``00:00:06:24 - 00:00:28:20 Marnie Hi. I'm Marnie, and welcome to Dwelling. In the final episode of this series, we're taking a deeper look into how people are finding home through intentional communities, creating security and autonomy without that white whale of home ownership. When you think of home, what do you think of?

00:00:30:00 - 00:00:57:15 Sim I mean, home is probably partly about the people I mean, I live in the basement, so I hear people's footsteps quite a lot. Maybe it's my housemate, she's got a really lovely voice and yeah, she like, works a ridiculous job. She does 14 hours a day, but sometimes but like yeah, when she's awake, and I'm at home.

00:00:57:16 - 00:01:10:11 Sim And I go into the kitchen and there's probably someone's brought something home from work or, you know, the cooked meal on a plate with my name on it because someone knew that I was coming home late.

00:01:13:06 - 00:01:36:10 Marnie Community is something that can be hard to find. Feeling isolated is something that is becoming increasingly familiar in a city that is growing denser with people by the day. And housing and home has a role to play in this. Short term lets, lack of housing security, needing to move as rents increase rapidly. It all contributes to a system where we don't know our next door neighbours. But as I started to research coops and communes, I began to find more and more pockets people actively working to not just build homes for themselves, but create active communities. There's a lot of jargon when you type in intentional communities housing co-ops. So I sought expert advice.

00:01:56:01 - 00:02:20:12 Levent OK, so I'm Levent Karamol, from Community-Led Housing London, we're a small support advice, mentoring, service to to less housing groups so that communities who want to create their own homes together. Community led housing is where people take a leading and lasting role in the provision of their own homes.

00:02:21:02 - 00:02:29:19 Marnie There is a whole world of community led housing. But for this episode, we're focusing on housing co-ops, and they're founded on three principles.

00:02:29:19 - 00:02:57:18 Levent One is that can be engaged in the development. Secondly, that I think probably quite crucially, that the community before organisation has a formal role in the ownership management or maintenance, and finally, that any benefits are protected in perpetuity. So where there is affordable homes that those stay affordable in perpetuity. So in the long term, it could also be other kind of social or community benefits.

00:02:58:11 - 00:03:23:19 Levent And there's a there's a kind of a desire to keep those kind of locked in legally, formally within the scheme. I think one of the key unique point about community housing for me is the empowerment of residents. So on a tradition, if you imagine a kind of traditional set up, you've got a developer providing houses for people and they're on the receiving end.

00:03:24:19 - 00:03:52:08 Levent You've got a landlords, be that a private landlords or a housing association or a council providing housing for tenants who are on the receiving end. And I think community-led housing kind of almost puts that on its head and says OK, the residents are the developers, the residents are the landlords. Definitely there's a strands of it which feels a lot like what we might call collective ownership.

00:03:52:08 - 00:04:29:01 Levent So the ownership of the home doesn't belong to the individual family, it belongs to the collective, you know, housing co-operative. And yes, those individual members are tenants of the cooperative, but they're also their own landlords. So it feels a lot like they still collectively own all of those homes. I think what many of them were set up in the eighties, you know, starting from the seventies, as the history linking them back to the squatting movement, many of those tended to come when.

00:04:29:01 - 00:05:02:03 Marnie People think of co-ops, I think the image that most people have in their minds is not dissimilar to a commune. But I'm guessing what you're not thinking about is this: Hiyaa, Oh, can you hear me? I turn that up that I can't really hear me. OK, there we go. So Delilah and I cycled down the South Bank over Blackfriars Bridge, and I actually love the South Bank.

00:05:02:03 - 00:05:32:10 Marnie It's one of the only places in London that I actually feel like I'm in London you know, you can see St Paul's and MI5 on the OXO Tower and underneath the OXO Tower is actually one of the biggest co-ops in England and definitely the biggest co-op in London. And the amazing thing about it is a lot of the South Bank, you walk along is part of the co-op.

00:05:32:10 - 00:06:04:00 Marnie The businesses help to fund it. There's social housing right in the city center, which feels extraordinary. And everything about down here so swanky. I just can't believe there's a coop here. You know, I can see the River Thames looking kind of brown and unappealing. I just honestly think it's one of the most fantastic places that actually looks like it's on a postcard know.

00:06:05:02 - 00:06:39:00 Iain Tuckett Yeah, I'm Iain Tuckett. I work for Coin Street Community Builders. I've been involved now for nearly 40 years in Coin Street. Well, Coin Street came out of the campaign back in the 1970s, 1980s, where the local community only made up about 4500 people when I first moved into the area in 1970s it was, oh, it was grey. Especially at the weekend.

00:06:39:00 - 00:07:14:13 Iain Tuckett There was no one around you know, I went to the local pub here, you know, the doors opened it and you know, *makes squeaking sound* there'd be three ex dockers would turn round to look at you and it was really weird. And the problem with that huge loss of population which was driven by planning policy, which, you know, wanted to see the area become the city in the West End and not a residential area, so all the shops closed all the schools closed.

00:07:15:00 - 00:07:48:03 Iain Tuckett And it was becoming impossible for people bring up families. And so the feeling was if we managed to get more housing built, then we would be able to make the area one which people could live in as well. And the first co-op that I was involved in was at the bottom of the street I lived in, Hatch Row, and it's been going for 40 years.

00:07:48:09 - 00:08:09:09 Marnie And I'm curious because when you first started thinking about like kids, you basically got to build your own community from scratch. And I'm wondering like what it was that you were looking for. And I don't so much means in terms of like the physical space, but in terms of like the, the experiences of the people who were going to live there.

00:08:09:09 - 00:08:58:21 Iain Tuckett We were part of the community that lived around and it was, you know, very active you know, we had community newspapers, we had an action centre, all sorts of stuff going on. And you know, that is part of a community where people meet each other and it's easy to meet each other and but very much we envisaged that it would be family based and a stable community or ideal was a mixed community, but predominantly a stable one where people stuck around, got to know each other.

00:08:59:10 - 00:09:23:15 Iain Tuckett And it was the sort of place where you could easily do that. And it has grown. And, you know, now you have babies from three months sold in the nursery through to youth groups mixed into generational stuff.

00:09:24:04 - 00:09:53:03 Levent I think for me, those are the kind of key things. It's about how the homes are owned and run and managed. There will be all sorts of other benefits that people are trying to achieve through that housing, including affordability, including what it's like to live there. Some people come at it with kind of more environmental objectives or thinking about the physical and spatial arrangements, or perhaps it's about some some groups.

00:09:53:11 - 00:10:16:11 Levent It turns out, you know, ownership might not be the key thing, but it's really about control over the management and maintenance of the homes. So if you're your own landlord, maybe you can get your repairs done properly. And that's the real day to day experience. And I think it kind of comes down to back to that point about control and empowerment and controlling what matters most to you.

00:10:17:24 - 00:10:25:23 Marnie I can carry one of the one of the teas, oh you have a dog!

Sim

If that's all right, if you're able too.

00:10:25:23 - 00:10:28:08 Sim We actually have two.

00:10:28:24 - 00:10:30:00 Marnie So what's the other one called?

00:10:31:11 - 00:10:32:15 Sim Timmy. Timmy is a tiny dog.

00:10:33:06 - 00:10:56:12 Marnie This is Sim. I travel down Brighton to meet her in a beautiful terraced house covered with plants. Sam is part of Out of Town Housing Co-op. She's softly spoken. She takes me around the house, can watch the warmth and pride radiate off her as she introduces me to a couple of her housemates. We meet the dog and walk through a lush garden that feels like it's out of the storybook with a swing and a firepit.

00:10:57:03 - 00:11:05:13 Marnie I take with me an industrial size quantity of audio kit. And of course, none of it worked. So we set up my phone on a pile of books in her outhouse to speak.

00:11:06:06 - 00:11:29:21 Sim And that's where we're going to sit so you can look at it so I've kind of lived in Brighton for eight, eight or nine years. I think now I've only lived in this house for three. Yeah, over three years now. So there are nine people who live in this house, but the coops got two houses, so there are six people in the other house, so 15 in total.

00:11:29:21 - 00:11:49:20 Sim So I suppose it's like more shared than your average shared house. So you could say if we had a vacancy and someone needed to move, then they'd need to like meet all of us. And I'm like, you know, we have to get them, get to know them before they, they've moved in and that kind of continues while we're living here.

00:11:49:20 - 00:11:58:19 Sim Like, you know, the culture of like trying to have dinner every day together and cooking like collectively you know.

00:11:59:03 - 00:12:03:18 Sim Do doing all, all groceries together. Can I just say I love not

00:12:03:18 - 00:12:05:04 Sim Having to do my groceries just.

00:12:05:04 - 00:12:12:02 Sim For myself every week. I love that we can bulk buy and just like have a cellar where we can stock stuff.

00:12:12:14 - 00:12:26:09 Sim But I love that kind of collective effort. And it is also challenging. Absolutely. Like when you move into a shared house, there's no guarantee that you can hang out with everyone. I guess one of the benefits is that it feels like we're holding stuff.

00:12:26:09 - 00:12:33:12 Sim Together like nothing is just floating on one person. And, you know, I'm thinking about my housemates welfare.

00:12:34:02 - 00:12:36:04 Sim And so when conflicts come.

00:12:36:04 - 00:12:41:00 Sim Up and they do, we can talk as a house about how to address it.

00:12:41:01 - 00:12:56:01 Sim And we can, you know, pay for mediation and because, you know, we have got a bit more purchasing power and we have got a bit more like, you know, emotional custody for each other.

00:12:57:00 - 00:13:23:04 Marnie Can you imagine having a conflict and paying for mediation? Also, I don't want to oversell co-ops because like any form of home, they have good sides and bad sides but when a vacancy came up recently, the rent was £375, £375. The average rent for a one bed in Brighton is over a thousand. Yeah, I can't say, I mean, because there's obviously a significant amount of community that goes into it.

00:13:23:04 - 00:13:45:10 Marnie But also I was, I was amazed when we were walking through the house that everyone has like I guess things that you wouldn't get. In a rented house like the. Like the, the plunging pool or the chest creases. Yeah. Or like a dog. Like all these things that aren't possible in rented housing.

00:13:45:12 - 00:14:05:17 Sim Yeah. Feels quite empowering. Yeah. I just, I walk into a rented house now and I've really noticed that, like, bare walls and lack of furniture. Like this space that we're in right now is an extension to the side of the house that like one of my housemates was setting up a company or another co-op and wanted to work from here.

00:14:05:17 - 00:14:32:02 Sim And so, like, he literally built quite a lot of this, like being able to put up shelves and just like paint the walls. If there is something that could be beneficial for the house, then we can probably do it. You know, we have like monthly work days where we try and work on maintenance things together and they sometimes happen, they sometimes don't happen.

00:14:33:12 - 00:15:06:05 Sim But like the principle it remains. And we do have like at the moment we're doing maintenance meetings because we got remortgaging the house because we decided that we wanted to improve the energy efficiency. So we're going to get solar panels. And that's literally just because we made a decision in general meeting two aspect to think and you know, there's plenty of admin involved, but it was, you know, fairly easy because we have this asset that we could borrow against, that we could borrow like 20 grand to put solar panels.

00:15:06:05 - 00:15:31:15 Sim I think that's cool. Yeah. I think what I'm trying to say is like I feel quite confident in like you know, I could probably stay here as long as I wanted to, as long as like, you know, kept contributing and yeah, I thought that I wanted, you know, I want to like contribute to this project.

00:15:32:04 - 00:15:57:15 Marnie I think it's safe to say that as a culture, we're fairly obsessed with home ownership. Since the selling of council houses in the 1980s, owning your own home hasn't just been a way to find home, but an aspiration that meant security. All of meant I've spent my fair share of time scrolling through right moves, dreaming about a life where the way of finding home wasn't on my shoulders and I could repaint my kitchen bright pink just because I thought it was fun.

00:15:59:01 - 00:16:09:10 Marnie It's a challenging concept to think, OK, well, I'm going to have a house and I'm pretty responsible for it, but it's not going to.Be like under my ownership. If that makes sense?

00:16:09:12 - 00:16:45:24 Sim When we're buying houses, we're looking for housing security. Like that's the thing that you just don't find when you're renting. And if if you like other countries, you can have thoughts. Housing security when you're renting as well. Like better renting protection. Absolutely. The like kinds of people who I work alongside, unfortunately, in this country, kind of under the political climate that we live in, you just are not very likely to have housing security unless you own your house.

00:16:46:09 - 00:16:53:13 Sim That's a really sad thing to realise. But in the coop, yeah, I've got housing security.

00:16:53:17 - 00:17:17:16 Levent So I guess once you're in a co-op, there's no real reason to leave unless you really need to. That does mean some of the ones that were set up in the eighties that have just had people staying there and it gives them what they need. So why would you leave? It gives you the kind of a control and the responsibility that you would have if you were owning a home.

00:17:17:16 - 00:17:37:09 Marnie Cheap rent, built in community, security. As I dug into these projects, there was something utopian about them being able to create homes as you see fit, using it not just as a roof over your head, but to create societal change. So my question is, why aren't more people doing it?

00:17:37:14 - 00:17:56:04 Iain Tuckett I think if you live in a co-op you are fortunate in that you are getting fantastic housing in the centre of London. You know, you can walk most anywhere but it comes with responsibilities and it's quite a lot of work.

00:17:56:04 - 00:18:18:12 Levent There are a whole load of barriers which I think we spend quite a lot of our time trying to work through the system and trying to find ways through on some levels. If you think about it, you know, these are startup organisations with no real assets. Often, you know, they don't have a huge amount of money to start off with.

00:18:19:05 - 00:18:44:07 Levent They won't necessarily have a huge amount of technical knowledge, and they are trying to do something that's, you know, a little bit unconventional. So compared to the normal approach. So we've got a number of groups that kind of typically approach their local council and say, we'd like to do this. And depending on the council, the reaction might be, well, why should we help you when we've got thousands of others on our waiting list?

00:18:44:15 - 00:19:06:13 Levent But this is in the context of them of councils trying to do their own affordable housing delivery and then you've got the wider private market, which is really quite difficult to engage in unless you've got, you know, significant amounts of money to begin with. And if you do, then again, the conventional thing is why would you own collectively if you can own individually?

00:19:06:19 - 00:19:10:10 Iain Tuckett I don't think they get enough support...

00:19:10:20 - 00:19:12:04 Levent It does take a lot of time...

00:19:12:12 - 00:19:15:20 Iain Tuckett You've got all sorts of fires, safety and you name it, a...

00:19:15:21 - 00:19:27:04 Levent Complete kind of mindset shift that kind of is needed in some places. This is the way things are done and it's work you might need to do just to get grant funding and assistance organisation around..

00:19:31:18 - 00:20:02:09 Levent At the moment. Partly the wonderful thing about the sector is there's such diversity in approaches and different kinds of affordable products and people trying to innovate in lots of different ways, but that can get very confusing and as to kind of someone entering into it, it can be quite bewildering and and none of those are clearly mapped out in a way that, you know, will result in a home...

00:20:02:17 - 00:20:05:01 Levent So you could be looking out several years.

00:20:05:01 - 00:20:29:12 Marnie So yes, a striking reality became apparent housing co-ops are hard to set up and housing types are hard work. Sam had been trying to set up a co-op for three years prior to moving into out of town. And although they were ultimately successful, it was work done not knowing if that would ever happen, because it sounds like you've been through like quite a lot of like time and effort to end up in a housing court.

00:20:29:13 - 00:20:33:18 Marnie So what kept you at it? What kept you going through all the admin?

00:20:33:20 - 00:21:16:07 Sim Well, I guess, like, I find them quite inspiring. It's like a model that you can sort of do on your own. Like for most young people these days, it's just not really going to be affordable to buy a house and like even renting you know, you have to put up with so much, why not be able to have control of your house as well as like just paying for you know, the costs that need to be paid for, say, like about two thirds of my rent get spent on mortgage costs and the rest, you know, we all know exactly where it goes.

00:21:16:07 - 00:22:08:02 Sim It goes in insurance and in house maintenance and traveling to meetings and conferences and you know, I feel fairly like responsible for my housing situation. And I love that kind of autonomy. But I mean, I think like on a bigger level, like more systemically, I think that organising through co-ops is quite like revolutionary. And you sort of can like not be having to work for someone else or do a thing that is like so much of the property market is so speculative and like profit driven.

00:22:08:22 - 00:22:37:11 Sim And I just don't think that it should be. I think that you know, you don't just have to use housing as an asset that is financialised that they make money off of and and so I like the idea that I can and I can help others to self and live in co-ops around the country. But that's just quite a drive thing for me, I guess.

00:22:38:06 - 00:23:33:17 Iain Tuckett I think that what is really changed at planning you know, it used to be a thing of thinking about an area it's different, you says and we know it's over time made huge mistakes you know all the cars when we first got involved all that developers wanted in this area was offices housing was a complete no no and we got criticised at the first inquiry because they said, well no family is going to want to live in the middle of this town and you know, when we said and actually it's going to be social housing, they said, well, I mean, they'll leave their motorbikes out in the front gardens they'll hang their washing from the

00:23:33:17 - 00:24:10:08 Iain Tuckett balconies. I mean, if you wouldn't credit what was said, but actually it's really important to have a mixed community. You know, I'm a great believer in planning, but what has happened with it a bit so local authorities very much have been pushed by government to make their money out of development rather than getting central government grants. And the result of that is they tend to say do whatever you want.

00:24:10:17 - 00:25:03:06 Iain Tuckett Build as high and as wide and whatever. We just want the money. And that is no way to do planning. The whole basis of planning is to plan from a community public perspective. You know, this is a world where we are all going to have to change to move towards dealing with climate change. One of the changes is not just to demolish old buildings, but, you know, to re furbish them, keep the structure and rebuild about 50% of a building's carbon footprint is takes place during its construction so it really matters.

00:25:03:17 - 00:25:34:07 Iain Tuckett You know now looking around what do we want to do in the future we're looking at much improving, you know, Brisbane gardens, a lot more planting the sort of level of flowers and so that you can only have if you're managing it with a lot of community volunteers and support home is more than a house. It's a whole community for me.

00:25:39:12 - 00:25:48:13 Iain Tuckett I think you're talking to someone from one of our co-ops later on so you know, she can give her own ideas.

00:25:49:08 - 00:26:11:22 Marnie Queen Street is built for families and it's predominantly social housing, so it's people who otherwise would not be able to afford to live in central London. I mean, who can really, after speaking within it, left me with a question what was it like growing up in a co-op? So my next interviewee walked in small and quietly assured.

00:26:13:08 - 00:26:23:01 Coin Street Girl Oh, OK, I quite like reading graphic novels, but I read some of the stuff too, you know, like, um, biographies.

00:26:23:19 - 00:26:25:14 Marnie Biographies. Yeah. What kind of people.

00:26:27:12 - 00:26:32:13 Coin Street Girl Like inspirational people like Michelle Obama. I like that sometimes.

00:26:32:18 - 00:26:34:17 Marnie And what is it like living in Coin Street?

00:26:35:04 - 00:26:58:06 Coin Street Girl Well, I really like it since the neighbours are really nice and you have a good view on the balcony. Well, the really nice when they say hello and nice and I'm friends with so the children that were like Coin Streets. Really nice because there's a lot of options to do when you're bored. Like you're not really bored when you get to the park because you've always got things to do.

00:26:59:01 - 00:27:20:16 Coin Street Girl Um, people are really nice, friendly. I go to um, Colombo a lot and Queen Street have on Mondays for like homework club, and they're really helpful because they help you with homework meet love nice people too, and different people.

00:27:22:08 - 00:27:24:05 Marnie So how long have you lived in Coin Street?

00:27:24:22 - 00:27:30:14 Coin Street Girl Quite a while until like maybe like five? Yeah.

00:27:32:01 - 00:27:33:06 Marnie Yes, a quite a long time.

00:27:33:06 - 00:27:33:17 Coin Street Girl Yeah.

00:27:34:08 - 00:27:49:05 Marnie So obviously like growing up in a co-op is not the way that everyone, everyone grows up. And I was wondering, so if you were an adult and you had to look for a home right now, what would you want it to look like?

00:27:50:00 - 00:28:01:13 Coin Street Girl I would really like maybe quiet the bedroom so my family can stay over yeah. I would definitely have lots of pets. I really want to pet horses and cats.

00:28:02:01 - 00:28:07:24 Marnie And what would you what would you want your home to feel like? If you got to choose it for yourself? Hm.

00:28:08:13 - 00:28:13:16 Coin Street Girl I like to feel like it's in.

00:28:13:23 - 00:28:16:21 Marnie Yeah. So, like, how would you like to feel when you come home?

00:28:17:16 - 00:28:44:01 Coin Street Girl Well, I wouldn't want to feel alone because I could have a lot. So I wouldn't want to be all alone because I've got pets. So um, like, I'd really like a nice, like, not too bright, but like, like a nice sunny room, maybe like yellow walls or something. That would be nice, cause, like, it makes you feel, like, more warm, I guess.

00:28:45:21 - 00:28:48:01 Coin Street Girl More, like, happy when you see the colour yellow.

00:28:50:10 - 00:28:55:14 Marnie And is there anything that you sort of, like, worry about when you think about housing in future?

00:28:55:20 - 00:29:15:22 Coin Street Girl Well, I'm worried it might be expensive since, like, prices are going to lots and lots of people can't really afford rent at the moment. So I'd like a good job like a doctor, maybe. But they're not being paid enough lately. But I really want to help people when I'm older. So.

00:29:16:20 - 00:29:37:10 Marnie So a couple of questions I've been asking. Everyone is so I've been speaking to all kinds of people who live on like fond boats, and I'm asking them what they think is important to feel at home. So, like, what is makes you feel like most safe and most like you can be yourself and do anything you want.

00:29:37:24 - 00:29:57:12 Coin Street Girl Yeah, it's like I will feel safe in a community where people are nice or, you know, they just ignore you. Last time, um, I'd be, I wouldn't think it would be a homeless. I wouldn't know anybody that yeah. No, absolutely.

00:29:58:23 - 00:30:13:18 Sim I guess it's kind of about like taking power into our own hands and realising that we can do that. We can create social change, um, even just as individuals or collectives of.

00:30:14:00 - 00:30:18:19 Sim You know, five, ten, 15 people, um, like, collectively.

00:30:18:19 - 00:30:28:13 Sim We have kind of built this, um, co over, you know, a decade, 15 years. Um.

00:30:29:03 - 00:30:49:19 Sim And absolutely, like, together we, we can, like, pull off a strike action or a demonstration or like really concretely, like support someone who's been wrongly arrested or is unwell.

00:30:50:09 - 00:31:04:05 Sim Um, I think all of us, like, can see through living in the house that like.

00:31:04:23 - 00:31:13:14 Sim And through making decisions together that we can do that on other scales in other spaces as well.

00:31:18:08 - 00:31:36:21 Marnie Speaking with Sim and actually speaking with everyone over the course of this series has reminded me that given a little bit of time or resource, people can not just create a wonderful space for themselves, but it enables you to go out into the world and pour your time and energy into whatever it is that is meaningful to you.

00:31:37:07 - 00:32:01:00 Marnie But although the people I've spoken to have been carving out their own spaces, the fact is that they are small pockets in a country of people who are struggling to create home. And these alternatives take time. Even though a lot of the ways we've spoken about are cheaper than renting. You need to have the luxury of time to do your research, to keep up with the admin, keep abreast of the changing laws, whatever.

00:32:02:06 - 00:32:26:03 Marnie And not everyone has that luxury. I struggled to think about how to end this series, what the final note should be, because to be honest, it can be really bleak. The housing system in this country is undeniably broken and it can get so complicated. So I'm not going to talk about what it is now or make up solutions I'm just going to say what I know.

00:32:26:24 - 00:33:07:12 Marnie Over the course of this series, I've been asking all of my interviewees what home means to them. What does it feel like? Everyone has different answers, little things that turn their dwelling into a home. But actually what people wanted wasn't extravagant or complicated. Or at the end of the day, what people want from home is quite similar: They want to be able to change their space to suit them. They want to know that they have a community around them. They want to feel safe. And it is that simple.

00:33:19:14 - 00:33:35:07 Marnie Thank you for listening to this series. I want to firstly say thank you to my interviewees who I've spoken to over the last six months. Everyone who let me in for a cup of tea or just met up over Zoom. I want to say thank you to Tom Bett for listening to all of the episodes, giving feedback on each one.

00:33:35:16 - 00:34:01:18 Marnie And listen to me, whitter on about ideas on sound design and panic that I would never finish. I want to say thank you to everyone around House and Transmission who helped make this project possible. So thank you to all of those people You can also find a whole list of resources that I use to research and write dwelling in the show notes below.

00:34:02:16 - 00:34:13:08 Marnie Thank you for listening. You can still follow us on social media at dwelling_pod, where we'll be keeping up to date with everyone who I spoke to. Powered by transmission Roundhouse.