Held in Helsinki (Finland), Sostre Cívic shares his successful experiences in financing, project consolidation and public collaboration

The next edition of the international festival will be held in Barcelona during març 2023

With the aim of expanding networking and the exchange of knowledge and practices with housing cooperative actors from other countries, driven by the recently created international commission de Sostre Cívic, during June 14 and 16 we participated, for the first time, in theInternational Social Housing Festival (ISHF), which this year was held in Helsinki (Finland).

A small delegation of members of the Governing Council and the technical team of Sostre Cívic they participated in the international meeting to spread the activity of our cooperative. Especially, actively, to the activities that were part of the Collaborative Housing Day (Collaborative Housing Day), organized by the network Co-habitation Network on Wednesday June 15 as part of the Festival program. Located in the Oodi Central Library, one of Helsinki's most spectacular public facilities, round tables, discussions, workshops and networking dynamics with like-minded entities took place throughout the day.

The day began with the intervention of the representatives ofHousing Europe, Helsinki City Council, World Habitat i Habitat International Coalition. Once the presentations are over, Sostre Cívic participated in the round table on resilience and co-housing, explaining how affordability and stability, the creation of strong communities and sustainability and energy efficiency make entities like Sostre Cívic, essential actors to build a more resilient society.

Next, the central-south-eastern European network of housing cooperatives in right of use MOBA Housing SCE, hosted a round table to discuss the financing structures of cooperative projects in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Sostre Cívic we were able to share, as guests at the table, our own financial mechanisms, generating anticipation and interest in the formula "Tornassol” of participatory titles and its effectiveness in promoting new projects.

At lunch time, the different members of the delegation of Sostre Cívic we were able to exchange experiences at different tables, simultaneously, with other reference entities for social and collaborative housing in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Serbia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Catalonia. The opportunity allowed us to discuss the different contexts where projects are being developed with the same objective: to guarantee the right to housing in a collective, affordable and sustainable way.

To close the afternoon program, we heard the interventions of Cooperative Housing International (the sectoral housing organization of theInternational Cooperative Alliance), The Habitat International Coalition I la Network of Brussels CLTs. We were able to continue sharing these ideas and experiences later, in a relaxed atmosphere, during a dinner with more than fifty guests from 19 different countries hosted by the project of Cohabitation Malta House, in the city of Helsinki itself.

We also saw this community spirit at Malta house during visits to other co-housing projects in the city of Helsinki: Kotisatama and Sumpi. These, along with Malta House, have been built over the last 10 years and range from 39 to 63 units per building. The project of Kotisatama, in addition, it is an exclusive co-housing for elderly people. All three have been built on municipal land in the Finnish capital, in the form of an 80-year lease (Helsinki City Council owns 75% of the city's total land). Residents have been involved in the design of the buildings through participatory processes, all decisions are made under horizontal democratic criteria and all projects have small bedroom units ranging from 37 to 70 m² and large common areas (up to 500 m²) such as libraries, multipurpose rooms, gardens and, in Finland, you can't miss community saunas!   

Of course, despite the fact that all these characteristics match the model we develop at home, there each project is owned by a company with limited social capital, in which residents buy shares equivalent to the market value of their homes, less the value of the land held in the city.

Barcelona will be the seat of the Festival in març 2023

Previously, and returning to the official program of the Festival, Barcelona City Council publicly announced that the city will host the next edition of the ISHF. The event in the Catalan capital will take place from 21 to 24 març of 2023. Javier Burón, housing director of Barcelona City Council, announced that the Catalan meeting will necessarily serve as a witness to different emerging housing models that in the near future will face the challenges of the world current Taking advantage of the appointment, numerous people participating from different Catalan organizations contrasted some initial ideas around the Barcelona festival, during different informal meetings we had with delegates from the Provincial Council of Barcelona, ​​the Barcelona City Council team, the City Council de Mataró and the Habitat3 Foundation, among others.

On Thursday the 16th, the last day of the festival, Sostre Cívic we were able to participate in a final presentation in a seminar jointly organized by the city councils of Barcelona and Bologna. On this occasion we shared our experiences on different ways of public-cooperative collaborations, explaining successful cases in Catalonia such as La Balma, Palafrugell o Clau Mestra, identifying, for the international audience, the challenges we face in Catalonia to consolidate public support for the cooperative way to the right to housing.

Once the festival is over, and thanks to the various meetings and networking work, Sostre Cívic will continue to work internationally with Urbamonde, Co-habitat network and MOBA Housing SCE. The aim is to continue developing a collaboration project between entities that breaks down borders and facilitates a stable flow of knowledge and good practices, while allowing us to detect new funding opportunities to strengthen our entities.

You can find more information about the Collaborative Housing Day at the following link.