On 7th February 2018 Mara visited the Abeona Housing Co-operative in the London Borough of Camden to meet some of its founding members. The kernel of the co-operative started in the early 1970s during the squatting and shortlife housing movements in London. In 1983, it was finally registered to provide permanent low-cost co-operative housing for rental and was able to buy and redevelop a string of properties on Fleet Road. Its members have long been active in a range of community projects, both locally and across London, and have a strong social justice ethos. Currently, the co-operative is formed of 48 members, who are selected from people on the municipal goverment’s housing waiting list as well as from other third sector housing agencies. Members vary in ages and come from a variety of ethnic, class and cultural backgrounds, including lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women and men, some with children. A percentage of the flats have been designed and built for people living with disability and/or mobility problems. More information can be found on the Abeona website. In 2015, as part of the archival and oral history project ‘Another Utopia’, filmmaker Albert Potrony produced the documentary Another Utopia (UK, 2015, 49 min), which narrates the history of the co-op and which can be watched on the project’s webpage.
