A transformative meeting showcasing the power of collective housing in addressing urban poverty in Asia and beyond

Under the slogans "People are the solution & Together we CAN !", our partners from the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) and the Community Architects Network (CAN) held their annual regional meeting in Bangkok, Thailand from June 27 to July 4. Our project managers Léa Oswald and Nina Quintas were there to witness the inspiring collective movement ever growing in Asia !

The first part of the meeting gathered representatives of ACHR’s member organisations from 15 Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) for four days of internal exchanges and discussions in preparation for the international conference “Collective Housing : let people be the solution !”. This major event was to be held for another 4 days, gathering in total more than 150 representatives of civil society organisations, grassroots communities (mainly women community-leaders ! 💜), local and national governments, international institutions and universities from all over the world, including Africa and Latin America.

This meeting was organised by ACHR with 10 partners from Thailand and beyond, including urbaMonde, and was hosted by the Thai Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) at the United Nations Conference Center.

Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Switzerland, Thailand, India & Puerto Rico teams
Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Thailand, Namibia & Kenya teams
Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Indonesia, Bangladesh & Mongolia teams

The conference aimed at bringing visibility and fostering experience exchanges on collective housing in the Asian context, while analysing the bottlenecks and exploring possible ways to scale-up these innovative community-led housing initiatives. Collective housing takes many different shapes according to each local context, but despite these differences, it shares common principles :

  • Residents from low income communities play a central role in planning, producing and managing collectively their housing and their broader living environment, with an adequate and comprehensive technical and public support ;
  • Collective ownership of land and/or buildings ensures permanently affordable housing, taking it out of the speculative market. Housing cooperatives and community land trusts (CLT) are widespread examples of collectively and sustainably managed land and housing in the sense of a common (i.e. a shared resource).
  • Shared spaces, solidarity and pooled financial resources by the residents are key features that contribute to their empowerment and resilience.

Main statements

Insightful discussions allowed participants to get familiar with solutions implemented in other countries and learn from different models and approaches from community-leaders and their support NGOs from all over Asia, Latin America and Africa. Here are two key statements, among others, to emerge from the many workshops and panel discussions :

  • Access to adequate housing is a global issue and collective housing has proven to be successful in many contexts in building inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities, while answering the needs of the urban poor to secure long-term affordable housing. Have a closer look at some inspiring examples that we have heard of during this week :
  • Multi-stakeholder collaboration is key to scale-up collective housing, in particular between the grassroots communities and the following players :
    • Local and national governments must implement supportive public policies and laws, i.e. public land lease and financial support tools like subsidies, guarantees and loans.
    • Intergovernmental agencies must include collective housing in their programs and bring back the communities to the centre of housing development, upgrading and renovation.
      • Listen here to the conference’s session “How to link collective housing with global development agendas and programs ?”, with contributions from UN-Habitat, Habitat for Humanity and World Bank.
    • Financial institutions and the broader private sector must establish comprehensive and supportive services, in line with Corporate Social Responsibility principles, the SDGs and the current climate challenges, to enable lower income communities to implement their projects.
      • Have a look at the Bor Farang housing project in Bangkok, where the private company SCG provided land to a community of illegal settlers and contributed to infrastructure development (p.4)
    • Civil society organisations, in particular technical support NGOs, and academic/research institutions must work hand in hand with local communities, supporting them in creating inclusive and visible spaces for advocacy and experience exchanges. They play a key role in building trust with strategic actors.
Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - International conference @United Nations
Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - International conference @Prince Palace

Our key takeaways

  • Grassroots communities are legitimate economic players. The many examples of community-led financial mechanisms based on collective savings show their long-time experience and capacity in managing large-scale housing development/upgrading projects and their related financial schemes. We learned more about particular schemes during a workshop, with presentations from Lumanti Support Group for Shelter from Nepal, from Vinh City representatives from Vietnam, and from the Shack Dwellers Federation from Namibia !
  • Collective ownership of the land and/or the buildings is an important anti-speculative tool to secure permanently affordable housing and bring back the social value of habitat. The Caño Martin Peña Community Land Trust from Puerto Rico was represented and shared their successful experience all through the event. Some Asian countries, like Thailand or Indonesia, are frontrunners in terms of collective land ownership, in particular with land lease or land sharing schemes involving local and national government or private companies.
  • Participative planning and comprehensive technical support that includes communities in all steps of decision making is essential for the success of collective housing initiatives. Future urban and housing professionals (architects, urban planners, engineers, social workers, etc.) need to have access to proper training that helps them develop adapted techniques and methods to work with urban poor communities. Academic programmes must evolve by including new innovative approaches to community-led housing practices.
    • Have a look at the inspiring work achieved by the Community Architects Network (CAN), notably by our local partner POCAA in Bangladesh
  • Togetherness is key and we need an urgent change in our individualistic mindset towards more collective action and way of life ! Solidarity and cooperation beyond borders must be strengthened, as they are essential elements in building a more just and equitable world.
Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Grassroots Assembly

Field visits to inspiring projects in Bangkok !

We participated in two field visits ; the first was the Bor Farang project in Bangkok, a housing cooperative built with the support of the government on land owned by a private company, who decided to support the community who had settled there.

Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Field visit to Bor Farang

The second field visit was a collective housing project led by homeless people ; the Baan Phun Suk Homeless Center in a neighbouring province of Bangkok (link to publication, p.5) ;

There are not many examples of community-led housing projects by and for homeless people, who are the most vulnerable and marginalised population among the urban poor. Thailand is showing the way with the Human Settlement Foundation (HSF), created in 1988, who started to work with homeless people in Bangkok in 2001. Along the way, they managed to create a strong city-wide homeless people network, even expanding to other provinces. They plan to establish the national Thailand Homeless Network by the end of 2024 !
In collaboration with local civil society actors, they have been providing support to homeless people, such as accessing a national identity card and medical care, developing income generating activities and building capacity and self-confidence of the residents. The self-managed homeless centre Pathum Thani - Baan Phun Suk was built in 2020 as a result of the long advocacy work done by HSF and its allies to obtain public support through an adapted policy, which has been accepted in 2016 by the government.
Like the other homeless centres built under this model, the 29 residents are fully participating in the management and decision-making processes, e.g. through participatory design, shared spaces (kitchen, meeting room, etc.), monthly meetings, a revolving fund for income generating activities and a healthcare fund. Their stay in this place is temporary, as it is thought as a transitional space allowing them to build capacity and resources to continue on their own at some point. All the spaces have been built based on these principles. During our visit, we got the honour to participate in the official inauguration of the rental rooms they had just finished building right next to their main housing centre. These rooms are part of this transition process, as they are individual units that residents can rent once they get back on their feet.

Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok - Field visit to Pathum Thani Homeless Center

Although successful examples are present in a variety of contexts, the conference highlighted that much remains to be done for collective housing to be recognised at a higher level as an effective, sustainable and inclusive solution to respond to the global housing crisis. It is paramount that governments, international cooperation, technical professionals and financial institutions recognize communities as legitimate actors and the driving force of housing and city making. Building up on the conversations and commitments taken during this event, advocacy strategies for the coming years will be planned collectively by ACHR and carried over in the coming months in its member countries.

For those who missed the conference, you can replay the different sessions on the Facebook page. And find more information about collective housing in Asia on this website.

You can for example replay :

The discussions and conclusions will also be gathered in a report to be soon published by ACHR. Stay tuned and follow us on urbaMonde’s Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn pages !

Collective Housing 2024 - Bangkok

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