Together, we will review recent histories of housing commodification and decommodification and discuss how housing cooperatives are responding to the emerging and overlapping crises. Are common-good and non-profit housing models helping to build a new commons? What are the significant frameworks (political, financial, cultural) supporting or hindering housing cooperatives? What are the necessary conditions for encouraging more such community-led housing? What does it mean to separate ownership of land from ownership of buildings, working with long-term leases? What population groups are being, or perhaps could be, provided with housing by such cooperatives?
This seminar will emphasize participation and engagement! Working in teams, we will be looking at and learning from the development and management of 3 housing cooperatives in 3 cities:

1. Groeningerhof. Hamburg: Cooperative for auto-free housing, working with a long-termlease with Hamburg and support from the STATTBAU Hamburg GmbH.

2. Vollgut. Berlin: Cooperative with its projects ALLTAG and CRCLR, working with a long-term lease with the non-profit land foundation Edith Maryon in Berlin.

3. SoWo. Leipzig: Solidarity Housing Cooperative, working with long-term leases with Leipzig and a non-profit land foundation Nord-Süd Brücken.