Our project "Cooperative homes for young adults" that we presented together with the organization Point of Reference has been one of the 9 initiatives selected to receive the support of Lliures.

This is another step towards being able to incorporate people in situations of special vulnerability in housing projects and ensuring that the cooperative housing model in right of use also provides a response to access and the right to housing for people who live in a more vulnerable situation.

Social inclusion as a value of our model

Since the birth of Sostre Cívic, one of our principles is the inclusion of people in situations of special vulnerability, as is already evident in article 14 of the Social Statutes.

Along these lines, the 2019 General Assembly approved a proposal for an agreement on social inclusion flats that defined the number of homes for groups of people in vulnerable situations that each general initiative project must reserve according to its size. We thus guaranteed that, in projects with 10 or more homes, there would be at least one social inclusion home, and at least 3 homes in projects with more than 50.

Furthermore, this agreement sets out as the cooperative's general objective that at least 5% of our total housing stock must be aimed at people in situations of special vulnerability.

To facilitate compliance with this reservation, we also created a directory of possible profiles to incorporate , as well as collaborating entities, other resources or public programs that may be compatible with this measure, facilitate its management and can minimize the economic impact on the project.

What is the Free Project?

It is now when all this previous work of definition and intentions begins to materialize and become reality thanks to the Free Project! Lliures is an initiative born in 2016 to build a solidarity fund that supports projects that work to act against the growth and chronicling of poverty and social exclusion in Catalonia; driven by Coop 57, Òmnium Cultural and ECAS (Catalan Social Action Entities).

This year, and with the social emergency situation generated by COVID-19, Lliures has launched an extraordinary fundraising campaign to allocate the funds raised to social projects that combat the structural deficiencies among the most vulnerable population that this crisis has once again highlighted.

97 proposals were received, which were evaluated by the social bodies of Lliures, and 9 projects were finally awarded. Alongside our initiative, there are interesting social proposals such as Top Manta , from the Popular Union of Street Vendors, or La Troca , the community school for adults in the Sants neighborhood.

Cooperative homes for disadvantaged youth

The ostracized youth must emancipate in record time with a very fragile starting point: they are asked to do so at the age of eighteen, while the average age of emancipation in Catalonia is twenty-nine . 

With this project we want to bring cooperative housing closer to young people who have been left out of guardianship, which, due to its community dimension and its possibilities of developing a long-term life project, can contribute to responding to these situations. We present it with the help of Punt de Referència , an association that fights to improve the quality of life of this group, guaranteeing equal opportunities in their incorporation into adult life.

The joint proposal consists of, for 75 years , transforming a conventional cooperative housing unit from one of our projects into a housing unit for young people who have been ex-guarded. Punt de Referència will be responsible for providing socio-educational support to the young people, who will subsequently join the dynamics of our cooperative, and will form part of the working committees and the assembly of the housing project.

Thanks to the financing and support of Lliures, this will be the first experience in the cooperative housing sector in right of use that will permanently incorporate people who live in a situation of vulnerability aggravated by an emergency situation. The intention is not to provide a response only to resolve the emergency, but there is an objective of permanence and durability. This project reduces the economic barrier that makes access to cooperative housing in right of use difficult for people with fewer economic resources.