It's just a practical, smart way of providing decent housing."Sidsel says there's renewed interest in Australia about cooperative housing models, but financing the development of more of them remains an issue.Shared-equity models, where residents buy into cooperatives, sometimes with as little as 7 per cent, should be explored in Australia, she argues."In many European countries, you find innovative funding models with a mix of private, public, member equity and solidarity funds, for developing both rental and shared or full equity housing co-ops These funding models enable growth, share risk and seek to reduce the need for large amounts of public money."Affordable rental cooperatives in Australia are a form of social housing, says Professor Louise Crabtree-Hayes, who has researched housing cooperatives, but there's one immediately obvious difference: "They tend to be maintained at a really high quality.""They've got a really high standard of homes that's been maintained by the co-op, whether through members' labour or subcontracted labour."Louise attributes this to how cooperatives operate