During the International Social Housing Festival in Lyon, on 5 June (14.00 – 17.30) – European collaborative housing day – MOBA Housing Network and urbaMonde organise together a round table and workshop “(Re)inventing the culture of finance for collaborative housing and city-making”.
MOBA Housing Network, La Borda Housing Cooperative, HSB, ABZ, Affordable Housing Institute, FMDV, Housing Europe, World Habitat, UrbaMonde
ROUNDTABLE & DISCUSSION One of the main obstacles for creating and scaling permanently affordable and community-led housing is the lack of financial resources for these initiatives. This roundtable will look on what we understand by “enabling frameworks” and in which ways they determine future permanent affordability and accessibility of housing, and analyse the financial needs of collaborative and cooperative housing projects that are not being met. A particular focus will be given to the Central and South-Eastern European context and European-level finance. Speakers will include established cooperative housing networks, larger commercial and non-commercial (EU-level) financial actors who have an interest in entering this field of housing-related investment, alternative banks and funders with experience in financing this niche sector, as well as project initiators that have overcome barriers to finance their projects by establishing partnerships at different levels and combining funding sources.
WORKSHOP The roundtable will be followed by a workshop, which will focus on Central and South-Eastern Europe – particularly case studies from Hungary and Serbia, which are part of the MOBA Housing Network. MOBA was launched in 2017 as a collaboration of emerging cooperative housing initiatives from Belgrade, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague and Zagreb. MOBA aims to bridge the gap between housing needs and housing finance in this part of Europe, which is facing the absolute lack of social housing, by creating channels for affordable financing – construction, purchase and repurposing of buildings – for a new generation of housing cooperatives. The initiative of transforming MOBA into a European Cooperative Society as a financial intermediary for cooperative housing initiatives in the