The chapter provides an overview of the key elements that characterize the Italian housing welfare system and the housing question. The key elements of the national housing system include (a) a growing and robust presence of homeowners; (b) a scarcity of public housing devoted to solving structural housing needs; (c) a shortage of affordable rents (also due to the recent phenomena of touristification and the increasing spread of so-called short-term rentals). All these elements make it difficult to tackle the populations’ long term housing needs. This overview provides the contextual backdrop for understanding how Italy’s cohousing model, which though not intended until now to address severe housing needs, has developed in close connection with the shortage of social and, more generally, affordable housing.