Towards the Development of Collaborative Housing in Chile: Precedents & Perspectives

Collaborative housing (CH) is (re)emerging in many countries of Europe as an initiative to solve the current housing crisis. It is a model where collaboration and a high level of inhabitant participation prevail. Currently, in Chile, as well as in Europe, we recognize the interest in developing CH as an approach to answering shortcomings of the current housing system. We argue that its implementation might have some advantages compared to the traditional ways of housing provision in Chile, e.g. individual ownership and rent. Presently, the housing system faces problems that the institutional system of provision has failed to solve, such as lack of affordability, quality, and residents’ empowerment. In order to critically assess the possibilities of CH models to contribute solving these challenges, this paper proposes an analytical framework to study the historical precedents of what could be called CH in Chile, along with some preliminary perspectives about the feasibility of its implementation.