DSHC conference 2026

The Dublin Student Housing Co-ops (DSHC) held their annual conference at Trinity College in October. Our CSHC chair Fionn spoke about getting students into the movement and the exciting progress our committee has been making. We heard from Rory Hearne, a TD who noted that the housing crisis doesn’t just create economic problems, but social problems as well. Students who’re getting ripped off by their landlords naturally feel no civil duty to the country that’s failing to meet their needs. Rory also noted that the problem runs deeper than just a supply problem as during the celtic tiger we were building loads of housing, yet prices continued to rise. We also heard from the Queen City Coop about the benefits of living in coops, including for mental health. We also heard from a representative from Self Organized Architecture, a non-profit aiming to advance community-led housing in Ireland. He noted that designing for co-ops and particular people, rather than just what sells the highest on the market, can allow architects to create better-suited buildings and experiment more. Cooperative Housing Ireland also spoke about the legislative hurdles facing housing coops, and the difficulty in spreading model across borders due to different legislative environments. The Bohemian cooperative spoke about community wealth building and their plans to build an education hub. 

There were so many speakers at this jam-packed conference! The non-profit housing developer Ó Cualann spoke about what successful co-op projects need, including committed collaborators, early allocation, low cost land, public subsidies, and cheap mortgages. This organization aims to deliver housing at 33% below market rate. ALME’s president Daniel Walsh also spoke about the need to reduce housing costs to improve access to education. However, he doubted anyone was coming to save us, so students need to push for change themselves.

And of course members of the DSHC made speeches!. Ferdia mentioned a potential way to fix derelict buildings was with community construction and adaptive reuse. Lorenzo described how the Queens student housing cooperative mode could work in Dublin, and Áine outlined plans for DSHC to create a student architecture competition to create a model for a future housing co-op building.

So many students and housing professionals attended the conference. They set a very high bar for next year!