What the European Housing Coop Looks Like in 2050

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By 2050, 100,000 homes stand where vacancy once stood. Buildings that were empty —offices, factories, churches, retail centers — now breathe with life. Not because one organisation built them, but because an unlikely coalition decided to work across national and mental borders to make it happen, together.
now breathe with life. Not because one organisation built them, but because an unlikely coalition decided to work across national and mental borders to make it happen, together.

The Dual Crisis That Brought Us Together

Twenty-five years ago, Europe faced two crises—intertwined, accelerating, and seemingly unsolvable by any single actor.

The housing crisis was tearing the continent apart. Over 80 million Europeans struggled with affordability. Teachers, journalists, doctors, engineers—priced out of the cities they served. Housing had become a source of anxiety rather than belonging.

The climate crisis demanded transformation of the built environment. Buildings accounted for 40% of energy consumption. Yet the construction industry kept demolishing and building anew. The most carbon-intensive approach imaginable.

And between these two crises sat an absurdity: millions of square metres of empty buildings—vacant offices, industrial sites, churches without congregations—standing idle while people searched desperately for homes.

The European Housing Coop began as a question: Can we transform Europe's underused buildings into 1 million cooperative homes, together?

Not: can one organisation do this. But: can an unprecedented coalition find a way?

The Coalition That Made It Possible

What emerged was something new: citizens, local cooperatives, municipal leaders, impact investors, asset owners, developers, architects, tech entrepreneurs, and materials innovators—actors who had never worked together at this scope, united behind a shared goal.

None could have done it alone. A cooperative without capital is just a dream. An investor without a pipeline is just money looking for a home. A city without partners is just land. An architect without a client is just drawings.

But together—working across the silos that separate social from private, municipalities from entrepreneurs, citizens from institutions—we built 100,000 homes that none of us could have built alone.

What We Built

100,000 cooperative homes across 50 European cities. Former offices, retail rooftops, industrial sites, heritage buildings—transformed rather than demolished.

Every project was its own coalition. The office conversion in Lyon brought together a local cooperative, a Dutch impact fund, a German materials supplier, the city planning department, and a Portuguese architecture firm. The church conversion in Rotterdam united a Protestant diocese, a family construction business, citizen co-designers, and municipal financing. No two projects looked alike—but all shared the same spirit.

Permanent Affordability

Cooperative ownership created an "asset lock" that’s already showing: it creates affordability across generations. The usage fees (aka rents) across all our local projects are developing aligned with inflation and salaries - while the rental market continued its price hike in many cities. We helped that a 100.000 citizens could stay or move to a place where love, family and work opportunities were calling them.

This worked because everyone contributed: impact investors accepted modest returns, municipalities and private assets owners provided buildings under decent conditions, and temporary housing partnerships cross-subsidised long-term affordable units. A coalition commitment.

Transformation Over Extraction

Every EHC home came from transforming what already existed—1.8 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided, zero greenfield development. When we added structure, we used hemp, timber, and recycled materials. Shared spaces meant members could live abundantly in smaller footprints.

The most sustainable building is the one that already exists.

Bridges Across Borders

In 2025, a rising amount of populists said that the Project of a united Europe was finished. That borders should close again. That cooperation on that scope was naive. That people should stay where they were born and stop dreaming of something better.

We built the opposite.

Members now move between EHC locations across 15 countries. A teacher from Vienna can spend a year in Lyon. A tech worker from Berlin can relocate to Porto. A retiree from Amsterdam can winter in Barcelona. That’s all happening within a cooperative community where we value open arms and open minds.

What started as a housing solution became a lived experience of European identity. Not Europe as bureaucracy or abstraction, but Europe as neighbours. As shared meals and democratic assemblies. As a Polish member serving on a local space governance group alongside Portuguese, German, and Greek members—discovering that their hopes for their children were surprisingly similar.

We showed that a joyful, affordable life in cities, embedded in community, is not a utopian dream. It is something we can build, together. Especially here, in Europe - a place that still serves as a beacon of hope for democracy in the world.

Part of a Movement

25 years ago, we set out to establish a model that could enable 1 million more cooperative homes across Europe, in a truly sustainable way. Have we accomplished that already? Well… it’s still a long way to go. So, on the first glimpse, we’ve still contributed a comparatively small piece to the puzzle of making housing in Europe sustainable and affordable.

But, let’s not underestimate the ripple effects we’ve collectively triggered in the past 25 years. We helped that now many more citizens know about and understand the merits of cooperative housing and cooperative economics in general. We facilitated thousands of business connections across Europe. We demonstrated that temporary living in cities can be valuable for cities, locals and temporary residents when all benefit from each other’s presence. We sparked countless conversion projects in the corporate real estate world. We helped to co-create a societal mindset and political frameworks where adapting and transforming buildings versus tearing down and rebuilding is the new normal.

In the end, the 1 million homes goal isn't about one organisation. It's alway been about a movement.