Karine Shellshear explores how co-operative housing might contribute to cultural integration and the development of social capital in her engaging case study of the Sydney based Tongan Housing Co-operative, "Hope, Faith and Love".

Shellshear considers the value of the 'meaning of home' and looks at how the co-operative model could counter the 'loss of home' (culture, family, language and identity) commonly experienced by migrants in Australia. The study proposes that housing co-ops can play a key role in nurturing 'social capital', with the flow-on benefits of increased social cohesion, counteracting social exclusion and helping to build 'sustainable' communities.

The study points to a lack of research available in NSW to demonstrate specific advantages to be derived from the co-operative housing model.

"Currently in NSW, the place of the co-operative housing movement within the social housing system is not well defined, nor is its value fully recognised, yet this model remains an attractive housing option to communities experiencing social exclusion, particularly disadvantaged ethnic communities," explains Shellshear.

The conclusions drawn provide valuable insights for policy makers, planners and designers working within Government, particularly, as recent findings by the NSW Department of Housing (DoH, 1999) show that Sydney will continue to be a focus for overseas migration, and migrants are likely to continue to represent a large proportion of the applicants seeking housing assistance. Many will require culturally appropriate housing.

Planning and housing policy in Australia can no longer ignore the increasing cultural and social diversity of the populations in cities and should consider new ways of thinking about urban housing form.

Karine Shellshear is the Executive Officer of the Association to Resource Cooperative housing (ARCH) and is an Associate of ACCORD. The case study is published on ACCORD's website (PDF 481Kb), courtesy of Karine.