In search of alternative housing solutions - when the collaborative economy meets housing

Collaborative housing constitutes a premise for groups of individuals to self-manage and self-build their own housing according to their own needs. It creates opportunities for social innovation and embracing other sharing practices such as shared childcare, mobility, energy production and consumption, growing food, cooking and eating together, etc. In this paper we present the efforts of Pobail -- a collaborative housing group -- as they build a shared understanding and vision for future alternative housing arrangements in their city. The paper is informed by 14 months of participant observation taken from monthly meetings and a visioning workshop the authors facilitated. These efforts are inscribed in the wider national Irish landscape, where the current national housing strategy, legislation, financing are not supportive of alternative housing scenarios.