Building participatory dwelling: solidarity housing for unions

In 2021, together with its partners Periféria Policy and Research Center, Gólya Cooperative, and Zugló Collective House Association, SEC set up the Alliance for Collaborative Real Estate Development (ACRED) as an alternative real estate developer institution. ACRED has the capacity to acquire, develop and manage community-owned real estate both for residential and for community purposes. The purpose of this new organization is to act as the facilitator of new housing cooperative projects.

Between 2020 and 2021, SEC and Periféria Policy and Research Center carried out a research (in Hungarian)that surveyed international examples and Hungarian implementation possibilities for alternative housing development by unions. Within this project, we already collaborated SZEF (Forum for Trade Union Collaboration, Hungary) and their member union PSZ, the Pedagogical Union. In 2021, SEC carried this collaboration further into a participative research and mentoring project with 3 unions on members’ housing situation. This project identified several possibilities for realizing a first pilot project of union-based participatory housing development in Hungary.

ripess.eu/en/building-participatory-dwelling-solidarity-housing-for-unions/