Currently, the group of Can 70 has the open registrations. If you are interested in being part of this project, fill out this form.

Can 70 we are a group of elderly people who work to have active aging within the framework of cooperative housing in right of use, conceived as an alternative to the current model of aging. Since 2015 we have been working and debating on our coexistence model, thinking together about how we want to live and grow old in community. The result of this work is, for example, the sixth guide in our "We build cooperative housing" collection, about care in the coexistence of elderly people.
Seven years later, in May 2021, Barcelona City Council ceded a plot of land in the Sarrià neighborhood for Sostre Cívic, as part of a agreement with different social housing entities and housing cooperatives for accelerate the expansion of the protected public park in the city. Can 70 we will thus become the first senior cooperative housing in Barcelona and the first on public land in Catalonia and the state.

Objectives
Can 70 we are a group of elderly people who work to have active aging within the framework of cooperative housing in right of use, conceived as an alternative to the current model of aging. Cooperative and collaborative housing allows live old age in a self-managed and supportive manner in an environment that facilitates the independent and healthy life of the elderly, attending to the needs of people while promoting personal and collective growth.
The idea of cooperative and collective housing starts from the principle of considering the value of use as the main value of housing, avoiding any speculation that does not take into account social relations as the main axis of life. This is why we understand that, in terms of access to housing, this model can become a benchmark. Based on these principles, we have set ourselves the following objectives:
- Live an empowered and active old age that transforms the prevailing social model based on the family assumption of elderly care or on depersonalized institutionalization.
- Building social, human and community links with the neighborhood that welcomes us while contributing to the social transformation of the city immersed in an individualistic global context.
- Diversify the forms of coexistence by establishing mutual support networks and shared collective spaces that favor the emotional balance of people avoiding isolation and loneliness.
- Cooperatively self-manage the services needed for the community. Both those that refer to daily needs and the care of people who may need professional services.
- Enjoy spaces for private use and spaces and common use that allow the interrelationship between personal and collective life.
- Living in a home and in an ecologically sustainable, healthy and welcoming environment.
PRINCIPLES AND VALUES
From the establishment of the objectives, we deepen and develop what gives meaning, gives principles and values to the cooperative housing in right of use for participatory aging. We have condensed these principles into a series of points that we call the "8Cs".

Knowledge: Time and attention must be devoted to building the group, getting to know and respecting each other. It is essential to understand everyone's motivations and to understand what is done and what is said.
Communication: Willingness and firmness to develop friendly and sincere communication in order to build a culture of harmony.
Confidence: Essential quality for the good understanding of the group. One of the ways to express trust is by accepting the decisions made democratically by the group.
Cooperation: Respect, recognition and a positive attitude are the basis of cooperation. In the case of active aging it is central to creating an environment of unity and harmony.
Commitments: The commitment is to get involved through one's own talents in a common goal. Without personal commitment the project does not progress.
Consensus: It is understood as a way of making decisions while collecting the expectations and concerns of all members of the group. It is about serving the interests of the collective and not so much the individuals. In-depth debate makes it easier to reach consensus.
Growth: It's about growing both personally and collectively, learning to resolve conflicts with respect and active listening.
Celebration: Celebrating and evaluating the tasks carried out, both individually and collectively. Recognition and celebration contribute to the success of the project, to the push needed to move forward.
SIGNATURE OF THE SURFACE RIGHT
El March 27 2023 we signed with the Barcelona City Council the surface rights for the two lots in Via Augusta where we will make our project possible. Seven years after the birth of our group, and which have included the dissemination of the project, conversations and negotiations with the administrations, and collective debates to think together about how we want to live and age in community.


So many efforts and accumulated energies made the act of signing the surface right a particularly exciting moment, as reflected in the words read by one of the project's partners in her speech:
Finally!!
Two years and four months after the signing of the ESAL Agreement. I will use an age-old technique that works, it makes everything flow for the better:
1. We're sorry if we've been too heavy-handed insisting and hurrying to move forward with this project, but life goes on and on, just as our beloved colleagues, Dolors and Rosalia, have left, who will always be there, while the rest of us continue getting old
2. Apologize to us, because more than once we have not fully trusted the desires or abilities or your priorities towards an aging group.
3. We love you, because together we have achieved this milestone that allows us to start the physical construction of our aging project, which we would like to be the first of many other projects to age better.
4. Thank you for working with us for a project that we want to enjoy, and that should be replicable in this aging Barcelona without too many options for a desirable ageing.
Finally, thank you, on behalf of Can70.
THE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT
The architectural project is being developed with the team of architects Peris+Toral, who won the first contest of ideas driven by Sostre Cívic. In January 2024, the Basic Project is available and the Executive Project is being closed. They are the documents that contain the entire architectural proposal, a proposal made from several workshops held with the whole group where the decisions that ended up defining the project were made.

The lot is located at Via Augusta, 375-381 / 383-387. This is a lot where two buildings are to be built, which will be connected by the semi-basement floor. For this reason, in the plans shown in project file two different floors are observed, one for each building, except for the semi-basement, which contemplates the united surface of the two buildings.
The buildings that are being planned have a semi-basement, the ground floor and 4 floors, where we anticipate that 39 people will live there. In the semi-basement, the spaces for communal use of the building are concentrated, uses in the process of being defined. On the ground floor and upper floors we find the homes.


The homes will be of two types:
- 10 Conventional houses, of approximately 43m2
- 29 Dwellings configured in several Aggregation Units.
ACCESS CRITERIA
We have designed a protocol to welcome and accompany the new members of the group who become part of the project when the incorporation processes are carried out. This issue is based on two aspects that we consider fundamental for the future of the cooperative housing project.
- Access to Can70 it starts at age 55 and ends at age 69. Scaling the ages of the group is an important issue because it is the way to guarantee the continuity over time of the cooperative housing project. Maintaining a balanced proportion of the different age groups facilitates mutual help and ensures that care is carried out with guarantees.
- All the people who are part of the Can70 project they will enter as individuals, whether they are couples or not. The homes will be single-family only.
The cooperative housing project Can 70 is a project of Sostre Cívic and, as such, must guarantee processes for the incorporation of new partners that are transparent and in accordance with what is established by statutes of the cooperative. However, Can 70 it has specific characteristics and an agreement with Barcelona City Council that obliges it to certain specificities.
You can check in this document the specific requirements to incorporate new people into the Can70 driving group.
DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN CAN 70?
Enrollments in the driving group of Can 70 are open See the lens assembly tutorial access criteria document and incorporation process to find out if you meet the requirements, and fill out the form you will find below.
For more information, you can consult the information file of the project (April 2023) or you can write to us at info@can70.sostrecivic.cat