengthy process of group-building, agreeing common aims, searching for a site and contributing to design is one that assists people to get to know each other, participate and take responsibility in advance of actually living as a group. They manage their residential scheme themselves and allocate tenancies.

The cohousing community is essentially a way of promoting neighbourly relations in a small housing complex where people share activities and offer each other a helping hand when needed. Cohousing is ideal for people who are growing older, who may want to down-size and who want to continue to live a full life in a micro-neighbourhood where they know people.

Although a popular and accepted model among older people in The Netherlands and Denmark, where it is seen as contributing to active and healthy ageing, cohousing has had a struggle to get recognised by local authorities and housing providers in Britain.

History of the Older Women’s CoHousing project

The OWCH project was set up in London in 1998 by a group of women who wanted to adapt the model developed by the Dutch. They meet for a day each month and have set out a constitution and policies. They became a company limited by guarantee in January 2002, they have a website, a quarterly bulletin and a promotional video featuring comparative Dutch developments.

The group made a conscious decision to be for women only but they have always seen themselves as pioneering a model for all older people.

OWCH members are aged from 50 years upwards and come from a variety of backgrounds. They want to live close to each other, to have their own front doors and to offer each other mutual support as they get older. The group wants to live in energy efficient ways and to be a resource for its local community.

Other interested parties are:

• Housing for Women is a small registered housing association which will be OWCH’s landlord for a completed scheme.
• The Housing Corporation is interested in the innovative and mixed tenure nature of the group. It funded research in Holland (by Maria Brenton) and a study into the group’s legal and financial feasibility. Its prospectus for 2008-11 includes cohousing as an area of activity it will fund.
• The Tudor Trust is interested in helping the OWCH group to locate and finance a site and develop a cohousing community which will be a model of good practice. It is also keen on participative design and top-class architecture.
• Hanover Housing, which specialises in housing for older people, is working with the OWCH group and Housing for Women to progress a site in North London.

The current position

A site is under discussion for two dozen or more one and two bedroom flats with common space and facilities and a garden or a roof garden. It is hoped that it will provide flats for shared ownership and social rental plus communal facilities, a garden, minimal parking spaces, mobility buggy storage and bike rack. It will need to meet high standards in terms of energy use, recycling and security. Further details will be made available when plans are more certain and advanced.

Residence in the scheme, when realised, will be conditional on membership of OWCH but membership is not an automatic guarantee of entry to residence.

The group extends a warm welcome as members to women over fifty from any background or culture who can live independently and are willing to contribute wholeheartedly to a sense of community and shared endeavour. The project suits women who are co-operative, welcoming of diversity and who wish to live as part of a neighbourly community. Enquirers should note that our scheme cannot meet anyone’s immediate or urgent need for rehousing.

The future

Once the first scheme is built, it is hoped that further cohousing communities will draw on the work and experience of this first phase and choose to live by similar principles and values. We hope that the model will come to be recognised in the UK as a desirable one for at least a minority of older people and deserving of the active support of local authorities and housing developers. The OWCH group is a member of the UK Cohousing Network and will be the first cohousing scheme specifically designed in the UK as a community of older people