Cohousing as a Solution to High Housing Costs and Social Isolation

In a piece for Strong Towns, Emma Avery describes the potential of ‘cohousing:’ housing arrangements with shared amenities that bring down housing costs for residents and create more opportunities for social interactions.

Residents of cohousing projects, Avery explains, “own their private units, but share extensive common spaces. They commit to regular community activities, like meals, and manage the building together.”

Avery highlights an example from Vancouver, where a group of residents joined with a local developer to build their dream communal community. “Over several years, Happy Cities worked with Our Urban Village (formerly called Tomo House) and the design team to help create a super social building — and then to measure whether residents really did feel more connected after moving into their new home.” Results from resident surveys showed a dramatic reduction in loneliness and isolation and an increase in social connections between neighbors.

Noting the barriers to building this type of housing model, Avery argues that cities should make it easier to develop cohousing. “This means offering public land for affordable, socially connected housing; legalizing more density citywide; providing incentives to encourage social design features and offset the costs; and more.” Bringing social connection back into housing developments and neighborhoods can create more sustainable development patterns, help address the housing crisis, and alleviate the growing ‘loneliness epidemic.’