Neighbourhood offensive shared housing, Speyer-West

With its “am liebsten daheim” (love living at home) project, the municipal housing company GEWO wohnen GmbH creates age-appropriate housing by redensifying a mixed neighbourhood with the aim of providing affordable communal homes. Elderly residents are given the opportunity to move to smaller, newly built flats without having to leave the neighbourhood in which they live. This frees up larger units for families with children.

Composition

• 36 age-appropriate housing units in a newly constructed complex, spread across three standalone buildings with lifts
• Three accessible, ground-level flats
• All housing units have floor-level showers and threshold-free balcony doors
• €7.70 per square meter net, indirect occupancy obligations/controls

Care and support

The concept borrows from the Bielefeld housing model. To build a “Quartiersmensa plus St. Hedwig (Q+H)” meeting, encounter and advice centre, developers GEWO Wohnen GmbH acquired the 1,800 square meters church building from the Parish of Saint Hedwig, complete with vicarage and rooms for use in organising community life. The district dining hall was established in one of the church rooms that had been made smaller, while the vicarage was transformed into a small community centre which was rented back to the parish along with the downsized church. A nursing service (Pflegedienst) has set up offices and a day-care service in the space belonging to the meeting, encounter and advice centre. The nursing service is available 24 hours a day free of charge. Via the “Quartiersmensa plus” meeting and encounter centre and the Parish of Saint Hedwig (Q+H), residents can make use of various services offering help and support. These include meals in the dining hall, the provision of advice, the tenants’ office, a skills (pin-money) exchange and a repair café.

Cooperation

As a subsidiary of GEWO Wohnen GmbH, GEWO Leben gGmbH operate the “Q+H” complex and lets the free space to partners offering mobile nursing services, the children’s daycare centre KEKS, a homework supervision initiative, the repair café and similar kinds of projects. The nursing service rents one of the housing units for use as interim accommodation and has usage rights to two of the flats.