ISSUE 12 ¦ 27th MARCH 2023 ¦ VOLUME 26
UCCUniversityExpress.com
THE EXPRESS TEAM: WHY WE WRITE
AN ODE TO SICILIAN DELIGHTS
PUTIN IN DRAG: QUEER ARTISTS CALLING FOR CHANGE IN RUSSIA
STUDENT CO-OPERATIVE HOUSING EVENT HELD ON CAMPUS Up next, four guest speakers offered their insights and detailed their experiences of housing co-operatives, promoting such alternative models and outlining the prospects for them in an Irish context.
WRITES JAMES KEMMY | NEWS EDITOR Last Tuesday evening, a public discussion on the issue of student cooperative housing was held in UCC. Organised by the college’s Cooperative Society alongside the Cork Student Housing Co-operative group, the event was held in the O’Rahilly Building’s CACSSS seminar room from 6-8:30pm and brought together several guest speakers with stakeholder expertise on the topic. The aim of the evening’s conversation was to highlight the increasingly intense and unsustainable housing situation faced by students in Cork today and to promote alternative cooperative models which see communal and democratically-operated living arrangements implemented, seeking to overcome the reliance on private landlordism and the profit-centred rental system generally. Opening the event, UCC’s Student Union Welfare Officer, Alannah O’Connor and MTU president, Isobel Kavanagh spoke of the current state of student housing in Cork, citing the various complaints and concerns they receive on a daily basis from the students they represent.
O’Connor described certain instances of mushrooms growing on students’ bedroom walls and described her feelings of helplessness, whereby she can usually only offer assistance from the likes of tenants unions such as CATU or the anti-homelessness charity, Threshold. Kavanagh meanwhile spoke of the proliferation of luxury accommodation blocks that have been built in recent years which are inaccessible to the majority of students. The MTU president also claimed that international and Erasmus students are being exploited by rogue online scammers who are taking deposits of over €1,000 and then disappearing from contact. With rents soaring over the last few years, students were described as having to work every available hour, negatively impacting their grades and wellbeing. Subsequently, AJ Nagle from the campus’s Co-op Society cited certain examples of Cork’s luxury accommodation takeover, with average rents in these complexes standing at roughly €900- €1,100. Contrasting this, it was highlighted that the average national income of third-level students is just €754 a month.
these groups and Co-operative Housing Ireland, an Approved Housing Body, was urged to develop a greater share in the housing stock.
Dr Scott Jennings, Vice-Chair of Student Co-op Homes, a collective of UK and Irish-based co-operatives described the lessons he has learned in founding the Nottingham student housing co-op. Dr Jennings is also a Director of the Confederation of Co-operative Housing and the Co-operative Housing International organisation.
Following these presentations an informal discussion panel was held. Dr Noreen Byrne from the UCC Centre for Co-op Studies, Dr Frank O’Connor, founder of the Derelict Ireland Movement and Cllr. Lorna Bogue from Cork City South-East contributed to a dialogue on the housing crisis and how co-ops, as a socially innovative substitute could improve prospects for citizens and students.
Speaking to the room, Scott explained the seven general principles of co-ops and how student groups can help them get off the ground. Referencing several successful examples internationally, including Sweden and Austria, and several in North America, the socioeconomic and democratic capacities for these arrangements, whereby students collectively own, run and maintain the properties they live in was promoted. According to Mr Jennings, the extractive element of the rentier system is circumvented by co-ops, where decisionmaking processes and voting mechanisms are rooted in transparency and consensus.
During this conversation, the panellists spoke about cultural barriers to the growth of housing co-ops in Ireland. Lorna Bogue spoke of an ideological favouritism towards privatisation in local government and weak consultation efforts with the public over the use of State land, giving the example of a “nonsensical” procurement process at a site on North Main Street in the City. Noreen Byrne argued that the current housing situation is unsustainable and unfit for purpose for all stakeholders, including small landlords, and therefore, co-operative housing can serve as a robust long-term solution.
Ryan Harling, founder and current secretary of the Belfast Student Housing Co-op explained the transformative process of co-op mobilisation in a Northern Irish context, whereby his group set up their project in the deprived Holylands area of inner-south Belfast. The ultimate goal of Ryan’s group was to enable students to access dignified accommodation and overcome the housing-related powerlessness experienced by young people today.
The audience were then invited to ask questions, one of which raised the issue of student homes as opposed to merely “accommodation”. The panellists viewed this distinction as significant, with Noreen Byrne identifying the “transient” nature of student tenancies as stymying efforts to improve housing in the longterm. However, the major student presence in Cork, comprising 24,000 people across various institutions, was cited as a powerful tool for mobilising co-op action.
In terms of financing housing cooperative projects, both speakers discussed the opportunities provided by credit unions and local authorities, citing broad stakeholder buy-in as crucial to success in the early stages. Community Finance Ireland was mentioned as a significant lending body that can assist
Frank O’Connor also urged an effective business model for Cork’s housing co-op groups seeking to effect change. The legacy they create will be consequential for the state of student housing into the future and will hopefully help to end the “epidemic” of vacancy and dereliction as he described it.