3.1.4. The Foundation

3.1.4. The foundation

The Svartlamo(e)n foundation rests on three pillars, Svartlamo(e)n residents’ association, Svartlamo(e) n housing association and Svartlamo(e)n culture and commerce association. The Svartlamo(e)n’s residents’ association was founded in 1990. Its members include people who have a lease from the housing association and people who actively volunteer with Svartlamo(e)n (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021e). Its roles include preserving Svartlamo(e)n as a self-organizing, and a self-maintaining area, along with promoting the idea of social housing and making Trondheim an anti-racist and discrimination free place. The association has a flat structure without a leader, where responsibilities are rotated so that everyone gets equal opportunities (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021e). The residents’ meeting is the governing body of the association. This flat structure ensures that the chair is selected before the meeting (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021d). The meeting attempts to reach a consensus but may go for voting if a consensus is not possible. The Svartlamo(e)n Housing Association, established in 2001, rents housing from Trondheim Kommune and manages them with allocation and collection of rent. It rents all houses except Nyhuset (the tall wooden house), Brioklossen, the experimental homes, and Selbukassa. The association uses the collected money in paying salaries for employees and managing the overall maintenance and renovation of the houses (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021d). The Svartlamo(e)n Culture and Business Association, established in 2006 manages business activities in the area. It rents commercial spaces targeted at young people who are looking to establish businesses. There are around 70 income related businesses that the association manages like DansiT (Centre for dance and art), RAKE (working community), Lowlife (Tatto shop), Graatisbuttiken (Free store) etc (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021d). Selection of people

The FLYKO (moving and coordination group) manages applications of people who want to move to Svartlamo(e)n or change their homes internally. They select people based on criterion and skills sets like homelessness, immigrants, craftsmen, artists, financially and socially disadvantaged, or applicants who have not lived in Svartlamo(e)n before. The process is confidential and stays within the FLYKO group (Svartlamon Boligstiftelse 2021b).

Hierarchy

The Svartlamo(e)n foundation has a flat structure and uses a bottom-up approach for making decisions for their area. At the bottom, there are the neighborhood groups who hold meetings amongst themselves, distribute responsibilities and discuss ideas which need to be taken forward to the resident’s associations’ meetings. Next in the hierarchy is the Svartlamo(e)n residents’ association along with Ssvartlamo(e)n housing and commerce associations which take part in the residents’ meetings and make decisions for the area. Furthermore, two elected representatives from Svartlamo(e)n vote with two representatives from the Trondheim municipality and one board leader who is elected by the Trondheim municipality who acts as a neutral party. These representatives together are the board members for the overall decision-making process.

Figure 19: Current Regulation Hierarchy, Authors