PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS

We transform the housing model


Cooperative housing on loan aims to promote new forms of coexistence that are more communal, and that strengthen the interrelationship between the people who live in the building and also with the neighbourhood or with people outside the cooperative, managing to build projects that live in their environment, collaborating in their active dynamisation.

These interactions can be created to different degrees, with groups or neighbourhood entities that participate in some of the project spaces, such as neighbours who make use of some of the facilities in the community spaces (laundry, workshop, multipurpose room…). In short, the aim is for the social project of cooperative housing to go beyond the limits of its plot and to have a positive influence on its surroundings as a dynamic agent of social initiatives

We also believe that a model of coexistence that relies on cooperative housing can be a solution to the problem of access to housing. Moreover, promoting this model has a multiplying effect, generating an impact on the development of the city and the territory, as has been seen in previous countries. It is a commitment to a transformative project that demands the permanence of cooperative values and the social and solidarity-based economy: equality, equity, democracy and self-organisation.

The collaboration between the cooperative and the Local Administration is necessary to be able to achieve the shared challenges of integrating a new model of housing together with an active community and to have an impact on the fabric of the social economy and on the associative dynamics. We work for a social transformation for a more just, solidary and sustainable context to make effective the right to housing through the public-cooperative collaboration

Public cooperative collaboration


The advantages of the cooperative housing model in cession of use are many and diverse! By collaborating with entities such as Sostre Cívic to promote cooperative housing, the Administration can…

    • To generate affordable and permanent housing from a public-cooperative and non-profit initiative.
    • To reduce public spending on housing, since the management is handed over to the cooperative and, in the meantime, it has the guarantee that access to this housing will be socially fair.
    • To contribute to the reactivation of disused heritage or heritage that requires rehabilitation, without losing public ownership of the land or building. Disused heritage can be given new life in a socially favourable and sustainable way!
    • Ensure the maintenance and continuous improvement of the heritage: the responsibility lies with the cooperative and the users.
    • Promote social mixing and positive transformation of the neighbourhood or municipality.
    • Participate in the creation of spaces for social and economic collaboration between society, administration and financial entities.

Strategies and actions


How can we promote cooperative housing on loan from the local administration?

1.To disseminate the model of cooperative housing on loan.

      • Organising talks, debates and round tables to bring the model of housing on loan to the public.
      • Promoting alternative models of access to and ownership of housing in housing offices.
      • Distributing the informative documents produced by Sostre Cívic with the support of the Administration
      • Identifying groups that are interested in promoting a collective housing project.

2. Identify and record wealth opportunities.

      • Searching for heritage of interest that is not in use: obtaining plans, town planning information, price, photographs…
      • Promoting a catalogue of protected heritage or rural heritage.
      • Generating a report on empty or disused housing.
      • Opening a pool of owners who are willing to set up a collective project.

3. Promote cooperative housing in the municipality.

      • To promote previous viability studies in heritage opportunities in the municipality.
      • Constituting a right of surface of a land or heritage owned by the municipality in favour of the cooperative for an agreed period of time (maximum 75 years). The award of the land can be direct or through a public tender.
      • By signing a collaboration agreement with the cooperative to promote a joint project in the municipality.
      • Exercising the right of first refusal to recover assets from the banks as a result of foreclosure and assign them to the cooperative.
      • Advising and accompanying groups promoting new projects.
      • Financing the purchase of land or assets by the cooperative
      • Giving aid to the use quota and the entry contribution to the cooperative housing project in cession of use.

4.To contribute to the creation of a network with regional agents, public administrations and private entities (municipal associations, cooperatives, Regional Council, Provincial Council, Ateneu Cooperatives, the Catalan Government, the Catalan Housing Agency, etc.)

      • Promoting the creation of housing boards in the region or municipality.
      • Organizing training activities in cooperative housing for workers of the Administration and/or interested people.
      • Favouring the generation of spaces of interaction between the different agents of the territory, like meetings or days.

We put at your disposal the documents and guides that we have availablein the download section so that you can help us to spread the model of housing in cession of use.

If you need us to send you any other specific material, please contact us at comunicacio@sostrecivic.cat