‘Why should public authorities support self-organised housing?’
Seminari Urgocis (IGOP) -en anglès-
18/03/2019 – 11h
Edifici MRA, 1a planta.
Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra
Recent experience under the Right to Housing plan 2016-25 in Barcelona whereby public land has been made available to the cooperatives on a leasehold basis for 75 years has demonstrated the value of public support for civil society groups in expanding affordable housing supply. This presentation steps back from this positive example to explore the main reasons that public authorities have supported self-organised housing in different contexts and why this support is often not sustained. It provides a typology of support measures and associated terms and conditions and explores the impact that these have on self-organised groups. The key role played by umbrella and infra-structure organisations in mediating between public authorities and self-organised groups is discussed. The presentation seeks to identify the most convincing arguments for public support and to identify essential elements of support that may be transferrable between different contexts. It introduces the proposed CoSupport project which aims to promote learning transfer on these issues with a particular emphasis on Southern European contexts.
David Mullins
is Emeritus Professor of Housing Policy at University of Birmingham and a Visiting Professor at Trinity College Dublin. He is a trustee of UK Cohousing Trust, a steering group member of Birmingham Community Homes and a committee member at Birmingham Cooperative Housing Services. His research on community-led housing has included work on empty homes with Self-Help Housing.Org (2008-15), co-editing a special issue of International Journal of Housing Policy on Self-Organised and Civil Society participation in housing (2018) and organising the Birmingham Hope for Housing Conference in July 2018.
