WHO WE ARE

In Sostre Cívic we promote right to use housing cooperativism as an alternative to access housing, ensuring permanent affordability. It escapes from the current private property model as the main tenure form to access housing. Within the right to use model, the ownership belongs to the cooperative and its members have the right to use the dwellings indefinitely.

The association

Sostre Cívic was born in 2004 as an association. It is the first organisation in the territory to promote the right to use housing cooperative model and became the central space for volunteeers that wanted to foster an alternative access to housing in a brand-new tenure form in Catalonia.A monthly informative session 

The association’s mission is the dissemination and promotion of the right to use housing cooperativism and the support to existing cooperative housing projects as well as the impulse to a new access to housing model, affordable and non-specultative.

• Dissemination of the model through the organisation and participation in events and the creation of communication resources.
• Having an impact in the housing public policies.
• Cooperation and networking with Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) entities.

Overall, the activities of the association are open and are addressed to the general population and are financed by the membership fees and state grants.

The cooperative

Sostre Cívic was born as an association in a context where right to use housing cooperativism was unknown in Catalonia, aiming to disseminate and promote the model among the public administrations, SSE organisations and the citizenship.

In 2010, six years after its creation, the namesake cooperative is constituted as a legal requirement to develop the first cooperative housing projectes.

Extraordinari General Assembly | February 2019

Nowadays, we are  more than 1000 members, with 17 projectes (6 already co-living) and 86 dwellings inhabited. Besides, we promote the creation of new projects supporting “seed groups” and answer to the needs and proposals of collaboration with third parties, mainly city councils.

A multiple-project cooperative

Sostre Cívic is the first cooperative with multiple projects created in Catalonia! We promote several cooperative housing projects and all of them are included under Sostre Cívic’s umbrella.

Each project is managed in an independent way and has its own assembly. On top of that, the financing and economic management is separated and riscs are not shared among the rest of the projects in the cooperative. The autonomy of each project is guaranteed by the statutes of the cooperative and by the article 126 in the Catalan law for cooperatives.

The key aspects of the model are regulated in teh general statutes of the cooperative and any modification must be aproved in the General Assembly.

Why did we choose this model?

• To facilitate the creation of new groups. The development of a new project in an existing cooperative is easier given that there is no need to constitute a new cooperative and develop new statutes.

• To guarantee the model in the long term, avoiding the sale of the heritage and the consequent speculation of the dwellings. In case it is expected to sell any of the buildings is compulsory to aprove the operation in the General Assembly, where not only the dwellers and members of that particular project participate, but also the rest of the membership.
• To create a mutual aid network among projects and make it possible for members to move among projects. Projects can share experiences and knowledge, organise joint activities and build support mechanisms. In addition, the shared technical team avoids the externalisation of certain tasks, reduces costs and facilitates the management of the projects.
• To ensure the replicability of the model and its long term sustainability. Once the payment of the loan is finished, members pay a lower fee to cover the maintenance of the building but also the funding of new projects in order to replicate the model.