Big crises call for bold ideas!
The housing crisis across our European continent keeps on getting worse, especially in cities. Every day, more people struggle to find or finance an affordable and suitable place to live. That’s affecting citizens, companies, and our society alike. One of the great promises of the EU - being able to live, love, learn, and work in different cities and potentially countries during our lifetime - it turns out to be more a theory than an actual opportunity for a growing majority.
As the worsening climate crisis is calling us to rethink how we build, live, and travel more sustainably anyway — it seems to be the right moment to tackle the housing crisis in a new, bold, and European way.
Dear Europeans, let’s team-up!
We live on a continent where we collectively have a great amount of financial resources available. We have countless existing buildings that could be revitalised or repurposed.
Across Europe, there are thousands of innovative companies that can and want to tackle the green transition of the built environment. And there are millions of citizens who are longing for a change of their housing situation in this very moment.
Imagining: a European Housing Cooperative
What could we create if we pool the energy, interests, hearts and resources of a lot of motivated citizens, impact driven companies, and impact investors together to form a European Housing Coop (EHC)?
And what could this pan-european organisation look like that would…
- partner up with existing local housing cooperatives and like-minded developers to help build more affordable and sustainable housing projects
- collectively source existing buildings that can be re-purposed and revitalised for housing and other usages that enrich the local neighbourhoods
- raise capital that’s focused entirely on developing more sustainable housing, while preventing land speculation
- create a network of houses in cities across Europe that are built, owned and used by the members of the EHC
- allow members to live and move in between places, cities and countries - whether they want to stay for a month - or for a lifetime
- leverage technology and innovative organisational approaches to make this ambitious adventure work in an effective and economically sustainable way
Let’s explore how we could make this happen - together!
Between May and July 2025, we will embark on a first open and collaborative exploration. We will gather online and offline in cities across the EU. We will imagine and iterate a potential scalable model and share key learnings along the way. And we will collectively figure out:
Does a pan-european approach to tackle the housing crisis seam to have strong merits for our target groups? Can we mobilise citizens, companies and capital alike? If we figure out that it makes sense to continue our exploration journey in the second half of 2025, we’ll work towards founding the European coop and kicking off the first (re)development projects in 2026!
Got interested?
Yay! ✨ On Friday, May 9th (🇪🇺 Europe Day), we'll start the exploration journey and publish the timeline for a series of open digital sessions and offline gatherings for you to participate and contributete.
To stay tuned, sign up to our newsletter and let us know your potential interest in the EHC. Follow us on LinkedIn. And please reach out if you have any questions or want to say Hi 👋🏻!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead)
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