Cooperative housing - part socialism, part capitalism

 

Hi Weed and Marnie,

I finally got to listen to Marnie's housing podcast, thanks to Weed's help. I thoroughly enjoyed listening, and I feel it manages to capture the spirit of those long ago times living on Eel Pie Island in the deserted hotel! We all sound far more articulate than anticipated, likely due to Marnie's commentary and careful editing  ; )-

Regarding alternative housing, when I returned to Canada I lived in shared houses, first with other members of the defunct Canadian Liberation Movement, and then with comrades from that organization. One of my room mate comrades, Tom, went on to become the head of The Cooperative Housing Federation of Ontario.

I don't know if you have housing coops in the UK, but they are an excellent type of alternative housing. I lived in the Dentonia Park Housing Coop in east end Toronto for 6 1/2 years after coordinating renting a house and sharing it with room mates. I'm unsure of the financing for the coop I lived in, I believe it was built by a private developer, Lantana Associates, with public subsidies. The deal was that we paid rent below market rate in exchange for self-managing the buildings and grounds. I lived in a bachelor apartment in a low storey, 3 level apartment building with approx. 28 units. The rest of the coop consisted of 2, 3, and 4 bedroom townhouses, which were very nice, far nicer than the bachelor and 1 bedroom apartments in the building. This would have been from about 1979 to 1985, when I bought a semi-detached house in the rough part of Toronto's east end abutting Little India.

So far as I know, Tom is still the head of the CHFO, half a century on. The various levels of Canadian government stopped encouraging the construction of coop housing many decades ago, although a few still get built sporadically. Tom's analysis is that the coops were TOO successful, and took away renters from the private sector. I know of many other Torontonians who lived in coop housing for several years until they were able to afford to buy houses. All my progressive friends were initially very negative when I decided to buy a house, as they considered it a sellout to capitalism. I countered this argument by saying that socialism is the workers owning the means of production, so shouldn't working people also own their houses, rather than making landlords rich. Many of my former comrades eventually went the same route as I did, and lived in a housing coop, saved the down payment for a house, and then bought. Several have actually thanked me for showing them the way to financial and housing security in their old age.    

peace, love and secure housing!
Canadian Chris