‘Struggles and initiatives focused on the right to housing have a lot to learn from existing efforts to confront institutional barriers or to transform them. Potential opportunities of commoning and collaboration in community-led demands for housing arise today in Europe, as this timely and inspiring collection shows. And their contribution to the development of grassroots housing models is invaluable.’
– Stavros Stavrides, Emeritus Professor of Architectural Design and Theory, National Technical University of Athens; Author of Common Space: The City as Commons

‘This volume offers a comprehensive, insightful, and timely account of Europe’s grassroots housing movements, shedding light on their organisational diversity, transnational solidarities and innovative non-speculative models. Collectively, they advance critical pathways toward sustainable, community-oriented housing provision.’
– Darinka Czischke, Associate Professor in Housing and Social Sustainability, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

‘This key volume examines grassroots, community-led housing models across Europe, showing how translocal networks advance affordability, sustainability, and community resilience. The book is essential reading for understanding housing as a communal right and resource, offering practical insights and inspiring directions for socio-ecological transformation and the future of housing.’
–Yuri Kazepov, Professor of Urban Sociology, University of Vienna

‘This timely anthology on community-led housing arrives at a critical juncture. As housing, climate, and social crises converge while internationalism erodes, the book reveals how translocal networks teach cooperation through practice, advance socio-ecological transformation across borders, and build solidarity infrastructures challenging commodification. Essential reading for those building alternatives when cooperation is under threat.’
–Yiorgos Papamanousakis, Programme Lead - Community Led Housing, World Habitat

Preface
Julie LaPalme, Guido Schwarzendahl


Grassroots housing models in Europe — debates and the potential of translocal networks. An introduction
Corinna Hölzl


Part I Grassroots housing production in Europe: National and local similarities and differences

1 Zagreb and Vienna — 7,681 affordable housing units: Revisiting large-scale not-for-profit housing provision
Iva Marcetic, Gabu Heindl

2 Community-led housing in England: Emergence, growth and prospects
David Mullins, Tom Archer, Tom Moore

3 The transformative role of institutional capabilities. The diffusion of the community land trust model in Belgium between community agency and political will
Verena Lenna, Nele Aernouts

4 Between provision and self-determination: New forms and networks of self-governance in public and collectively-owned housing in Germany.
Bettina Barthel,Anna Heilgemeir

5 Housing co-operatives in Italy: A discontinuous tradition amid crisis and re-emerging public-co-operative synergies
Silvia Cafora, Rossella Ferro

6 Collaborative housing in the Czech Republic: Focusing on the layers of obduracy
Tomáš Horení Samec, Petr Kodenko Kubala, Václav Orcígr, Jan Malý Blažek


Part II Translocal networks, institutions and solidarity

7 Advocating housing politics transnationally and translocally
Johanna Hoerning, Florin Keuneke

8 The emergence of student housing cooperatives in the UK: Grassroots activism, trans-local networks and situational challenges
Anke Schwittay

9 The NETCO collaborative housing network. European cities: Practicing, cooperating and recommending
Michael LaFond

10 Community-led housing as an opportunity for development and growing together in Europe. A call for civil society financing instruments and more public support
Rolf Novy-Huy

11 Engaging with EU funding: How the Global Ecovillage Network leverages projects in Europe
André de Freitas Girardi, Ana Margarida Esteves

12 Transnational pathways – Taking the CLT framework from place to place to transform structures and debates on land ownership
Sabine Horlitz, Corinna Hölzl


Part III Conversations with and about transnational grassroots networks

13 The CoHabitat Network: Connecting civil society around community-led housing across the globe. In conversation with urbaMonde
Corinna Hölzl, Sascha Rentzsch, Pierre Arnold

14 ‘We need to mainstream the alternatives’ – In conversation about transnational financial instruments and legal forms to allow for new housing cooperatives in Europe
Corinna Hölzl, Sascha Rentzsch, Ana Džokic, Goran Jeras, Knut Höller, Peter Kämmerling

15 The European Student Cooperative Housing Alliance: A conversation about growing student housing cooperatives
Anke Schwittay, Scott Jennings, Jens-Uwe Köhler, Léa Oswald


Conclusion: Contemporary character of community-led housing and the capacities of translocal networks
Corinna Hölzl