Rode Housing Co-operative · Lewisham, London
Homes and studios outside the market
We've found a building we can turn into stable, affordable housing and artist studio space in Lewisham. Now we're raising loanstock to secure it.
We've found a building we can turn into stable, affordable housing and artist studio space in Lewisham. Now we're raising loanstock to secure it.
Rode Housing Co-op is looking to provide stable, affordable housing and artist studio space in Lewisham. Our members work across the arts, gardening, mental health and housing sectors. We are looking for security and space in London. Our aim is to free our members from the burden of insecurity so that they can pursue their work and interests.
We are seeking a building that can accommodate both housing and artist studios. Our goal is to create a lasting resource for our members and the wider community.
If we secure the building, it also becomes the permanent home of Weathergirl, an itinerant screening series organised by two Rode members, Freya Field-Donovan and Bronté Dow.
Weathergirl shows funny, sad and perverse artists' moving image work in borrowed and temporary spaces around London. A permanent base means a screening room, storage, and somewhere to build the series into a proper fixture rather than a one-off each time.
@weathergirl.5 on Instagram · weathergirlevents.wordpress.com
A few nights from Weathergirl's itinerant run so far.
The building we've identified in South East London combines a house above with a commercial unit which we can convert into studios.
These sites are often bought up by developers and converted into overpriced, poorly built private flats. Securing it keeps artist studios and a home in mutual ownership for good.
The purchase of our building will be organised through the Collective Ownership Society (COS), of which Rode is one of eight member co-ops.
COS is a secondary housing co-op: it raises capital to buy residential properties, which are then leased to groups of residents organised as housing co-ops. Each group runs its own home democratically, day to day. COS is an FCA-registered, not-for-profit society, and has recently secured a £1.25m investment as a mortgage-style loan from CDS Co-operatives to get its first acquisitions, including ours, moving.
The model is inspired by co-operative housing sectors that already work at scale elsewhere.
The ambition behind Collective Ownership is to demonstrate, at scale, that a real alternative to the private rented sector is possible in the UK: sustainable rents, and properties taken permanently out of the speculative market.
We need to raise £100,000–£150,000 in loanstock to secure the Lewisham building. We've raised £50,000 so far.
Your loan goes to the Collective Ownership Society, but is ring-fenced for the Lewisham purchase, since Rode is the member co-op behind it. Terms are flexible: choose your own amount, length and rate within the ranges above, lower rates and longer terms are more supportive of the project, and everything is set out in a signed loan agreement between you and COS.
A rough guide, using the same compound method as COS's own investment pack. Not a quote or an offer.
Illustrative only. Capital and interest are repaid together at the end of the agreed term. Early repayment can be requested but is at COS's discretion.
Want to know more about lending terms, the building, or Rode itself? We're happy to talk it through.