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Self-Managed Cooperative Housing by Mutual- Assistance as Introduced in Central America between 2004 and 2016; the Attractiveness of the ‘FUCVAM’ Model of Uruguay
Jan Bredenoord*
International Urban Planner/Housing Researcher, Amerikaring 26, 3823 HT Amersfoort, The Netherlands
- *Corresponding Author:
- Jan Bredenoord
International Urban Planner/Housing Researcher
Amerikaring 26, 3823 HT Amersfoort
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 6 22446251
E-mail: janbredenoord@planet.nl
Received Date: March 03, 2017; Accepted Date: March 16, 2017; Published Date: March 24, 2017
Citation: Bredenoord J (2017) Self-Managed Cooperative Housing by Mutual- Assistance as Introduced in Central America between 2004 and 2016; the Attractiveness of the ‘FUCVAM’ Model of Uruguay. J Archit Eng Tech 6: 188. doi: 10.4172/2168-9717.1000188
Copyright: © 2017 Bredenoord J. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This paper discusses the importance of cooperative housing through mutual assistance and collective ownership in Latin America. Cooperative housing is a form of self-managed house building, which is of great importance for a growing number of low-income households. It makes possible the access to appropriate housing for families with lowincomes, that don’t have other possibilities.The mutual self-managed cooperative housing model of the Uruguayan federation of housing cooperatives ‘FUCVAM’ offers a more effective alternative to individual, incremental self-help or self-managed housing that is still is prevalent in many countries, including in Latin America. Since 2004, the model has been implemented with the help of the NGO We Effect in seven Latin American countries: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Paraguay. The author investigated the development of 22 cooperatives in four Central American countries in mid-2016, and his findings are presented in this paper. The members of the cooperative are intensively involved in the construction process and activities, in order to lower the construction costs, while the houses are being constructed durably under professional supervision.
