Support collective housing ownership

👉🏽 This story is developed as part of the Doughnut Economics for Policymakers guide.

Governments can make housing more accessible and affordable by supporting collectively owned or managed housing. Many countries provide financial support such as subsidies, tax incentives and grants. They also put legal frameworks in place that ensure collective rights and responsibilities, as well as access to land and technical assistance. Evidence shows housing cooperatives offer significantly more affordable housing with improved quality of life and stronger communal bonds. 

Overview

To make rental markets fairer and housing more accessible, many governments support collectively owned or managed housing like housing cooperatives, where residents collectively make decisions and manage their properties by sharing responsibilities and costs. Some examples include: 

• Financial access and support: The Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Sweden and Uruguay offer subsidies and tax incentives to housing cooperatives. Denmark and Zurich (Switzerland) provide low-interest loans. Germany, the UK and Norway offer grant programmes. Uruguay provides multiple financial options to make cooperatives more inclusive, allowing members to either contribute working hours towards construction or capital investment towards government-subsidised mortgages. Most countries also offer subsidies for monthly expenses to lower-income cooperative members.
• Legal frameworks: Uruguay, Sweden and Norway have made cooperative housing a legally protected tenure option with laws clearly defining cooperatives’ rights and responsibilities. Denmark regulates share prices and rent levels to ensure fairness in relation to expenses, while Quebec and the Netherlands have passed laws that restrict the conversion of cooperative housing into individual property.
• Access to land and buildings: Austria and Italy sell public land to housing cooperatives at lower prices, while Uruguay and multiple German cities have implemented tender processes that evaluate social and ecological criteria. Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Zurich lease government land at favourable conditions. The UK had programmes to transfer private and publicly owned housing to cooperatives, including management of social housing. Denmark and the Netherlands also reserve land in new building projects for cooperative or common housing.
• Technical assistance: Austria offers administrative assistance for cooperatives receiving financial support. The Netherlands and England have support centres and groups for community-led housing projects. Uruguay and Quebec (Canada) require housing cooperative projects to use technical support institutes, which are easily accessible with capped costs. 

Implementation

In practice, governments often encourage a mixture of public, non-profit, private, and collectively owned housing to ensure accessibility and affordability.

Both national and local governments can support collectively owned and managed housing. Local governments may complement supportive national policies — or step in where national policy is absent or housing markets are especially pressured. Wide public support and strong resident demand are often key in prompting governments to act on collective housing options.

The most effective approach integrates cooperative housing support into wider policies and strategies while providing a wide range of complementary support, as Uruguay's long-running cooperative housing programme demonstrates.

Impacts

Housing cooperatives offer significantly more affordable living through their membership-based model, where contributions are pooled to cover costs. Research shows residents also benefit from improved quality of life - including greater self-determination, reduced loneliness, lower crime rates, and long-term security - alongside high life satisfaction and stronger communal bonds.

Supportive government policies are critical in enabling collective housing ownership and management. In Uruguay, active government support has built a network of around 2,200 cooperatives housing around 5% of households. Denmark saw significant cooperative growth after establishing favourable policies in the 1970s. In the UK, half of all housing cooperatives were established during the lifetime of a dedicated Cooperative Housing Agency. In Zurich, supportive policies have resulted in 20% of residents living in cooperatives.

Challenges

• Structural market barriers: Strengthening cooperatives is often insufficient to solve housing crises. Governments must also address extractive practices of profit-maximising housing corporations that control the majority of housing markets. 
• Supply-demand mismatch: Because collectively owned housing offers significantly lower rent, demand often exceeds supply, resulting in long waiting times that limit accessibility.
• Administrative complexity: Complex bureaucratic procedures often make establishing housing cooperatives onerous and lengthy, deterring potential formation and slowing expansion.
• Awareness and knowledge gaps: The public often lacks knowledge of existing housing cooperatives and how to access them, creating barriers for people who might otherwise choose collective options. 

Reference and further reading

• The report International policies to promote cooperative housing authored by Carles Baiges, Mara Ferreri and Lorenzo Vidal (2019), including case studies and practical examples.
• The Law on Cooperative Housing: Global analysis by Cooperative Housing International and International Cooperative Alliance.
• Learning from Zurich and its housing cooperatives: The Guardian (2025).
• Overview of Housing Cooperatives in different European Countries by Housing Europe (2025).
• Scientific article on Public Cooperative Housing Policies in international comparison (2019).

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