Cooplink and the cooperative housing movement

Housing cooperations have been gaining territory over the last few years, both in numbers and in publicity. ‘’Fostering housing cooperations’’ even got a foothold in the 2024 coalition agreement.
The movements is no longer just a ‘leftist niche’. Good news, because housing cooperations do not only provide solutions to the housing shortage and social problems such as loneliness, they also contribute to system changes.
Housing cooperations bring houses in collective ownership, breaking the fashion of owning houses as private objects to make a profit out of. A house, then, becomes a home again, rather than a profitable investment. Since we are still in a serious housing crisis and prices of houses are only rising, it is about time that we’re going to organize things differently.
Reading this, you might think: what are we waiting for? Why don’t we have many more housing cooperations? And, how can I live in one?
When there is a screaming lack of affordable housing, hopeful sounds from housing cooperations bring along energy and good spirits. That’s needed. In order to fulfil their potential on a bigger scale, some work is left to be done, still.
Luckily, all throughout the country, people and organizations are making it easier to start up housing cooperations. Proper information and a strong, connected movement are important factors. Other crucial aspects are access to money and land as well as supporting laws.
In this article, you read more about housing cooperations, the cooperative housing cooperation, which challenges are in the way and how they will be addressed.

What are housing cooperations?
Although the terms are confusingly similar, ‘housing cooperation’ and ‘housing corporation’ are quite different from each other in practice. A corporations builds, owns and maintains houses, as those are rented to households. The corporation is the landlord and the resident is the renter. A cooperation, then, is a collective of renters who rent in self-management. There is no external landlord in play, as there is with a corporation.

That goes as follows:

The housing cooperation is organized as an association or cooperation. Each renter is a member of this association or cooperation. The difference between those two is mostly about the question whether profit can be disbursed to the members: this is the case with a cooperation, with an association it’s not. That’s why most of the housing cooperations choose the legal form of an association, because of the lack of individual profit motives. Still, they often call themselves housing cooperation.  

The association manages all the houses. In the case of a ‘self-built-housing cooperation’, the association also builds and owns the houses (in contrast to a ‘management-housing cooperation, for example). All the houses in a self-built-housing cooperations are therefore in collective ownership and it’s put into the bylaws so that it stays so. This prevents individual houses from being sold, that way the houses are protected against the market forces. Furthermore, there won’t be any reason to raise the rents, since you would only got yourself and your neighbours with it.

When we talk about housing cooperations, we often talk about housing associations. An important feature is their democratic and non-profit character. The legal form ‘association’ secures this. Housing cooperations that do choose the legal form ‘cooperation’, can include in their bylaws that there won’t be any disbursing of profits to their members. This could be a condition when applying for municipal plots for housing cooperations.

So, in general, a ‘housing cooperation’ relates to an association or cooperation of renters without an eye for profit, where houses are in collectively owned and managed. But there are also forms that deviate (a little) from the standard. 

Mutual knowledge sharing
Some people are getting all warmed up reading the above, while others will think: ‘quite complex, this ain’t for me,’ and then put themselves on a waiting list for a social rental house or wait for the housing market to collapse. For that reason, it is important to stress that you don’t create a housing cooperation on your own, you do it together with others.
Together you need to gather a lot of knowledge: from organization and legal forms to finances and building plans. It doesn’t need to happen all at once, and individual members don’t need to become experts in everything. If you won’t get a budget ready in over a hundred years, but you do have green fingers, you could contribute there. Each member shares knowledge and capacities with the group and together you can know and do a lot.
Also housing cooperations share knowledge. The first pioneers invented the wheel and each following group will try to make the process run more smoothly. The mutual connection and solidarity in the cooperative housing movement is strong. Housing cooperations do not only help each other, they also show a way out of the housing crisis.

For inspiration, you could take a look at:
- Housing cooperation de Warren (realised in 2023 gerealiseerd in IJburg, Amsterdam).
- Housing cooperation de Nieuwe Meent (construction starts in 2025 in Sciencepark, Amsterdam)
- Housing cooperation de Bonte Hulst (plot designated in Buiksloterham, Amsterdam)
- Free space and housing cooperation Bajesdorp (completed in 2024 in Bajeskwartier, Amsterdam)

Besides the enthusiasm and ambitions for the projects, you will hear from these pioneers that starting a housing cooperation is a large and complex matter. Unfortunately, that shuts out people who don’t have the time, knowledge, energy or network to start that.
On top of that, housing cooperations often have a few places available for people who can’t help with the preparing process, but would like to live there. This will make the final group more diverse. Some groups consciously choose to reserve places for people with lower incomes, young families with little time, or undocumented people.

National support through Cooplink
Accessible knowledge and supporting policy infrastructure make the process for housing cooperations a bit more easy.
Cooplink is occupied with this on a national level. It is an association from and for (starting) housing cooperations. The members are housing cooperations, not individuals. It is a non-profit club of initiatives who experienced the bumps in the road and now want to pave the way for others. Cooplink had grown with support of Stichting !Woon, de Woonbond , de Woningbouwvereniging Gelderland and Vereniging Gemeenschappelijk Wonen.
The pillars of Cooplink are knowledge sharing and lobbywork. On their website they have developed an extended knowledge bank and there are sessions being organized on a regular basis. The National Housing cooperation day is a big success, here the movement comes together to share experiences, learn from each other and connect.
Housing cooperations that are Cooplink member are not only part of this knowledge network, they also make for a growing and connected movement. This gives more power to the lobbywork pillar.
Cooplink is mainly lobbying on a national level, with the ambition to take away any obstructions with starting housing cooperations, to unlock support and money. And successfully so, because in the current coalition agreement (2024) the following is said about housing cooperations: ‘’We are taking away legal and financial obstructions for living cooperatively. Therefore, we are setting up a supporting fund and we support Cooplink, the association of housing cooperations. Via 2 amendments (2022 and 2023) we have made €40 million available. The fund takes away the largest financial obstructions, so that housing cooperations could realise affordable houses. We also discuss with municipalities how they could stimulate housing cooperations.’’

Municipal level
In terms of support on municipal level Amsterdam leads the way in The Netherlands. Amsterdam has the goal to lodge ten percent of all the houses with housing cooperations within twenty-five years. The municipality is making new construction plots available and there is a loan fund for housing cooperations of fifty million euros (more about that later). The municipality also supports Stichting !Woon, which takes on the role as rent team, provider of information to small VVE’s and supporter of housing cooperations.
Stichting !Woon is expert in guiding housing cooperations. !Woon helps residents and initiatives with questions about setting up a housing cooperation. For example, how do you start it, what legal requirements must you meet, and what’s to take into account with regard to the finances. A few times a year, a basis course for housing cooperations starts and !Woon organizes trainings directed towards the organization and financing of housing cooperations. The course and the first advices and trainings for starting groups are for free.
The extended knowledge and experiences of !Woon in this respect is has been bundled in the Handboek Wooncoöperaties Amsterdam’.
Since Amsterdam makes land, money and support available for housing cooperations, it is no wonder that most these cooperations are set up in Amsterdam. Other municipalities look at the capital as an example to give space and chances to their own housing cooperations. It’s clear to see that increasingly more municipalities make themselves hard for this. For example, the city council of Utrecht developed the ‘Actieplan Utrechtse Wooncoöperaties’.
The Amsterdam housing cooperations have, besides their own projects, also built on a support system: Platform Wooncoöperaties Amsterdam (PWA). This collaboration between housing cooperations from the metropolitan region helps to bring the cooperations and the movement further.  
The joining housing cooperations share their information, their network and they get along. They have an ambition to grow into a national association of housing cooperations. The associations want to smooth out a very large bump: money.

Money and land
It’s a challenge to get the financing of a housing cooperation straight. The cooperation, by law, is seen as a business entity, enabling them in The Netherlands to borrow up to 70 percent of the investing costs with the bank. In Amsterdam, it’s possible to take on an extra loan of max. 20 percent  of the total, with a max. of €50.000 per house, all of this through the earlier mentioned loan fund. This means that -in the most favourable situation- there will still be a gap of at least ten percent, which ought to be gathered by the members of the housing cooperation. 
Imagine: building a housing cooperation costs you about 12 million euros (exemplary case of the Torteltuin in Amsterdam), you get a 70 percent loan from the bank and 20 percent from the municipality, then 1,2 million euros are left, still. Part of it, you could try to gather with investors and funds, another part should be coughed up by the members themselves and selling obligations. In the Torteltuin case, five percent needs to be gathered through obligations, that’s 600.000 euros. You mainly sell obligations within your own network. That means that you must have quite wealthy network, which makes starting a housing cooperations inaccessible for many people.
So money is a big issue for housing cooperations. An important development in this respect is the earlier mentioned national fund. Apart from that, municipalities themselves could find their own way around the loan fund (as Amsterdam does). It would make a big difference if banks would and could lend more money to housing cooperations. Read more about the possibilities of the policy and the legal frameworks in the article about the cooperative government in the Collectief Eigendom collection.
A look over the borders gives inspiration for the possibilities around financing. In Switzerland, for example, there are three large funds contributing to the start of new housing cooperations. In different European countries, local instruments, such as interest free loans and discount on land prices, have been used. More examples and details are to be found in the ‘Europees onderzoek naar wooncoöperaties’ from 2021, commissioned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdomrelations.
Housing cooperations wouldn’t be themselves, if they would not take matters into their own hands. From the PWA grew the idea for a citizen fund for the cooperative movement. Michiel Voskamp from PWA explains in this personal interview: ‘’When existing housing cooperations have paid off their debts, there is money left from rent income. Many Amsterdam housing cooperations have recorded that this money is to be invested in the cooperative movement. In order to manage that well, a joint fund is being established now. From there the movement can be supported, for example by helping starting housing cooperations with the financing or the pay for the management of existing cooperative houses. The fund could also extend to other cooperative associations; for example in the energy area.’’

This idea shows what is possible when you bundle forces.

Besides the money, self-built housing cooperations need land. Because the non-profit housing cooperations can’t compete with the commercial prices of developers, it is important that municipalities explicitly make affordable plots available for housing cooperations.
Not all the housing cooperations need to be self-built cooperations. The existing housing stock or vacant objects could also be placed in cooperative hands.
The existing housing cooperations show that it’s possible: living in self-management, off the market. They also show how it could be done much easier, so that cooperative living becomes an option for many more people in the near future.

Where else could you go?
Look in your municipality for the policies and the possibilities for housing cooperations and which supporting initiatives there are on a local level.

Cooplink, !Woon en PWA are important organizations for (starting) housing cooperations. You could also be helped by the following organizations:

The German GLS Gemeinschaftsbank has been financing housing cooperations in Germany for longer and is also involved with financing the first Dutch housing cooperations.
De Coöperatieve Rabobank is the first and most important Dutch bank financing housing cooperations.

CrowdBuilding is a national platform for collective building and living. Here, home seekers, projects and land find each other. You will also find the necessary professional guidance here. Crowdbuilding is for all forms of collective development: besides housing cooperations you find, for example, initiatives for Collective Private Commissioning (CPO) and Tiny House complexes. You could also sign up as an individual looking for a group, but also as a group looking for members and/or locations. 

Platform 31 is a knowledge center for complex matters in the city and its region. Housing is a big theme and Platform 31 has a lot information about wooncoöperaties.

Kansfonds makes itself hard for a home for everybody. If you, as a housing cooperation, want to give a space to people with a high housing need and little chances, for example undocumented people, then Kansfonds can think along and help. Kansfonds also looks into the development of Community Land Trusts (CLT); that is another cooperative ownership and housing model.  

For an inspiring getaway to the CLT, you could have a look at Community Land Trust Nederland and Community Land Trust Network. Within the webdocu of Collective Ownership, check out the rise of a CLT in de Bijlmer.

The book ‘Operatie Wooncoöperatie’ by Arie Lengkeek and Peter Kuenzli provides many examples from neighbouring countries and is therefore a good reference and manual book for housing cooperations.

The ‘Handboek Wooncoöperaties Amsterdam’ by Stichting !Woon offers many practical handles for (starting) housing cooperations.

Peeking over the border
In The Netherlands the housing cooperation is relatively new, but in a few neighbouring countries it has been a thing for longer now. In Munich, Vienna and Zurich, for example, are numerous housing cooperations, showing how nicely and affordable one can live in collective ownership. It also shows that both the citizens and the city profit from it. Perhaps and idea for your next trip?