community led housing london

Levent Kerimol

Sociable Housing

Our director, Levent Kerimol, joined a panel to discuss the scope for developers and councils to enable and integrate community led housing in their schemes, large or small.

The discussion took place on 8 September, and was organised by Jessica and Robert Barker from Stolon Studio and environmental psychologist Veronica Simpson, with Martyn Evans from U+I, Cllr Danny Thorpe and Cllr Anthony Okereke from RB Greenwich, and Stephen Haynes from LB Hackney.

Listen back to the full discussion here:

Lev is speaking from 0:47 mins onwards

 
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Invest to save the Rising Sun Collective

Rising Sun Housing Co-operative was formed by a group of artists who need investment to finalise the purchase of the former pub they live and work in from the landlord who recently put it on the market.

The building is used as both a home and workspace. It contains facilities such as a recording studio, rehearsal space, intimate venue and design studio which members of the community are allowed to use free of charge. On top of this, it provides crucial and increasingly rare affordable housing and a space for young creatives to build networks and meet other like-minded people. In short, The Rising Sun is a hub for all manner of creative outputs and a staple part of the local art and music culture.

We have helped to commission financial modelling and business planning, which has helped the co-op secure mortgages in principle, and prepare their loan stock offer. We have been directly involved in negotiating with the landowner and agents during to get their offer accepted, and bringing solicitors on board, and there has also been a little architectural input on internal reconfigurations to make better use of the space, and improve the building’s environmental performance.

They are now looking for investors to raise £230,000 with attractive rates of interest, or they will lose the space for good.

 

 
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Housing and the Care Crisis: Redefining care practices through community led housing

As part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, we held an online event Housing and the Care Crisis which brought together key thinkers on the subjects of housing and care with four community led housing groups from across London.

During the discussion, we explored the approaches these groups are taking to provide mutual care and support within their communities and considered how these approaches could be used to help re-imagine practices of care away from isolated, profit-driven models towards those that are mutually supportive, collective and sustainable. 

Watch the full event here if you missed it:

Speakers

– Helen Hester, Professor of Gender, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London

– Jim Hudson, Senior Research Associate on the CHIC (Collaborative Housing and Innovation in Care) project.

– Maria Brenton, Adviser to Older Women’s Cohousing & London Older Lesbian Cohousing.

Community housing groups:

– Bonny Downs Cohousing – Newham

– Homes in Mind – Harrow

– Ginger Giraffe – East London

 
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New Collective Ownership

Earlier this week, we held an event New Collective Ownership which explored the different models of collective ownership being used by community led housing groups in London today.

During the session, we heard from 4 community led housing groups: an existing and an emerging Mutual Home Ownership Society and two groups exploring the balance of collective and individual ownership through Co-operative Societies.

Speakers

– Jacob Stringer, Quaggy MHOS

– Hilary Aked, Sycamore Cohousing

– Scott Bowley, Rising Sun Housing Co-op

– Al Cree and Michal Kuligowski, Surge Cooperative

Watch the full event here if you missed it:
 

 
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Community housing for the homeless in East London

Bonny Downs Cohousing Project was initiated by a local charity seeking to redevelop their church hall.

The redeveloped church hall will combine intentional community housing with a wider community space on the ground floor which will be used for services for people who are homeless, vulnerably housed or experiencing food poverty.

In this video, we head over to Bonny Downs church to find out how their project is progressing.

 
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