Housing and the Care Crisis: Redefining care practices through community led housing

For many community housing groups active today, the development of alternative models of care is a common motivator.

In different ways, these groups are responding to the ineffectiveness of financialised models of care and unwaged, gendered social reproductive roles to meet the most basic of care needs throughout life.

Increasingly referred to as the 'crisis of care', these problems have been thrown into sharp focus by Covid-19 and events like the sanctioning of ‘support bubbles’, highlighting the ineffectiveness of traditional household and nuclear family-based care and support networks.

In response, community housing groups are looking to redefine how we both understand and practice care. From mutual aid to mental health, childcare, ability and old age, these groups are developing radical approaches to how to improve quality of life through new ways of living together.

Join us for this online event where we’ll be in discussion with community housing groups and key thinkers on the subjects of housing and care, to respond to the questions:

• What does the crisis of care tell us about how we should be thinking about housing today?
• How can community led housing help to re-imagine practices of care away from isolated, profit-driven models and towards those which are mutually supportive, collective and sustainable?

SPEAKERS

Guest speaker:

Helen Hester – Associate Professor of Media and Communication at the University of West London

Community housing groups:

• Bonny Downs Cohousing – Newham
• Homes in Mind – Harrow
• Ginger Giraffe – East London