Motivational Barriers to Shared Housing: The Importance of Meanings of “Home” in the Diffusion of Housing Innovations

In recent years, Flanders has witnessed a notable upsurge in the public attention for cohousing and other types of shared living arrangements (e.g. Jonckheere et al. 2010; Van den Houte et al. 2015; Verstraete and De Decker 2017; Brusselmans et al. 2019). The attention is sparked by discussions on substantial challenges currently faced by the Flemish housing market. First, there is a growing concern about the long term environmental and societal costs of urban sprawl in Flanders (Vermeiren et al. 2019). A long history of path dependent policy decisions has resulted in a landscape characterized by the dispersal of large single family houses in low density areas and ribbon development, putting an increasing amount of pressure on nature and mobility (De Decker 2011; Bervoets and Heynen 2013). Second, like in many countries in the Western world, the demographic set-up of Flanders is undergoing important changes. The ageing of society and the shrinking size of households exacerbate the problem of an undercrowded housing stock on the one hand, that of a growing need for mutual support and easy access to care on the other hand (Bervoets and Heynen 2013; Bervoets, Vanneste, and Ryckewaert 2014). Furthermore, the Flemish housing model seems ill-suited to accommodate the increasing de-standardization of family life (Luyten et al. 2015). Third, researchers have pointed to persistent problems pertaining to the quality and the affordability of housing, especially on the lower end of the private rental market (Depraetere et al. 2015; Heylen 2015; Verstraete and De Decker 2017). In all three respects, shared housing or shared living arrangements have been thematized by researchers and policy makers as one of the avenues for confronting such challenges. Flemish law has been considered too inflexible to be able to support a more important role for collective housing, however. This was one of the reasons why a decree was issued by the Flemish Government in 2017, installing a test environment for experimental housing forms, the results of which will be evaluated in 2023 (Vermeire 2017). As part of its “Vision 2050” the Flemish Government also committed to stimulating a gradual shift towards “smart housing and living” and strengthening public support for alternative, including collective, ways of living (Wonen Vlaanderen 2017).