---
title: "The 48 apartments are occupied. CO-HATY's real test starts after the keys"
locale: "en"
url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/co-haty-after-emergency-en"
markdown_url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/co-haty-after-emergency-en.md"
category: "craft"
tags: ["architecture", "Ukraine", "housing", "reuse", "social design"]
published_at: "2026-08-23T16:49:00.000Z"
author: "Hugo Marchal"
translation: "https://irz.fr/fr/articles/co-haty-apres-urgence-fr.md"
---

# The 48 apartments are occupied. CO-HATY's real test starts after the keys

In Ukraine, CO-HATY has moved from emergency dormitories to apartments managed for the long term. Its own reports reveal what that shift changes, and what remains unproven.

In spring 2022, CO-HATY mainly had to answer a brutal question: how many people can sleep here, and how quickly? Four years later, inside a former kindergarten in Kalush, the project faces a less spectacular problem: **who maintains 48 apartments after move-in, with what money, and for how long?**

That shift tells a larger story than the rescue of a few empty buildings, as a Ukrainian initiative led by architects and urban practitioners moves from emergency collective accommodation toward municipal social housing, affordable rental and nonprofit management.[1](https://www.cohaty.org/)[3](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_d15b57cc26874616ba06560555c0697f.pdf) The transition disappears, however, if every published number is added together: CO-HATY's reports count completed buildings, created places, selected families and residents who moved in, four measures that do not describe the same result.

## Seven buildings

CO-HATY emerged in March 2022 through METALAB and Urban Curators as Russia's full-scale invasion displaced millions of people inside Ukraine. The team looked for vacant institutional buildings in the west of the country, found public or private owners willing to make them available, raised funds, organized construction and designed furniture.[1](https://www.cohaty.org/)[5](https://world-habitat.org/news/press-releases/ukrainian-co-haty-emergency-housing-project-receives-bronze-in-world-habitat-awards/)

The first cycle moved quickly. A dormitory, a former kindergarten, a hotel and other collective buildings were renovated. CO-HATY's 2023 report lists seven completed sites and approximately 1,300 places across the Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskyi regions.[2](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_c04b0cde54d3410d856bbb1568d78195.pdf)

That number needs a precise label: it is **declared capacity**, not evidence that 1,300 people occupied those beds at the same time. Individual project pages document dated move-ins at several sites, but not all seven. World Habitat captures another point in the programme: more than $1.3 million raised and four buildings renovated to house 640 displaced people in 2022, with three more buildings to follow.[5](https://world-habitat.org/news/press-releases/ukrainian-co-haty-emergency-housing-project-receives-bronze-in-world-habitat-awards/)

The accounts stop the clock at different moments and count different things, so they can both be accurate. Yet the label still matters: a “completed” building records a construction outcome, while an occupied home introduces allocation, utility bills, maintenance, conflict and security of tenure.

> **From bed to lease**
> - Vacant buildings rapidly become collective accommodation.: 2022
> - CO-HATY reports seven completed sites and about 1,300 places.: 2023
> - Shypynky and Horodok open social apartments tied to municipalities.: 2025
> - In Kalush, 48 apartments test a ten-year affordable management model.: 2026
> The categories change: emergency capacity, municipal social housing, then nonprofit rental management.

## A longer clock

The 2025 report makes the next phase visible. CO-HATY documents a small social-apartment project opening in Shypynky in June. In Horodok, 24 apartments were occupied by the end of the year and the converted building entered the municipality's housing stock.[3](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_d15b57cc26874616ba06560555c0697f.pdf)

That last administrative move looks tiny next to a renovation, yet it changes the project's chances of survival. Fresh curtains cannot turn a former non-residential building into durable social housing; it also needs a legal category, a responsible owner, allocation rules and an organization capable of managing the property after builders leave.

Successive documents retain ordinary traces of that process: Shypynky appears with either 13 or 14 apartments, while the summary of the 2025 report gives Horodok 28 even though its detailed section, project page and occupancy account all say 24.[3](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_d15b57cc26874616ba06560555c0697f.pdf) IRZ therefore uses 24 as the best-supported final figure rather than quietly selecting whichever total looks most impressive.

The variation records plans changing, rooms acquiring another purpose and provisional figures surviving inside a brochure. Following what actually opened tells us more than a polished project history would.

## Forty-eight keys

Zirochka now provides the most complete test: a long-vacant former kindergarten in Kalush converted into 48 apartments ranging from 20 to 68 square metres. Habitat for Humanity documents the official opening on 30 April 2026, the move-in of 48 displaced families and two apartments adapted for wheelchair users.[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)

Yuliia, one of the residents interviewed by Habitat, describes the scale of that change through a child's room: “We were so delighted that my daughter would have her own room — everything new, clean, and thoughtfully prepared, even the little things.”[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)

The building reaches energy-efficiency class B and uses a 245 kW heat-pump system. CO-HATY reports a construction cost of €798 per square metre, including work, finishes, furniture and permits.[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)[8](https://www.cohaty.org/en/cohaty-proj/kalush_affordable_housing) These details make the object measurable. They are not yet its most consequential result.

Residents pay monthly service fees ranging from UAH 1,900 to 6,600 depending on the apartment, plus metered utilities, so this is not free accommodation. A points system and a committee including municipal and partner representatives governed selection,[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)[8](https://www.cohaty.org/en/cohaty-proj/kalush_affordable_housing) while CO-HATY says it plans to manage the complex for ten years.[3](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_d15b57cc26874616ba06560555c0697f.pdf)

The apartment plan is one piece of a prototype in which renovation, selection, fee levels and management have to hold together. An association can complete a building using exceptional donations; operating it through every winter, replacing a pump, handling arrears and keeping charges affordable is a much longer experiment.

Habitat itself describes the twelve months after opening as a test of the nonprofit housing-management model.[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine) In August 2026, nobody can honestly claim that the model has proved its financial balance: the apartments are delivered and occupied, while their long-term economics have only just started.

## Participation, specified

CO-HATY frequently uses the word “community,” but here the term points to observable work: displaced people joined early renovation efforts, some were later paid for construction or management, and workshops used plans, collage, models and demonstration spaces to discuss use.[6](https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/co-haty)

Future residents still did not control every decision, and local authorities retained the allocation lists at several municipal sites.[6](https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/co-haty) Kalush uses an explicit points system and committee, but no procedure removes the political choice involved when applications outnumber apartments.[4](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)

Reuse carries a similar ambiguity because repairing a vacant structure saves time and material compared with demolition followed by new construction, yet the exact gain is harder to establish. Metropolis repeats a project estimate of nearly 50% less embodied carbon;[6](https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/co-haty) without a published underlying calculation, that percentage remains a case-study estimate rather than an independently established result. The stronger proof is simpler: buildings existed, stood vacant, were renovated and then received residents.

## A future pool

In 2027, the CO-HATY team is due to represent Ukraine at the Venice Architecture Biennale with *Pool of Questions*. The announced installation takes the form of a shallow basin surrounded by films made in Kalush. It asks when a displaced person can begin to think about a courtyard, shade or rest rather than shelter alone.[7](https://www.archdaily.com/1183552/the-ukrainian-pavilion-examines-displacement-and-shared-space-through-pool-of-questions-at-the-2027-venice-architecture-biennale)

Because the pavilion has not yet been built or opened, it proves nothing about delivery. Its value lies elsewhere: the exhibition plans to foreground what architectural photography often crops away, including municipal contracts, budgets, rules, mistakes and maintenance.[7](https://www.archdaily.com/1183552/the-ukrainian-pavilion-examines-displacement-and-shared-space-through-pool-of-questions-at-the-2027-venice-architecture-biennale)

CO-HATY has already demonstrated that a team can recover vacant buildings during a war and move residents into them. The next evidence is less photogenic. It will concern whether fees support decent management, whether municipalities preserve the apartments as social housing, whether equipment ages well and whether families can remain.

With the keys handed over in Kalush, the test moves into invoices, meetings, repairs and the second winter.

## References

1. [CO-HATY, overview and projects](https://www.cohaty.org/)
2. [CO-HATY, 2023 report](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_c04b0cde54d3410d856bbb1568d78195.pdf)
3. [CO-HATY, 2025 report](https://www.cohaty.org/_files/ugd/d89489_d15b57cc26874616ba06560555c0697f.pdf)
4. [Habitat for Humanity, Zirochka opening in Kalush](https://www.habitat.org/emea/newsroom/2026/former-kindergarten-becomes-affordable-housing-displaced-families-ukraine)
5. [World Habitat, CO-HATY at the World Habitat Awards](https://world-habitat.org/news/press-releases/ukrainian-co-haty-emergency-housing-project-receives-bronze-in-world-habitat-awards/)
6. [Metropolis, CO-HATY case study](https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/co-haty)
7. [ArchDaily, planned Ukrainian pavilion for Venice 2027](https://www.archdaily.com/1183552/the-ukrainian-pavilion-examines-displacement-and-shared-space-through-pool-of-questions-at-the-2027-venice-architecture-biennale)
8. [CO-HATY, Zirochka affordable housing project in Kalush](https://www.cohaty.org/en/cohaty-proj/kalush_affordable_housing)