CCH Bulletin Summer 2000
England & Community Empowerment - a long way behind
England is a long way behind the rest of the world when it comes to community empowerment. This was the overwhelming conclusion of the recent International conference on housing co-ops hosted jointly by the CCH and the Scottish Community Ownership Housing Forum in Glasgow.
Nearly 150 delegates attended the conference. Bringing delegates from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland together with housing co-operators from all over the world, the conference clearly demonstrated the important role the housing co-operative model has played throughout the world and how democratic and neighbourhood control is the norm in so many other areas of the world.
[Picture caption] A truly international conference: (from left to right) Dr Claus Hachmann (International Co-operative Alliance Housing Ctte.), Nic Bliss (CCH), Jens Heiser (President, ICA Housing Ctte.), Kirtee Shah (ICA), Isabel Dunsmuir (Scottish Community Ownership Housing Federation), Alexandra Wilson (ICA) Lord Graham (UKCC Chairman), Thomas Müller (Freishole Housing Co-op, Germany), Per Eggum Mauseth (ICA), David Dickman (CEO, UKCC)
The conference heard speakers from Norway, Canada, India and Germany discussing the strength of the housing co-operative movements in their respective countries. Jens Heiser, President of the International Co-operative Alliance Housing Committee, summed up the feelings of many delegates, responding to a session entitled "Will the millennium be co-operative?" that "it has to be". The isolation of the English housing sector was borne out by Joseph Rowntree Foundation Director Richard Best's oft-repeated (but nevertheless particularly poignant) anecdote about how Danish housing professionals have been heard to ask "is it true that there are people on the Boards of English Housing Associations who aren't tenants?"
[Picture caption] Phil Welsh of West Whitlawburn Housing Co-op shares a joke with Terry Edis of Burrowes St. Co-op, Richard Horsman of DETR, Isabel Dunsmuir (SCOHF) and our Nic Bliss.
However, perhaps the most remarkable comparison lies between Scotland and England. The conference heard from David Orr, Director of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, who was proud to state that over half of his members are tenant-controlled (and over half of them are co-operative), and that this tenant control has been the defining feature in housing in Scotland. Visits to West Whitlawburn Housing Co-op (where the first day of the conference was hosted) and several other tenant control projects in and around Glasgow confirmed the strength of tenant control in Scotland.
The conference, in common with previous CCH & SCOHF conferences, provided the usual and critically important opportunities for networking and socialising between housing co-operators. Questions are still be asked about the Northern Irish delegate who "found" a co-operator in her bed, the almost legendary feats on the dance floor by the director of one of the service agencies, the Birmingham delegate who got "left behind", and the conflict that was only narrowly averted when the winning quiz team was disqualified!
[Picture caption] Kirtee Shah describes the huge scale of the Indian Housing Co-op movement.
The conference concluded in a perhaps strangely titled debate that "there is no future for landlords". Possibly wishful thinking, but the substance of the debate centred around the contention that until the UK's public housing policy is centred on tenancy rights that are guaranteed through democratic resident membership of housing organisations rather than through arcane tenant/landlord arrangements, we will not live in a civilised democratic society.
However, perhaps the most poignant moment came in Canadian speaker Alexandra Wilson's address, when she encapsulated the spirit and raison d'etre of co-operation in the following quote from a Canadian housing co-operator who uses a wheelchair:
"After five years of having to put up with almost inaccessible housing, I finally found a place in which I can use my abilities. Coming into a co-operative was, however, the real bonus. In most instances, I have found friends and neighbours expressing an attitude of understanding, rather than pity. Encouragement, help and respect, rather than protection and condescension. Interest and co-operation rather than mere tolerance. I have people who trust in me as a full-fledged member - a human being who can contribute to the health of our community. I feel that my abilities, rather than my disabilities, are the focus of my being here."
"This", Alexandra continued, "is an appropriate metaphor for the empowering influence of co-operatives generally. No matter how much interest other forms of social housing may show in tenant participation, only housing co-operatives put tenants fully in charge, shifting the emphasis away permanently from the disadvantage that previously marginalized them in society to their ability to exert effective control over their environment and their lives."
[Picture caption] Per Eggum Mauseth astounded the conference with his description of the huge success of the Norwegian Housing Co-op Movement where over 20% of their housing stock is run by co-operatives.
