Videos
Welcome to Cooperative Housing International’s video library. Here, you’ll find a collection of videos that highlight the power of cooperative housing in creating resilient, inclusive, and affordable communities around the world. From success stories and best practices to insights on governance and financing, these videos showcase how housing cooperatives contribute to social and economic well-being. Whether you’re a cooperative housing member, a researcher, or simply interested in community-driven housing solutions, our videos offer valuable perspectives and inspiration.
For a more extensive look at our videos you can visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Webinars
How to Start a Housing Cooperative
This webinar was recorded on January 9th, 2020 on how to start a housing cooperative. In this video, Blase Lambert, Chief Officer of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing in the UK, delves into the essential steps and considerations for launching a housing cooperative. The video is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in creating community-owned and -managed housing, offering practical advice and guidance on navigating the process.
Lambert begins by discussing the importance of clarifying the purpose of your cooperative. Understanding and defining this purpose is crucial, as it will shape all subsequent decisions and strategies. The video then explores how to develop and organize your core group, emphasizing the need for a team with shared values and complementary skills. From there, the video tackles practical steps like choosing a cooperative model that suits your group’s vision, finding suitable financing options, and identifying potential properties. Blase also shares insights into the challenges cooperatives often face, from regulatory hurdles to maintaining engagement within the community.
This is a must-watch for anyone looking to launch a housing cooperative, offering a blend of inspiration and practical wisdom that can help bring a cooperative vision to life.
Incorporating a Housing Cooperative
This video offers an in-depth look at the many benefits of cooperative housing and how it empowers people to create stable, affordable, and community-oriented living spaces. Blase Lambert, Chief Officer of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing in the UK explores how housing cooperatives can prepare for incorporation. Viewers will learn about legal frameworks, taxation, establishing policies and procedures, financing and more. Perfect for anyone interested in community-led housing solutions, this video is a must-watch for advocates, policymakers, and future cooperative members alike.
Cooperative Housing Development – Thinking Outside the Box
Cooperative Housing Development – Thinking Outside the Box! Different groups around the world are using innovative financing tools to raise capital for their cooperative housing initiatives. However, they didn’t come by these ideas alone. By forming regional networks, collaborating, and networking they were able to pool their thoughts together to come up with innovative ideas, allowing them to move forward. This webinar is a conversation with cooperators and project managers developing cooperative and community-led housing in Europe and beyond. They will share their experiences and knowledge related to innovative financing models, the benefits of creating a regional network, and the challenges of developing a housing cooperative based on collective ownership in Central and Eastern Europe.
Leveraging Cooperative Housing Assets for Future Generations
Housing cooperatives have a unique ability to leverage their assets for the benefit of current and future members and their communities. Join us to hear about a variety of cooperative models from Canada, Germany, and the USA that manage assets to increase access to cooperative housing. Our goal is to share examples of how co-op asset management is a tool to effect social change, a value built into a co-op’s mission statement.
Member Forums
The financing of cooperative housing or any community housing has become more and more of a challenge over recent decades. The reasons for this relate both to housing market economics and how willing governments are to support coop housing development as a matter of public policy. The outcome is that it has become more and more difficult to develop coop housing that members can afford to live in.
Cooperative housing organizations and policymakers are responding to these challenges in different ways, as financing affordable housing development using only conventional financing are becoming difficult or impossible. In this member forum, we look at creative financing solutions that are rising from the challenges of raising capital.
We invited speakers from England, Canada, and Catalonia to speak about the financing mechanisms they are using to develop housing cooperatives.
For more webinars go to our webinar playlist on our YouTube channel.
Student Housing Cooperatives
In this informal webinar student housing cooperatives from various countries come together to foster solidarity, connect with peers, exchange ideas, and build a supportive network. Participants include Student Coop Homes (UK), Studentendorf (Berlin), Budapest Housing (Hungary), Collegium Academicum (Heidelberg, Germany), Berkeley Student Coop (California), North American Students for Cooperation (NASCO) (USA & Canada).
The discussion revolves around various topics, including cooperative governance, community building, sustainable practices, and navigating challenges unique to student housing cooperatives. Through this collaborative exchange, we aim to strengthen the bond among student housing cooperatives, foster a sense of unity, and inspire collective action toward creating inclusive, sustainable, and thriving communities. By coming together we learn from each other’s successes and failures and foster solidarity in student housing.
What is Cooperative Housing?
This introductory video explains the unique qualities and benefits of housing cooperatives, showcasing how they provide an inclusive, community-oriented way of living. Housing cooperatives are jointly-owned, democratically-controlled enterprises, open to a diverse range of people. Members either rent or purchase shares in the coop, gaining exclusive use of a unit while collectively owning and managing common spaces and operational costs. Coops are independently owned non-profits focused on affordability, community, and shared decision-making. Cooperative housing varies in size, structure, and ownership models globally but consistently fosters a strong sense of community.
You can watch the full playlist of 11 videos in three languages (English, French and Spanish) on our YouTube channel.
Podcasts
Coop Conversations is a podcast series presented by Co-operative Housing International and hosted by our Secretary-General Julie LaPalme. By listening to conversations we’ve had with people from various countries you will learn more about cooperative living and why housing coops are unique places to live.
You can listen to Coop Conversations on most podcast applications or you can watch the video version on YouTube. Below are a few of the podcasts listed in the playlist.
Housing Cooperatives on Leased Land
Meet Thom Armstrong, the CEO of the Co-operative Housing Federation of British Columbia in Canada. He has over 30 years of experience in the cooperative housing movement and serves as the CEO for the COHO Management Services Society and the Community Land Trust group of societies. Furthermore, he serves as the chair of the board of Encasa Financial Inc., which oversees an investment fund of more than $500 million in assets for the social housing sector in Canada.
Blase Lambert is with us as well, serving as Treasurer on the Board of Cooperative Housing International. He holds the position of CEO at the Confederation of Co-operative Housing, which is the UK’s representative organization for cooperative housing. Furthermore, he sits on the Board of the Co-operative Housing Finance Society and is a founding member of Community Led Homes. Lastly, he serves as Treasurer of Leicester Vaughan College. Blase and Thom delve into the advantages and disadvantages of housing cooperatives on leased land in this episode.
They explore the challenges faced by coops striving to preserve their community against the demand of cities to accommodate more residents on the same land. Additionally, they discuss the community land trust model, which serves as a catalyst for housing development and enables collaboration with local governments to lease land for extended periods and construct much-needed affordable homes.
Resident-Owned Manufactured Cooperative Homes
In this episode, we interview Paul Bradley, former CEO of ROC USA, and Kristi Peterman, a resident and board member of Liberty Landing Cooperative. ROC USA is a non-profit social venture that aims to facilitate resident ownership of manufactured home parks on a larger scale.
Liberty Landing is a resident-owned manufactured home park in Liberty, Missouri – a suburb of Kansas City. During the episode, Paul and Kristi discuss the process of residents uniting to purchase the land on which their homes are situated, thereby protecting affordability for future generations.