Methodology to Form Cohousing: Collaborative Housing for Young and Older Adults

In Mexico, gentrification (Ley, 2019) has modified and increased the cost of living in city neighborhoods. As a result, urban housing has become unaffordable and inaccessible (Johnson, 2021), especially for vulnerable population groups such as adults and the elderly. The problem is huge, so much so that the elderly, stressed by this new urban reality, have had to migrate to the peripheral areas of the cities and this relocation has generated low quality of life conditions.

Cohousing (Williams, 2018) appears in our country as a solution for adults and older adults to maintain their housing, their social networks and offer a process of active aging and quality of life. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology to form collective housing communities in co-ownership or housing cooperative regime. It proposes the solution in the face of the problem of unwanted loneliness, social isolation and its emotional implications, as well as poverty of economic resources and facing chronic degenerative diseases (Wilson and Hebert, 2017), -which are the three characteristics and conditions most present in this adult and older adult population in our country-. The 18 steps required and distributed in 3 stages of work, help a community of friends, neighbors, colleagues or relatives to collaboratively plan their common housing. Mutual support, solidarity, respect and trust among group members are the values that guide the way to self-design and self-manage Cohousing.

The presentation is framed within the work and research carried out by the Cohousing Mexico Network, which was born at the National Autonomous University of Mexico at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities. And it is in tune with the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs of the UN agenda 20-30 (United Nations, 2015), within the framework of elder-friendly cities (Jacobs, 2015), and collaborating in community solutions to protect older adults.