Community-led housing is a movement that involves communities taking ownership of local housing problems and leading the design and delivery of new housing that meets their needs. The approach is increasingly recognised as a viable and sustainable response to the challenges of providing affordable housing.
Community-led groups that own or manage assets such as property, known as community hubs, tend to be highly attuned and responsive to local need, adept at building networks, engaging local people in design and delivery of local projects, and building trust and goodwill. Crucially, management of property and other assets provides community-led groups with significant revenue streams that reduce dependency on grants and donations (see Traynor and Simpson 2020).
As well as providing sustainability and reducing the need for charitable or public funding, community-led housing groups can reinvest surplus funds into community activities and enterprises, which in turn leads to improvements in community bonding, health and wellbeing, improving quality of life and reducing resilience to infection.
There is no one set model for community-led housing. Projects can be established as housing co-ops, community land trusts (CLTs), tenant management organisations (TMOs), co-housing, community self-build schemes or self-help housing groups that retrofit empty homes, and approaches vary across different countries.
Community-led housing means:
(1) quality, secure and affordable homes in the areas where they are needed
(2) better community health, wellbeing and resilience
(3) profits are reinvested in community activities and enterprise
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