ARCH Mini-Conference Examines Methods

On Friday December 7, the Association to Resource Co-operative Housing (ARCH) coordinated a mini-conference, Co-ops at the Crossroad, to discuss future strategies for co-operative housing in NSW. NSW Co-operative Housing is funded under the Community Housing Acquisition program through the NSW Department of Housing, and currently comprises 46 housing co-operatives.

Over 45 people attended the conference, representing the vast majority of housing co-operatives in the NSW program, as well as representatives from Shelter, the National Community Housing Forum, the NSW Federation of Housing Associations, and the NSW Office of Community Housing.

It was a spirited afternoon, filled with energy and optimism for the future of co-operative housing in this state. The conference was opened by ARCH Executive Officer, Ms Karine Shellshear, who spoke of ARCH's commitment to reinitiating discussions with government and stakeholders about a number of significant issues which had fallen off the agenda in recent years. To this end, Ms Shellshear introduced two speakers to outline the findings of research commissioned by ARCH throughout the year.

Mr Paul Van Reyk of Van Reyk Consultants presented the findings of a consultation conducted with the sector to identify management support needs. Some of Van Reyk's key findings looked to means of re-vitalising the sector, strengthening bonds between co-op members and changing Government criteria and support structures to provide greater incentives, to make the program more viable and sustainable in the long term.

Dr Jo Barraket of the Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development (ACCORD) presented the key findings of research conducted by Ms Lisa Fowkes of ACCORD. The research involved the identification and review of models for co-operative housing in order to further develop the NSW program. Dr Barraket noted that the key strength of co-operative housing rests in the fact that co-operatives are human institutions. Where co-operative housing is appropriately resourced and supported, research has consistently shown that it delivers greater levels of tenant satisfaction, improved socio-economic opportunities for tenants, greater positive impacts on the wider community and more cost effective and responsive housing than any other form of social housing. Dr Barraket outlined a number of strategies for enhancing the current program, including the development of secondary service housing management arrangements, streamlining external reporting processes, promoting the positive community contributions of the sector to the wider public, building capacity in the sector, and recognising the 'sweat equity' that co-operative housing tenants contribute to their housing. She also outlined four alternative title and equity models which might be considered by all stakeholders in future developments of the program.

Finally, Ms Shellshear invited Alison Wannon, Executive Director of the NSW Office of Community Housing (OCH) to address the conference. Ms Wannon outlined OCH's response to the recommendations put forward by ARCH on the basis of the research conducted by Van Reyk and ACCORD. She stressed that OCH's immediate priority was to develop its own performance framework. Within this context, however, Ms Wannon expressed OCH's willingness to respond to a number of the recommendations. In particular, OCH is committed to working with ARCH to promote the positive contributions of co-operative housing, and to reviewing some aspects of the program's operational guidelines. Ms Wannon also indicated that OCH was moving away from a 'one size fits all' approach to community housing accountability frameworks to ensure that they were appropriate to the differing sizes of participating community housing providers, including co-operatives. Finally, Ms Wannon spoke of OCH's commitment to two-way accountability, with OCH aiming to be more transparent to the sector about its own performance framework and objectives.

The information presented by the speakers sparked enthusiastic discussion between conference participants about the immediate and long term future of the co-operative housing sector. A range of issues was raised, including: the benefits and drawbacks of different title and equity arrangements; the need to recognise the contributions of co-operators to the management of their housing; the need for access to technical support (such as bookkeeping); and the possibilities and potential problems of establishing secondary service providers. While limited time prevented consensus to be reached on the issues raised, one clear message that emerged was the importance of security of tenure in co-operative housing. Perhaps most significantly, the active participation of so many co-operators in this important forum reaffirmed the high levels of energy, drive and expertise within the sector, and their collective commitment to the future of innovative co-operative housing in NSW.