What is a cooperative (co-op) housing community?

Senior cooperatives are a much more common form of self-managed communities. Some senior co-ops date back to the 1970s and there are many, many more of them than senior co-housing communities. Many senior cooperatives have hired on-site management, but some do not. Take away the outside management option, and co-ops are very close to co-housing in how they operate – with the emphasis on cooperative living.

So co-housing is more a style of living and cooperatives are more a form of ownership. Both work on a cooperative philosophy of community organization, which Phoenix Commons believes is paramount in achieving a sustainable, self-managed senior community. It is this philosophy or lifestyle that Phoenix Commons wants to foster, the exact form is really up to the people that choose to live there.