A soft rebellion is slowly being organized in the housing world against real estate speculation and the atomization of communities. Cohousing is based on a simple observation: everyone shares the same need for housing, but everyone fulfills it, very often, alone on their side. This model refuses this fatality and believes, on the contrary, that unity is strength in terms of housing.
In this “third way” which germinated in Denmark 60 years ago before quickly spreading to Europe, each household has its own private residence, but all also enjoy common spaces, which promote encounters. Unlike traditional co-ownership, co-housing encourages the collectivization of goods and tasks in order to create cohesive neighborhoods, united around an environment to which the whole community contributes willingly.
French law defines cohousing as “a group of households pooling their resources to design, build and finance their housing together, within a collective building”.
The pioneer in this field, baptized Cohabitat Québec, was born in the national capital in 2013. Today, it brings together 42 households in what Mayor Régis Labeaume enthusiastically described at the time as “the quintessence of Diversity “.
A domain for the price of a bungalow
The second cohousing in the province is slowly emerging in Neuville, a rural village located just west of Quebec. At the moment, 10 households live there, soon to be completed by an 11e and a 12e, expected in the coming months.
At Cohabitat Neuville, everyone owns their own house and a plot of just three meters around it. Beyond this small private plot begins the collective space, a huge estate overlooking the river with, in the center, a heritage house serving as a common room with its large table near the fireplace for shared meals. As a bonus, the land also has a forest, an orchard and a commercial maple grove, which still gives off the sweet aromas of last spring.
Alone, no household could have afforded this idyllic land. Together, however, the unattainable became accessible: each acquired part of the estate for $120,000 before building their homes there. Each owner spent, in all and for all, between $300,000 and $400,000 to establish themselves at the estate.
“We checked: that’s roughly what it costs to buy a bungalow with a small yard in the region,” explains Jean Nolet, instigator of the project with his spouse, Hélène Filteau. Setting foot in Cohabitat Neuville is also a bit like setting foot in the dream that this trained social worker has long cherished: to live a less consumerist life, where mutual aid and benevolence would take precedence over everyone for self.
“We live in cities where we barely know our neighbors, where everyone hears everyone else’s mower because everyone has their own mower,” she laments. We wanted to get out of individualism to rediscover a bit of the village spirit that once encouraged community life. »
Cohabitat Neuville currently has 30 people, 22 adults and 8 children. One group takes care of the garden, the other entertains the youngest. If someone prefers to clear snow, another is more busy cooking up meals for the neighborhood. The place embodies the motto made famous by the novelist Alexandre Dumas: “one for all and all for one”.
The community is governed by sociocracy, a model where “there is not a single person who leads, explains Daniela Moisa, professor at UQAR specializing in alternative living arrangements, but where everyone has an equal role. in decision-making”.
The children, in this shared environment, could not ask for better, according to Hélène Filteau. Between the friends who are at the next door, the twenty adults who watch over them and their huge playground, boredom, she continues, finds its way into their childhood with difficulty.
Each owner also agrees to abide by specific rules that will set the sale price of his residence upon departure. The goal: to moderate speculation and promote long-term anchoring within the group.
Headwinds
In Denmark, more than 50,000 people now live in cohousing, or about 1.5% of the population. In the United States, 165 models of the genre have taken root, and 140 more are in the boxes. Quebec, for the moment, has only two.
The establishment of cohousing is still complex here. This model of housing frightens banking institutions: only the solidarity economy fund accepts, for the moment, to finance them. Any cohousing project also requires raising a large sum to acquire land. In the case of Cohabitat Neuville, Jean Nolet and Hélène Filteau had to invest their life savings to buy the land in the hope that other households would come, in turn, to contribute.
“Financing a strange project like this is not easy, explains Jean Nolet, because it doesn’t tick any boxes. It was, moreover, the cross and the banner to unearth insurance. He admits it himself: without his well-stocked contact book, he would probably never have been able to find.
Elsewhere in the world, explains Gabrielle Anctil, author of Stay at the same addressa book published this month on the forms of collective housing emerging in Quebec, the authorities are nevertheless dusting off their regulatory framework to encourage the proliferation of cohousing.
“In Denmark, Germany, France or Belgium, for example, governments facilitate the establishment of this type of housing. Banks also see cohousing as an advantage, since people pay for their property before the first shovelfuls the ground. »
In Quebec, the government does not provide any assistance to promote the emergence of this model, which nevertheless responds effectively to several contemporary problems, such as loneliness or soaring real estate prices.
“Pooling resources also saves a lot of money,” adds Gabrielle Anctil, herself a resident of a collective dwelling in Montreal for nearly 15 years. In the past, mutual aid worked miracles: now you have to pay for help with homework, pay for childcare, pay for a plumber, and so on. The nuclear family that succeeds is the one that is well off, the one that can afford the services that the community once provided for free. »
The movement is slowly gaining ground in Quebec. In Frelighsburg, the Nidazo is taking shape. In Montreal, the construction of a first cohousing should begin this summer in Lachine. The Village Urbain organization is leading the project and it is already dreaming of setting up another one in the northern crown of Montreal.
“We have no choice but to think about our housing in a more collective way, believes Estelle Le Roux, the general manager of this NPO, whose mission is to systematize cohousing. Municipalities clearly have a role to play in facilitating land acquisition. If we had privileged access to land, that would make all the difference for us, because we cannot compete with the private sector on equal terms. »
However, the rise of cohousing is facing a major obstacle: the authorities’ ignorance of it. “I was at the housing summit in September and I didn’t see any presentation on cohousing,” says Daniela Moisa. It was very telling: the majority of people were private investors, the very people who perpetuate the real estate speculation that affects Quebec a lot, a lot. »