FAQs
What Is Co-Operative Housing?
Co-operative Housing is a not-for-profit housing development that has a mix of people with different ages, backgrounds, incomes, and needs. Our co-operative (co-op) will support a membership and community that values and respects relationships with their neighbours, is proud of their properties, and maintains safe places to call home. It is truly a community within a community.
Co-operative Housing also gives members (residents) a say in how the housing co-op functions. It is democratically functioning, with the members voting for the board of directors to oversee the operations of the co-op. The goal is to always achieve financial stability, with a lens on environmental sustainability and community inclusion. If you reside in the co-op, you are an owner of the co-op. The co-op is owned by its membership.
QNCH is affiliated with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, which is a national group of housing co-operatives and professionals that will support our governance structure
Life as a Co-Operative Member
Who lives in co-operative housing?
Co-ops are communities of mixed-income housing, meaning that seniors, single moms, middle-class nuclear families, and higher income earners, end up living side by side. Because co-ops charge their members only enough to cover costs, repairs, and reserves, they can offer housing that is much more affordable than the average private sector.
QNCH will have a focus on seniors but will strive to develop communities and neighbourhoods that our inter-generational.
Do co-op members own their units?
The members do not own equity in their housing. If they move, their home is offered to another individual or family.
What rights do members of nonprofit co-ops have?
People who live in a co-op become members of the organization and have a say in how the co-op runs, because it is member-owned and member-controlled. Co-ops are democratically functioning, with the members voting for the board of directors to oversee the operations of the co-op. The goal is to always achieve financial stability, with a lens on environmental sustainability and community inclusion.
If you live in a non-profit housing co-op you are:
- A voting member who contributes to the governance of the co op
- Part of a community where neighbors look out for one another.
- Living in housing that will stay affordable because it’s run on a non-profit basis and is never resold.
- A member of a world-wide movement.