We want to create a world where every person can live in economically sustainable homes without stressful financial burdens and without diminishing the housing and land resources available to others.  We envision a world where solutions for the sharing of physical space, and for the management and financing of land, help to ensure the availability of wonderful homes for everyone.

SELC’s Rethinking Home Program provides education, research, and advocacy to promote economically sustainable housing models.

Why Are We “Rethinking Home”?
All human beings need economically sustainable housing solutions.  However, the burden of housing ourselves is heavy and the predominant options are limiting. Throughout the world, landless people’s movements are vocalizing the essential unfairness of the fact that so many people must struggle to simply secure a place to physically exist, much less make a livelihood, on the planet.  The struggle is not confined to the poor.  Middle-income people in the U.S. are floundering to determine how their current housing arrangements will be financially sustainable into the future.  The speculative marketplace drives many of society’s decisions about land and housing, and contributes to the scarcity of land resources. Land and housing resources have also been made artificially scarce because we have parceled them into ever larger and more expensive single-family boxes.  SELC is “rethinking home,” because we want to challenge and change many of the predominant models for housing ourselves.

SELC’s Projects and Resources:

Legal Guides: Chapter 9 of SELC’s book, Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy, focuses on legal tools for the creation of more economically sustainable housing models.

Legal Case Studies:  SELC is creating detailed legal case studies of communities and housing solutions that emphasize sharing, affordability, and sustainability. This work looks particularly at models of shared housing, including cohousing communities, ecovillages, and housing cooperatives.  The legal case studies are designed to allow other groups to replicate existing housing models. Click here for one legal case study by SELC.

Policy Brief on Short-Term Rentals: Coming soon!

Advocacy: SELC is currently collaborating with the California Center for Cooperative Development to on a 2013 California State bill to remove some of the key legal barriers to the development of housing cooperatives. Click here to learn more.