What does housing have to do with peace?
Each year, the International Day of Cooperatives celebrates the contribution of cooperatives to tackling global challenges.
This year’s theme, “Cooperatives for a Peaceful World”, recognises that peace is built not only through diplomacy, but also through strong institutions, participation, inclusion and trust.
At first glance, housing may not be the sector most closely associated with peace.
Yet adequate housing is one of the foundations of stable communities. A secure home creates the conditions for participation, social cohesion and long-term investment in neighbourhoods. Housing cooperatives go one step further by giving residents a direct voice in the decisions that shape where they live.
As the cooperative movement highlights in its SDG 16 Brief, cooperatives act as “schools of democracy”, strengthening participation, accountability and inclusion through everyday practice.
Housing Europe and Cooperative Housing International (CHI) work closely together to promote and strengthen cooperative housing in Europe and globally. This year’s International Day of Cooperatives provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution of housing cooperatives across our network.
Below, discover how housing cooperatives are putting these values into practice.
Having a voice
🇮🇪 Ireland | Building confidence, connection and belonging
Helping residents lead their communities
Participation does not look the same in every community. Across Co‑operative Housing Ireland’s estates, Member Tenants experience different levels of engagement, and some face barriers such as low confidence, limited skills or previous negative experiences that can make it harder to get involved.
To respond to this, Co‑operative Housing Ireland has developed a structured and inclusive approach that creates accessible, Member Tenant-led pathways for people to connect, organise and shape their communities. Its Community Engagement Team delivers a flexible, strengths-based model tailored to local needs, centred on trust, relationships and inclusion. Engagement can begin in many different ways: through surveys and meetings, or through informal activities such as litter picks, which create simple and accessible opportunities for people to meet and take part.
National initiatives, including a book club, creative writing and training, offer interest-based routes into wider participation. At the same time, Member Tenants are supported to lead the process themselves, building skills in leadership and governance. In 2025, 17 Member Associations accessed the Community Fund, helping to strengthen community cohesion and reduce isolation. Clear progression pathways and peer learning further support people to stay involved and grow their confidence.
By creating inclusive routes into participation, Co‑operative Housing Ireland is helping Member Tenants build stronger communities — rooted in confidence, connection and belonging.
- Read more about housing cooperatives in Ireland: https://www.cooperativehousing.ie/newsroom/latest-stories
🇪🇸 Spain | Protocol against Gender-Based and LGBTIQ-Phobic Violence
Safe participation starts at home
Safe, democratic communities are built when everyone can participate, be heard and feel respected.
Sostre Cívic has developed a Plan and Protocol for the prevention and response to gender-based and LGBTIQ-phobic violence within the cooperative. The protocol applies both in the workplace and across its right-of-use cooperative housing communities, reflecting the organisation’s commitment to embedding a feminist and LGBTIQ+ perspective into everyday governance.
It combines measures for prevention, detection and response with dedicated structures, including a Protocol Committee, designated reference persons, and care and coexistence committees within individual housing communities. These committees help strengthen each community’s capacity to prevent conflicts, identify situations of violence and respond collectively, respectfully and restoratively. In a right-of-use housing model, people do not simply access a home: they actively build and care for a community together. This makes safety, inclusion and democratic participation essential parts of cooperative living.
By creating tools to prevent violence and support respectful coexistence, Sostre Cívic shows that safe homes are also the foundation of strong cooperative communities.
Becoming a community
🇦🇹 Austria | Diversity in Housing
Creating spaces for dialogue
True community spirit starts in the places people share every day.
Through its Diversity in Housing project in Gratwein, the Styrian initiative zusammen>wohnen< (“living together”) shows how architectural diversity, targeted support and community facilitation can help transform anonymous housing complexes into vibrant neighbourhoods.
Instead of leaving residents and property managers to deal with the challenges of living together on their own, the project focuses from the outset on proactive communication and structured dialogue. This helps prevent conflicts before they escalate and creates space for trust, cooperation and mutual understanding.
Community gardens play a central role. As neutral, shared spaces, they bring together neighbours of different ages and backgrounds, encouraging them to meet, collaborate and take collective responsibility for their surroundings. These everyday encounters help reduce anonymity and strengthen the foundations for a functioning, welcoming community.
Communities flourish when neighbours have opportunities to meet, listen and shape the places they share together.
🇸🇪 Sweden | Door Openers
Tackling loneliness, one neighbour at a time
Strong communities are built through everyday gestures of care.
Loneliness is one of Sweden’s most significant social challenges today. According to Sweden’s Public Health Agency, 41% of all households are made up of people living alone — and many people lack someone to talk to or experience social isolation.
Through the Door Openers initiative, HSB Norr aims to create a grassroots movement that fosters greater social connection and reduces loneliness in housing communities. A Door Opener is someone who goes the extra mile for others: holding the door open, waiting for a neighbour in the lift, showing consideration, inviting someone in, or simply being open to new people and new perspectives.
These may seem like small gestures, but together they help create a stronger sense of safety and belonging among residents. They encourage inclusion, help break isolation and can open the door to new friendships. To spread the message, HSB Norr has developed an inspiration platform for housing associations and property owners, encouraging more people to become Door Openers in their own communities.
Sometimes the first step towards a stronger community is as simple as opening a door for someone else.
Acting together
🇩🇰 Denmark | Private cooperative housing in Copenhagen is working together to make their local area greener
Greening neighbourhoods together
Sometimes, community starts with planting a flower, building a bird box, or simply sitting down together in the street to imagine what the neighbourhood could become.
On Fensmarkgade, in Copenhagen’s Nørrebro district, eleven private cooperative housing associations have joined forces with residents, student housing and local partners through the Green Street initiative. Their shared goal is to make the local area greener, more biodiverse and more welcoming — while strengthening the community that lives there.
As part of the project, residents of all ages take part in hands-on activities along Fensmarkgade. Children help build bird boxes, while adults paint signs for future flower beds that will bring more colour and life to the street. Passers-by are also invited to sit down, hear more about the ideas for the area, and follow how the project is developing.
The initiative is also part of the annual Fensmarkgade street festival, where the project is presented to the wider local community. The festival creates an open and welcoming space for conversation, participation and neighbourly exchange — showing how residents can actively help shape the place they call home. Plans for the area include larger, flower-filled street beds, climbing plants on building walls, bird boxes and other measures to create better living conditions for both people and wildlife.
Greening a street is also about growing a community — one where shared action creates stronger connections between neighbours and a healthier environment for all.
Powering the energy transition through cooperation
The energy transition is not only about technology. It is also about how communities organise, share resources and make decisions together.
The Coop4PEDs project is exploring how local communities, organised through cooperative models, can help create Positive Energy Districts: neighbourhoods that produce, share and manage clean energy and mobility resources collectively. At the heart of the project is the idea of energy commons — energy systems based on local solidarity, shared governance and social equity, rather than purely market-driven or top-down approaches.
In Austria, the Vienna pilot is led by the non-profit housing cooperative Altmannsdorf Hetzendorf through the Laxenburger Straße project. The aim is to transform a typical post-war housing neighbourhood of around 500 flats into a fully decarbonised, cooperative Positive Energy District.
The model is also being tested in Urban Living Labs in Malmö, Sweden, where a community of 1,100 homes is focused on shared economy and urban farming, and in Surbo, Italy, where residents are building a Renewable Energy Community in public housing to help combat energy poverty. By turning real neighbourhoods into learning spaces, Coop4PEDs aims to develop planning tools and policy recommendations for cooperative Positive Energy Districts across Europe.
The project shows that a fair energy transition depends not only on clean technology, but on cooperation, solidarity and leaving no one behind.
Watch this space, more stories might come!
You missed the International Day of Cooperatives? You can still share your stories with out colleague at andreea.nacu@housingeurope.eu.
Explore more:
- 🌍 Official International Day of Cooperatives campaign – Learn more about this year’s theme, Cooperatives for a Peaceful World, and discover resources from the International Cooperative Alliance.
- 🎥 Building Peace Through Cooperative Housing: Webinar on The Law on Cooperative Housing – Discover how cooperative housing can strengthen democratic governance, social cohesion and human rights through the International Legal Research and Action Initiative (ILRAI). Watch the recording here.
- 🏗️See how housing cooperatives in Germany approach serial revonations in this recent interview.