Housing Futures: Community-led alternatives for Greater Manchester 

This initiative is about the co-creation of knowledge and action for the promotion and legitimation of alternative and particularly cooperative models for ‘adequate, safe and affordable’ housing (see SDG) in the Greater Manchester city-region. The process will be flexible and open-ended and begins with the tentative goal of developing an informed advocacy coalition and strategy for the promotion of co-operative housing models among state and private sector professionals in Greater Manchester.

Mapping of existing models within the UK context and desk-based review. This will provide the group with a grounding from which to plan ongoing knowledge co-creation and action including identifying existing typologies, and what has worked or hasn’t worked and why within particular contexts of the UK.

Identification of key case studies and associated field trips. Building on the wider emphasis within RJC on the power of exchange, these field trips will be used both as research trips through which activists in Greater Manchester can learn about the dynamics of particular models for co-operative housing, and as opportunities for activists to build relationships with potential internal champions within local authorities and the private sector.

Building a constituency for change through knowledge exchange. The group will develop ideas around this theme but this might involve a series of workshops bringing together interested parties across the city-region to build a Greater Manchester-wide constituency for change.

Opportunity mapping and developing a campaign strategy. Knowledge and learning from these activities will be synthesised to support a core group of partners (which may develop out of these activities or may be the same group established at the outset) to develop a longer-term advocacy strategy which can also be used as the basis for fundraising during the final three months of this year-long partnership in support of putting the strategy into practice.