Community Living 5.0: Shared Homes and How Solidarity-Based Cooperative Housing Works

The fifth installment of the “Community Living” series is dedicated to the Czech network Sdílené domy.

Groups of people within the “Shared Homes” association establish social cooperatives. Thanks to the interconnected structure of the association and the cooperatives, this system ensures that the property does not return to the market but remains within a non-market, solidarity-based housing system, in which the tenants themselves determine the rent. Rent is thus not based on the current market price of the property, but on the costs of acquiring, repaying, and operating it. They adopted this model from the German Mietshäuser Syndikat, which has been operating this way for more than thirty years and today oversees over 200 projects.

There are currently five projects underway, and Barbora Bakošová is here to tell you more about one of them, “Skorec in the Valley.”

You’ll learn how a solidarity-based housing network works, how the Skorec cooperative in the valley organizes its collective operations, and what has and hasn’t worked. This meeting can serve as inspiration for the city’s newly launched call for a community building group: https://bratislava.sk/socialne-sluzby-a-byvanie/byvanie-a-ubytovanie/byvanie-v-komunite-baugruppe

Barbora Bakošová

A member of the Skorec v údolí cooperative who works with the organization Re-set: Platform for Socio-Ecological Transformation and focuses on issues related to solidarity-based economies and the development of the cooperative movement. As part of the Brno-based cooperative Tři Ocásci, she co-runs the social space Základna.

Light refreshments will also be served at the meeting, tailored to various dietary needs (vegetarian, lactose-free, gluten-free, and others).