CALICO is a cohousing project of 34 dwellings offering a generational and social mix and is developed within the common and anti-speculative framework of a “Community Land Trust”. We can find all cycles of life there thank to the birth and end-of-life facilities integrated in the building and open to the wider neighborhood.
An innovative community-based model of care, gender equality, empowerment of the residents and the integration within the neighborhood were put at the forefronts of CALICO.
Regional
Belgium
Brussels Capital Region
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
ERDF : European Regional Development Fund
Urban Innovative Actions - call 3 (2018)
No
Yes
2021-12-31
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Brussels Regional Public Service - Brussels Housing Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Gerd Last name of representative: Van Den Eede Gender: Male Nationality: Belgium Function: Deputy Secretary General Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Place Saint-Lazare 2 Town: Brussels Postal code: 1035 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 473 46 54 98 E-mail:gvandeneede@gob.brussels Website:http://logement.brussels
Name of the organisation(s): Community Land Trust Brussels Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Geert Last name of representative: Depauw Gender: Male Nationality: Belgium Function: Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Avenue de la Toison d’Or 72 Town: Saint-Gilles Postal code: 1060 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 487 68 75 19 E-mail:geert.depauw@cltb.be Website:http://cltb.be
Name of the organisation(s): Angela.D Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Isabelle Last name of representative: Glansdorff Gender: Female Nationality: Belgium Function: Administrator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: avenue de la Toison d'or 72 Town: Saint-Gilles Postal code: 1060 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 493 92 92 29 E-mail:admin@angela-d.be Website:https://angela-d.be
Name of the organisation(s): Vrije Universiteit Brussel Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Dr. Associate prof. Rector Jan Last name of representative: Danckaert Gender: Male Nationality: Belgium Function: Rector Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Boulevard de la Plaine 2 Town: Ixelles Postal code: 1050 Country: Belgium Direct Tel:+32 2 629 26 27 E-mail:an-sofie.smetcoren@vub.be
CALICO is a cohousing project of 34 dwellings offering a generational and social mix and is developed within the common and anti-speculative framework of a “Community Land Trust”. It also integrates an innovative community-based model of care. It is the result of a collaboration between different housing actors, local and regional authorities, and academic partners. The housing project is organized in 3 clusters:
- The “gender” cluster rents dwellings to older women and single mothers. The initiators and residents of this cluster are also responsible for putting gender issues at the center of our housing project through awareness-raising and training activities on gender equality issues;
- The "Community Land Trust" cluster sells dwellings to low-income families and rents to older people (+55yo) unable to obtain mortgages. They also provide two housing units dedicated to Housing First for homeless people ; On top of managing one housing cluster, the CLT also owns the land under the whole housing project, thus guaranteeing its permanent affordability
- The "care" cluster not only offers intergenerational cooperative dwellings, but also a birth and end-of-life facility, integrated within the housing clusters, that provides adequate spaces for people wishing to give birth or leave life in an empathetic and familiar environment. This cluster’s purpose is to create a benevolent living space in Brussels, open to its environment, designed to welcome anyone who wishes to live these «life passages» naturally, in harmony and in connection with others, accompanied by professionals and volunteers.
One common space is open to the residents and one is managed as a meeting place for people with mental health issues and where local initiatives are held, therefore CALICO will be a full-fledged player in the local urban fabric.
The multi-committee governance scheme of the project empowers the residents by putting them at the heart of the decision-making process.
Antispeculative
Neigbourhood
Life cycles
Gender
Care
- Land Stewardship as a guiding principle: One of the key ideas behind this project is the fact that it considers land as a common good. By separating ownership of the land from the ownership of the building, and by managing that land as a commons, the CLT model guarantees permanent affordability. The multi stakeholder governance model also guarantees the continued alignment of the use of land with the needs of future generations;
- Passive building and training: As of 2015, Brussels became the first region in the world to require the passive house standard for all new construction, thus contributing to a sharp decline in carbon emissions. However, studies have shown that very often, especially in social housing context, much of the energy gain is lost by an incorrect use of the building. That's why we organised several specific training sessions and tools to help the residents use their passive house technology in the most optimal way;
- Sharing as a way of life: the cohousing approach makes sharing easier. Residents started collecting food waste for organising a weekly community kitchen;
- Sustainable mobility: Bicycle lessons have been set up by CLTB residents in order to teach others, mainly migrant women, to use the bike;
- Community garden: the residents will be in charge of managing the community garden at the heart of the housing project;
- Workshops ecological painting: due to the very sharp timeline of the Urban Innovative Action-call that financed the project, we were constrained to buy a housing development that already received a building permit, and so it was not possible to have major influence on the building techniques. We could only decide over the finishing techniques. Workshops ecological painting have been organised with the residents.
The Community Land Trust Brussels developed an exemplary approach towards involving future residents in the design of its housing projects (empowerment). In the case of the CALICO project, it was impossible to fully apply this methodology, as the Urban Innovative Action program required the projects to be delivered within three years. In order to be able to deliver a housing project in this short deadline, we looked for a project in development that met enough requirements to turn it into the project we dreamed of, within the public procurement rules. After an intensive market exploration, analyses and evaluation, we selected the "les sources" project. The project is part of a larger housing development in the municipality of Forest. It is a high-quality residential building. The most interesting features to turn it into a vibrant cohousing project were the large semi-public porch at the center of it, leading to a community garden and creating access to one of the community spaces on the ground floor. Both the porch and the garden act as meeting places for the community.
Once we selected the building, we organised co-creation workshops with the (future) residents in order to adapt the existing project as much as possible to the needs of their cohousing project. As a result, we were able to transform two apartments into meeting spaces (one reserved for the residents, another one managed as a meeting place for people with mental health issues and activities open to the wider community), and two other apartments into the birth and end-of-life facilities. The results meet the needs of the community and are an example of how a classical housing project can be tweeked into a well-functioning cohousing project.
All 3 clusters have applied the CLTB-system, and that's co-design and participation with the residents with the objective of empowering them and involving them from day 1 in the decision-making process.
One of our main objectives is providing affordable and qualitative housing through the CLT-model, i.e. by separating the ownership of the land from the ownership of the bricks, as well as an anti-speculative resale formula.
The ownership of the bricks was conceded to 2 cooperatives for some of the rental dwellings. One of which is a residents’ cooperative in which the residents invest money to acquire shares (and thus become co-operators) and become tenants of the cooperative (in the interest of the general project’s sustainability).
Furthermore, specific measures have been taken to ensure an intergenerational and social mix of the residents. Due to the unequal access to affordable quality housing, we focus on three vulnerable groups in particular: older people, (single) women and people with a migratory background. These people face particular difficulties in finding affordable and quality housing due to socio-economic and health backgrounds. Two homes are also devoted to Housing First for the homeless.
Specific attention is also given to older people as they often prefer to ‘age in place’, although home environments in Brussels often do not match their needs. We want to contribute to care and wellbeing through the development of a ‘Community Care Model’. In response to the hyper-specialized and -sectorialised care in Belgium, CALICO joins a more general movement of ‘socialization’ of care, where care for people with health problems or disabilities is organised more within the neighbourhood (instead of within institutions), but also by (members of) the neighbourhood. The project puts community back at the center of the process of care of the different life stages. Thus, the role of volunteers, informal caregivers and living environment become more important.
Our project started as a bottom-up project. It builds on a citizens action in which Brussels activists and actors from civil society explored new ways of urban development and of building affordable housing, based on the principles of the commons.
These partners (including non-profit organisations and cohousing groups) reached out to the regional authorities as well as to academic partners to co-develop a project within the Urban Innovative Actions-call. They involved other associations and community groups from the surrounding neighbourhood in the development of the project. During thematical "strategic committees" organised in the development of the project, a wide range of peer organisations and experts were involved in co-construction of the care, gender and governance dimension of the project.
From the start of the project, the initiators of the three housing clusters set up an allocation process of the homes, in order to be able to involve the future residents as soon as possible in the project design.
A long series of co-design and training workshops with the future residents have been set up, both within the own cluster as with the three clusters together. In these workshops, decisions about the use and management of shared spaces, a community charter, a governance structure and a community care model have been designed. The residents are in charge of managing the building and sustaining community life.
Over the course of the project, the initial partnership has been widened. We entered a partnership with Rézone, a regional mental health network, who developed a “bonding space”, open space for anyone and conceived as a safe space for people with mental health issues. We started working with local neighbourhood committees, with organisations active in the field of soft mobility, community kitchens, and many more.
This approach will be the basis of a resilient community, able to sustainably manage the building and the community.
A wider group of stakeholders have been involved in the implementation phase. These stakeholders were public, private, associations or individuals.
- Local/regional associations: for example, social housing agency Logement Pour Tous has been added as a partner since we collaborated closely for the management of the rental dwellings. The Municipality of Forest and the Public Centre for Social Welfare of Forest have also given input in the implementation of the project, especially for the integration of two Housing First units.
We have also worked with associations active in the field of housing (Une Maison en Plus, who helped train our inhabitants in participative painting workshops and energy trainings), health (Forest Quartiers Santé, local food cooperatives), care (Miro service centre, Bras-dessus - Bras-dessous), urban development and neighbourhood life (EGEB, neighbourhood committees, GC Ten Weyngaert) and gender (Saint Antoine Community Centre)
• Regional and national organisations: Université des femmes, LOCI, le Monde selon les femmes (gender issues), RBDH, Samenhuizen, and Habitat et Participation (housing). Kenniscentrum WWZ and Sacopar (care), Semiramis, service soins palliatifs à domicile, Plateforme Sages-femmes Belges (birth and end-of-life facility), Sociale Innovatiefabriek and Coopcity (social innovation)
• European networks (Feantsa, Housing Europe, Community Led Housing network, SHICC, Eurocities, Housing Partnership of Urban Agenda, …) who helped us during the implementation of the project, but also in promoting our project.
Our project partner CLTB brought its knowledge and expertise in the social assistance of the (future) residents. They co-created a structure enabling the (future) residents to govern their co-housing. They not only worked within their proper cluster, but also with the clusters of project partners Angela.D and Pass-ages.
Angela.D on the other hand has the expertise in gender issues and developed a series of specific, gender-based governance and training tools for all clusters, including gender-based popular education and participatory methodologies, trainings on legal rights and obligations and co-living skills.
Our project partner Pass-ages invested their knowledge of care and developed and managed facilities for birth and end-of-life in a homelike environment.
They also developed a specific governance system, based on the quality of interhuman relations and create a warm and benevolent environment with a focus on the circle of life and the moments of passage at the beginning and the end of it, involving the residents of the cohousing project as caregivers in the birth and end-of-life facilities, alongside professional health and care workers.
Our other project partner, EVA bxl, who is a social innovator in the field of ageing, work and solidarity, worked closely together with the three clusters regarding the aspect of care. They led the co-creation with residents and other project partners of an intergenerational community based solidarity, with a focus on gender and cultural diversity.
The co-creation, on the one hand, with all project partners who come from very different backgrounds (grassroots organisations, public authorities, research centers,…), and on the other hand, with the (future) residents throughout the implementation of the project enriched our experience. We didn’t work in silos, but worked closely together via different committees and working groups.
The results of the project are numerous. First of all, it offered stable, affordable housing in a caring environment to 34 households, 2/3 of which are low-income. Inclusive and diverse, the project has also targeted specific needs of elderly, of single women and single mothers, or of homeless. The project is intergenerational (50% of the inhabitants are over 50) and multicultural (50% of the inhabitants have a foreign background).
Gender approach and care are at the heart of the design of the cohousing project. Indeed, most inhabitants access the project via a commitment to a feminist perspective and/or a voluntary commitment to care structures integrated into the housing. These original allocation procedures open up new perspectives for the definition of empowering public housing policy based on the support of community intentionalities.
The Care dimension is central to the project and its cohesion objectives. It materialised by the integration of a birth and End-of-Life facilities managed by the inhabitants as well as in the sharing of common space between inhabitants and to the neighbourhood, according to the model of an animated "open place”.
The real estate dimension of the project is also innovative, articulating on the one hand a land held in Community Land Trust thanks to a public support guaranteeing the anti-speculative and social character in the long term, and on the other hand constructions held by housing cooperatives ensuring a democratic management of the assets and an ethical financing. Finally, social management is guaranteed by Social Real Estate Agencies offering flexible management of social rented housing and grass-roots associations supporting community management of the project.
This multilayer governance opens up innovative perspectives for the design of a public land policy in favour of community-led housing projects on a European scale.
The innovation lies in the articulation of a mixed financing, governance scheme associating CLT, cooperatives, non-profits and residents, the legal framework for the CLT and the interaction with the neighborhood.
The innovation of the project lies mainly in the integrated approach it intends to implement. It aims to develop a new governance model for community-led housing. This new model should integrate issues of empowerment, social inclusion, gender equity, wellbeing and health care, intercultural dialogue, solidarity and community engagement, as well as sustainability issues by both guarantying a permanent affordability of the housing and collectively managing the land.
Though the CLT-model isn’t new, we’re providing an intergenerational mixture of owner-occupied and rental housing developed under innovative cooperative schemes.
In order to provide affordable and qualitative housing, not only the land, but also the collective spaces were purchased by the CLTBrussels, guaranteeing that the housing units stay permanently affordable.
The project also combines different forms of tenures. The units are made available on long-term leases to owner occupiers or rented mainly by vulnerable households. In the case of renting by households under the conditions of access to social housing, the rental management will be handled by the social rental estate agency (AIS) "Housing for all", partner of the project.
The rental units are owned and financed by an investment cooperative, but the care cluster housing units are owned by a cooperative that includes residents' shares in the financial scheme.
Beyond supervised access to decent housing, the project intends to support the emancipation of residents through participation processes and develop a real community care philosophy including services open to the wider neighborhood.
Incorporating birth and end-of-life facilities, and therefore encompassing the entire lifecycle, into a cohousing project is a world first.
CALICO employed a participatory model in both project implementation, as well as in monitoring and evaluation activities. In terms of M&E, this meant adopting participatory social-action methodology through several guiding principles:
- inclusion of participants (stakeholders, target group representatives) in research alongside researchers in design, conducting and assessment of results;
- focus on delivering practical solutions relevant to project objectives – in this case, improving living conditions of inhabitants;
- openness to diverse audiences and representatives of groups outside of the ‘usual suspects’, and attention to the role of power relationships amongst groups and actors;
- governance of the M&E process using deliberation and sociocratic techniques;
- appreciative inquiry, which means focus on strengths and opportunities, instead of problems and pitfalls.
In order to answer a broad and detailed list of research questions, CALICO used a number of data collection methods which provided both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators:
- ‘Hard’ indicators are quantitative data, generated by:
o Standardized questionnaires: surveys with residents in the beginning and the end of the project.
o Project monitoring: e.g. collecting number of participants in the different participatory sessions/meetings, residents’ database of the partners, specific project documentation.
- ‘Soft’ indicators are qualitative data, generated by:
o Focus group interviews: e.g. with representatives of project partners.
o Individual interviews: e.g. with (future) residents of CALICO, residents of the neighbourhood, project professionals, policymakers.
o Direct participation of researchers in project implementation committees.
o Document analysis: e.g. reports, financial and legal documents of the project.
A first initiatory report published in December 2019 provided the groundwork for the evaluation and
monitoring of the CALICO-project. A second report published in 2020 is a first evaluation report and can be considered as a descriptive and exploratory study. A final report will be published at the beginning of 2022.
Being funded by UIA, knowledge transfer, scaling-up and transferability are a requirement.
Therefore, we will disseminate the results, governance models and lessons learned to other European cities and supra-local governments, as well as the networks we are involved in. This dissemination will notably be supported by the SHICC EU partners to also reach their network.
The lessons learned will be of great value to all cities dealing with similar challenges. Scientific process and product evaluation and impact monitoring by the university VUB, will substantially enhance the credibility of the project’s outcomes. The dissemination of these results will support the development of future initiatives in Europe and around the world.
The main urban challenge we are faced with is a housing crisis that particularly affects vulnerable groups, such as low-income and/or single-parent families, migrants and (older) women. First of all, there's a lack of social housing (long waiting lists). But there's also low quality housing (many dwellings lack basic facilities) and an increase in real estate prices and rent. Often, households have to spend over 60% of their income on housing.
A second challenge is the housing situation and the quality of life of specific vulnerable groups. We are confronted with an ageing population that is increasingly in need of support and find themselves isolated. Seniors are motivated by policy to ‘‘age in place’’. Unfortunately, some home environments are unfavorable, because the “fit” or “liveability” does not match changing needs. Inadequate homes form a risk for the health, wellbeing, and the independence of older people.
Women, particularly older women, (the majority of the ageing population) face a higher risk of social isolation and poverty because of their low pensions.
Migrants are heavily discriminated in the private housing market.
Low-income families experience several challenges in the housing market. They are more present in disadvantaged neighborhoods, have a tendency to live in overcrowded housing, spend a high amount of their income on housing (at the cost of other expenses such as food, healthcare, education).
On top of that, these vulnerable groups are often excluded from decision-making processes within the public sphere, thus lacking the empowering potential of participation.
The final challenge is the need and strong focus on community care, which refers to a growing paradigm shift in which care for people in need becomes less institutionalised, and increasingly becomes the responsibility of civil society. The paradigm shift entails that care takes place within and by the community, as opposed to institutionalisation.
