In Search of Fair and Collaborative Housing Models for the Italian Context

Collaborative housing is an emerging, but still marginal phenomenon, especially in the Global South, that concerns also the Italian territory, where the first co-housing project initiatives emerged during the first decade of 2000s. They represent an alternative housing response derived by pressing economic issues exacerbated by the commodification of the building stocks process and its peak with the 2008’s subprime mortgage crisis (Rolnik, 2019), but also by the quest for a different lifestyle and the need for community and mutual care, no more fulfilled by the shrinked welfare state provision or traditional family networks. The present research offers a frame on the Italian situation concerning alternative housing models, such as collaborative, community-led, co-housing,filling a gap of knowledge of the phenomenon in this specific geographical context. The data were obtained from direct sources, such as interviews to inhabitants, field trips as well as from bibliographical sources . At date, Italy, in spite of its long tradition of housing cooperatives, workers' mutual support, deregulated since the 1980s, counts a total of 28 new initiatives. These are still the result of the civic will of small groups of citizens who encounter many difficulties during the production process with a high rate of failure, worsened by the lack of specific legislation or community networks. However, some public administrations such as Milan, Bologna, Trento and Turin started to produce tools and projects to support collaborative housing models. The aim of this study is to provide a picture of the state of the art of housing alternatives in Italy, as it is a growing trend , and to outline the future prospects in this context.