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In short:
A group of 29 Canberra students are extolling the benefits of living together in a rent-controlled, cooperative home as an alternative to student accommodation and the private rental market.
There are thought to be a few hundred cooperatives across Australia, where each member is given an equal say on how they're governed, and rent can be indexed to income.
What's next?
Advocates say cooperative living is far less common in Australia than in other countries, and are calling for more government investment into the sector.
Ben Mason pays just $187 a week to rent in the heart of one of Australia's most expensive cities.
His living situation comes with shared meals and 28 housemates.
The 19-year-old is a member of the Canberra Student Housing Co-operative – an organisation run for and by a group of university students.
It was set up in 2013 to provide affordable accommodation, but amid a deepening cost-of-living and housing crisis, demand for a cheap room has never been so high.
"I'm seeing my bank account not be drained down to zero every week and it's quite freeing actually," Mr Mason said.
What is a co-op?
Housing co-operatives function by giving each member an equal say on how they are governed.
Most are a form of social housing where members pay rent indexed to their income, although some are member-owned.
Professor Louise Crabtree-Hayes, a professorial research fellow at Western Sydney University, said there were a few hundred co-operative homes across Australia.
"That's a much smaller sector than internationally," Professor Crabtree-Hayes said.
"In some of the Scandinavian countries, co-ops can make up about 20 per cent of all housing stock.
"So there's obviously potential for growth there to become a bigger part of Australia's housing system."
Saving students from insecure housing
Before moving into the co-op, Mr Mason said he was "in dire straits".
The engineering student had left his expensive on-campus accommodation and was facing a future of insecure housing after a rental fell through.
"For disadvantaged students, students coming from low-income backgrounds, it's become truly untenable to live on campus," Mr Mason said.
Data from Australia's Student Accommodation Council shows the median weekly cost of a room in Canberra student accommodation is $375.
In Sydney it is $531, Brisbane $450, Melbourne $426 and Adelaide $391.
It can be significantly more expensive to live in a catered college.
Mr Mason said the co-op was responsible for rescuing many of its members from precarious living situations.
"For a lot of students, [they're] having to try and make ends meet – many of my friends have to make decisions about choosing medication or paying rent," he said.
"Sharing resources and sharing spaces is, in this housing crisis, kind of the only option if you want to save any money."
Communal living
At the Canberra Student Housing Co-Op, residents live across five units in one building.
Members buy in bulk, with everyone contributing $60 a month into a kitty for shared groceries and expenses.
Students work in teams across four committees to ensure the space functions well and meets members' needs.
Fourth-year student Saskia Partridge has twice lived at the co-op and said she was drawn to it for the sense of community.
"I think there's a sense that a co-op sounds like a commune," she said.
"But it really just feels like a bunch of share houses where everyone just works together to achieve goals and to provide for each other.
"We're living together, we're cooking together and we're learning how to be adults, and I think that it's a lot easier to do that in a structure that is built to support people and to provide financial security."
Despite the "hippie" stereotype, Professor Crabtree-Hayes said co-ops could cater to a broad spectrum of people in need of affordable accommodation.
"Older people, single parent households, families, artists, the LGBTIAQ+ community, different cultural groups … people wanting to reduce the environmental impacts of their home – basically anyone prepared to take part in the governance and be an active member," she said.
"People talk about moving into a co-op as having literally saved their lives."
She said the sector needed more government investment to flourish.
"There are groups wanting to set co-ops up and currently not being able to access the stock needed to do that, so there is demand and there is interest," she said.