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housing co-ops

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How ‘Tenant Stewards’ Are Using TOPA to Form a Co-op

Organized by a pandemic-era mutual aid group, this housing cooperative is taking advantage of D.C.’s pioneering Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. But the pressure of paying back a loan with mounting interest could stymie the group's plans to provide affordable housing.

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Q: What Are the Three Major Types of Community- or Resident-Controlled Housing and How Do they Work? Brief descriptions of cooperative, community land trust, and mutual housing association with clip art illustrations. Image links to PDF version.
The Answer

Q: What Are the Three Major Types of Community- or Resident-Controlled Housing and How Do They Work?

There’s a lot of momentum toward resident-controlled housing. Do you know the three major forms it takes?

A three-story yellow building with moss growing in the first floor entrances and second floor.
Reported Article

How One Organization Is Preserving Housing Co-Ops

A group formed to promote student housing co-ops in the ’60s is acquiring and preserving cooperative housing for future generations.

Against a blue sky, a view from street level of part of an imposing seven-story building in red and tan brick with red-brick towers at intervals.
Opinion

Social Housing: How a New Generation of Activists Is Reinventing Housing

Not so long ago, social housing was rarely discussed in the U.S. Today. there are over a dozen social housing campaigns across the country.

Practitioner Voice

The Cost of Not Going Co-op

Buying your mobile home park could save you money: Residents fare better when they cooperatively own their parks.

Interview

The Making of Co-op City, the Nation’s Biggest Housing Co-op

Co-op City in the Bronx is the size of a small city—as well as a decades old housing co-op and an island of comparative affordability. How did it come about?

A black-and-white photo showing a large group of milling people near a sign that reads "Crestwood Hills/For information regarding this property/Mutual Housing Assn. Inc."
Practitioner Voice

The Cooperative Struggle Against Redlining

Many people are familiar with redlining, but less well known are the handful of cooperatives that sprouted up following WWII with a bold mission: providing integrated, community-owned housing.

Reported Article

Cooperatives and Community Land Trusts: Natural Partners?

Community land trusts provide far fewer units than other forms of affordable housing, but advocates now believe the model can be one possible solution to preserving the affordability of limited-equity co-ops. We take a closer look.

Reported Article

From Mobile Home Parks to Multifamily Housing Cooperatives

As tenants organize to take over their buildings, there’s been an increased interest in going the co-op route. Could the networks that support resident-owned mobile home park communities shift their focus to support residents of multifamily buildings that want to go co-op?

Opinion

You Can’t Carbon Copy Community Ownership

Community development has long made attempts at wealth building, with a focus on trying to find successful or innovative models that can be replicated. And yet the transformational change we’ve […]

Housing

From At-Risk Tenants to Activist Property Owners

A little more than a year ago—while the pandemic raged and the economy cratered—a group of 38 low-income, mostly Black and Brown families won an unprecedented, years-long battle to buy […]

Editor’s Note

How Community Ownership Is Evolving

The latest Shelterforce series takes a closer look at community land trusts and cooperatives to see how both are evolving.

Opinion

Lessons from 20 Years of Enabling Tenants to Buy Their Buildings

As cities across the country consider giving tenants the right of first refusal, municipalities must be meticulous in crafting policies that preserve and expand tenants’ ability to form housing cooperatives.