Five reasons why we need more cohousing
By Carl Makin (@carlmakin) a member of the Housing Futures Steering Group
“When people feel supported by strong relationships, change happens. And when we make collaboration and connection feel simple and easy, people want to join in. Yet our welfare state does not try to connect us one to another.” [1]
Loneliness is a constant and growing social problem, and attention is turning to ways that we can challenge it through new practices in our everyday lives. One potential route is through cohousing, a form of community-led housing which focuses on the provision of self-contained homes clustered around communal space and facilities intended to encourage collaborative living.
Summarising its appeal, Maria Brenton, the UK Cohousing Network’s Senior Cohousing Ambassador opened the Greater Manchester Housing Futures event ‘Cohousing: potential and challenges’ with the above quote from a recent Guardian article. Held on Thursday 21st June, the event was the second in our series on community-led housing, more details of which can be found here. Speaking alongside Maria on the panel were Bill Phelps from Chapeltown Cohousing in Leeds, Housing Future’s researcher Richard Goulding as well as Pam Flynn from Manchester Urban Cohousing and Steve Gosling from Chorlton Cohousing.