STATEMENT

Red Vivienda Cooperativa, 30 September 2026

Protect homes today and build housing that will remain affordable tomorrow

Red Vivienda Cooperativa calls for urgent protection against eviction and a sustained strategy to expand permanently affordable public, social and cooperative housing in Spain.

/ castellano /  DOC / PDF / PHOTO

Growing public concern over evictions and the difficulty of finding a home demands an immediate response. No one should lose their home without a dignified alternative. We need to protect tenants and prevent rent increases or fraudulent rental practices from driving people out of their homes and neighbourhoods.

We stand with the people and communities organising to defend their homes. Their mobilisation makes visible an insecurity that often begins long before a court procedure: when a rent increase becomes unaffordable, a contract is about to end, or people can no longer find a home in the neighbourhood where they have built their lives.

Urgent measures are essential. We must also ask what kind of housing will be available to future generations. If each crisis is addressed without expanding a stable affordable housing stock, public action will continue to arrive when households are already at risk of losing their homes.

Red Vivienda Cooperativa advocates a policy that protects people now while building long-term affordability. This means expanding directly managed public housing and enabling non-profit social providers and organised communities to contribute. Public land, finance and support provided today should continue to deliver affordable homes for decades.

Recent cases of displacement from housing also compel us to ask which practices are encouraged by tax policy and housing subsidies. These measures should promote lasting affordability, protect those already living in the homes, and prevent increases in property values from depending on the displacement of residents.

Right-of-use housing cooperatives offer a collective response to a housing system that leaves each household to find a home on its own, through purchase or rent. The building is held in cooperative ownership and managed collectively, while each household has a stable right to use its home and contributes to the project’s costs. With rules preventing the individual sale of homes and the private capture of capital gains, these homes can remain available to present and future residents.

We recognise the limits of this model. A cooperative project cannot normally provide immediate rehousing to someone facing eviction tomorrow. Development and renovation take time, while upfront member contributions exclude many households. To broaden access, public authorities need to provide land and buildings, long-term finance, guarantees and support that lowers entry costs and enables inclusion. The acquisition and renovation of existing buildings, with safeguards for residents, should also form part of the approach.

This position connects with Housing Europe’s call to make the growth of permanently affordable public, cooperative and social housing a structural objective and its work on moving collaborative housing from local initiatives to lasting scale. As part of this European conversation, Red Vivienda Cooperativa hopes to contribute the experience of Spain’s right-of-use housing cooperatives and learn from other public, social and community-led housing providers.

The immediate response to the housing emergency must be judged by whether people can keep their homes. Housing policy must also be judged by how many public, social and cooperative homes remain affordable year after year. Both tasks require public commitment, resources and organised communities.