Can student housing co-ops tackle the affordability crisis for UK students?

All across the UK, student housing co-operatives are springing up as students face the insecurity of soaring rents and distant landlords. 

Student housing co-ops have existed in North America for over a century but are relatively new to the UK, with the oldest one currently in operation having been founded in 2014.

Student housing co-ops provide an alternative form of student housing that students can personally own and maintain, in contrast with the tenant/landlord model of the private rental sector.

The main advantage they have over traditional student housing is that rent is only used to cover the costs of the co-op itself, such as mortgage repayment, council tax or repairs. This in turn keeps the rent affordable and stable, and prevents it being raised for private gain.

Scaling up

‘Casa Zimbabwe’, Berkeley Student Co-operative. Credit: William Mallard (CC BY-2.5)

According to the organisations encouraging the rise of student housing co-ops in the UK, student housing co-ops are valuable not only for the financial benefits they offer, but in preparing the students for life beyond education.

‘There are all the advantages to that kind of housing model in the sense that the students are in charge of the property,’ said Gauthier Guerin, project manager for the co-operative federation Co-operatives UK.

‘It teaches students how to manage properties, and how to manage a co-op, which both builds their confidence and also provides important life skills – [they] learn how to manage things, do repairs, and of course it means they’re not dependent anymore on an external landlord to sort their housing for them.’

The sector remains small in the UK with only three student housing co-ops fully operational so far – Edinburgh SHC, the largest housing co-op, houses over 100 people, while two others in Sheffield and Birmingham run much smaller dwellings of nine and five people respectively.

However, several other student housing co-ops have formally incorporated and are now in the process of trying to acquire suitable housing.

The co-ops receive assistance through several external bodies, such as their own co-op federation Students for Co-operation, and Student Co-Op Homes, a development body led by Co-operatives UK which aims to help them share knowledge, gain credibility with partners and enable them to obtain properties.

This can be a more difficult task than it sounds, due to housing prices remaining prohibitively high and the transience of the student lifestyle – with many students only staying where they study for a few years before moving on, building institutional memory is tough.

The current goal for Student Co-Op Homes is to boost the number of beds in student housing co-ops to 10,000 in the next five years.

While Guerin admits there are challenges with the model, he thinks that the target is not an entirely unrealistic one as he sees the potential for student housing co-ops to explode over the coming years.

‘We probably won’t start by owning that much properties ourselves, as it’s going to take us more than five years to build enough financial resources to acquire property in a way that would allow us to house that many people,’ Guerin said.

‘However, with a mix of our own asset portfolio and leasing properties from, say, housing associations or any owners that already own enough properties that would be supportive of our project, then we could actually scale up quite quickly.’

A viable alternative

Edinburgh Student Housing Cooperative, Edinburgh. Credit: boredintheevening (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The most successful student housing co-op to date is Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op, founded by Edinburgh students in 2014.

The co-op houses 106 students and manages two neighbouring properties in the Bruntsfield area of the city.

Post-graduate student Phoebe Warren became one of the co-op’s 106 members in September 2018 when she began studying at the University of Edinburgh.

Warren, an American, applied to the co-op after previously living in the UK and knowing how hard finding decent accommodation could be as an international student.

To Warren, living in a student housing co-op is not just a way for her to save money, but a way of making connections in the city she will call home until this summer.

‘The really important aspect of the co-op for me has been the community aspect of it – I don’t think I fully comprehended how important it would be to me and to my life here in Edinburgh,’ Warren said.

‘I think that while co-ops are part of a cheaper student housing alternative, especially for students who are on a really limited budget, I think the people at the co-op who become the most involved… are the ones who really view it as a community approach to living rather than just somewhere you live.’

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op is facing huge demand from students, with Warren estimating that hundreds of students are on its waiting list.

Warren says that in such a big student city like Edinburgh, students are drawn to the positive experience the housing co-op can offer compared to often low-quality and expensive student housing.

‘The price [of student homes in Edinburgh] compared to the co-op is unbelievable, and I think that we’re providing a really viable alternative to those,’ Warren said.

‘When people who have never been to the co-op come around, I think they’re often really taken by what a simple but excellent idea it is to have these options.’

Act of necessity

Birmingham Student Housing Co-operative. Credit: Mike James Shaw (CC BY-SA 4.0)

One of the newer co-ops is SEASALT Student Housing Co-operative. Set up by students at Brighton and Sussex universities, it is the first student housing co-op in the South East of England.

The co-op faces unique challenges its more Northern colleagues don’t – for example, Brighton’s housing is more expensive due to the city’s proximity to London, which has led its members to agree to a monthly rental cap.

SEASALT is now trying to gain property with the support of a local Community Land Trust and is thinking seriously about its purpose in the local community.

‘Now our job is deciding what is actually going to happen once we get the keys to the house,’ said Sim Wadiwala, one of SEASALT’s founding members. ‘How do we make sure how that rent is going to be paid on time? How do we make sure that people are maintaining the house and engaging as part of the co-op? How do we build these internal accountability structures?

‘Also, what is the heart of the project? Why are we doing this? When all of the founding members have left, say, ten years on, how do we make sure some sort of vision we had remains, even if it evolves over time?’

Wadiwala stresses that the emerging trend of students founding housing co-ops is not just because students find it fun to start their own co-op, however empowering that is.

Instead, she says, they are doing it as a way to survive as they grapple with austerity and a broken housing market.

‘Ideally, we wouldn’t have to exist. Ideally, people could afford to live in homes even if they wanted to [rent], they’d have security in their tenancy, and they could be able to build their own community,’ Wadiwala said.

‘[Student housing co-ops] are almost a necessity for us to build that niche within different types of housing in cities.’

Until the long-standing problems afflicting the student housing market are fixed, student housing co-ops look set to keep growing.