Is there a role for cooperative actors in the management of public housing? Hybrid partnerships as trojan horses for profit extraction or vehicle of housing commons: reflections on a pioneering project in Milan

After its expansionist phase in the XX Century, in most countries public housing has incurred in a state of long-term crisis that still lasts until today. With long-lasting disinvestment in the Italian public housing, many dwellings and buildings are vacant or in decay. Public housing companies yet rely heavily on dismissal and sales to cover high overheads and low rents. In this context, there has been sporadic experimentation of partnerships between public authorities and cooperative actors in enacting hybrid forms of management as an alternative to the sale of public assets. The article uses the case study of the Quattro Corti project in Milan and experts’ panels in four Italian cities to explore potential innovation pathways for public housing in different contexts and to identify opportunities and challenges of the involvement of cooperatives through partnerships for hybrid management. A main question is whether such partnerships may be trojan horses for profit-actors or vehicles of housing commons. The article contributes to the emerging literature on the role of cooperative actors in public and social housing policies.