Our vision
A city people can afford is a city that thrives.
Fair housing builds a middle class that stays, and an economy that gives back.
Where the wage goes
In Barcelona province, the average rent takes 76% of an average gross salary (Euronews). That's not a housing market. That's a wage being drained before it reaches a single shop.
Eurostat counts a household as overburdened when housing takes more than 40% of its disposable income (Eurostat). Measured against a gross salary, Barcelona is nearly twice past that line.
In Spain, 45% of people who rent were at risk of poverty or social exclusion between 2015 and 2023, the highest share in the European Union, where the average is 32% (Ara).
Average rent as a share of an average gross salary, 2025
Rent money belongs in the barri.
Inflated rent is money taken from the whole city.
Every euro that goes to an artificially inflated rent is a euro that never reaches the forn, the bar on the corner, the hairdresser, the bookshop or the after-school class. Inflated rents take those sales from every business in the barri.
In Spain, four in ten households who rent spend more than 40% of their income on it, the highest share among Europe's big economies; in France and Germany it's 17.5% (Brains RE, citing the Banco de España). Households with less may have to cut their spending everywhere else.
And the money doesn't spread out. Inflated rents take from all of us to line the pockets of a few: about 2% of landlords hold about 36% of Barcelona's main-residence rentals (El Salto). A fair rent leaves money in thousands of households and the businesses they use. An inflated one pools it in a handful of accounts.
A community that can afford its rent can afford to shop local. The city thrives when the theft stops.
Small businesses feel it too: in a 2026 Pimec survey, 83% of Catalan firms said rising housing costs push up wage demands, and more than half had given up new projects because they couldn't hire (VilaWeb, 3Cat). When rents stop swallowing wages, businesses have room to grow, and to pay more.
Businesses need people who can live here.
Catalonia's small and medium businesses say it themselves, in a 2026 report by Pimec and the Observatori de la Pime (Moncloa.com).
- 98%of small and medium businesses say their area is a tense housing market.
- 63%have trouble hiring. A third of those point to housing: homes candidates can't afford, or can't find near the job.
- 83%say rising rents push up what candidates need to earn.
- 1 in 2has limited, postponed or dropped growth plans because of staffing problems linked partly to housing or commuting.
«La vivienda es una barrera de entrada.»"Housing is a barrier to entry."A middle class, or a manor.
A city where most people rent from a few, and the rent eats most of the wage, isn't a free market. It's a manor.
No market ever corrected that by itself. Landlords in feudal times didn't choose fairness. Factory owners didn't choose the eight-hour day. People organised, and laws followed. Fair housing is the same choice, in our time. The history, with sources.
Stable homes make stable lives: children who stay in the same school, workers who stay in the same job, neighbours who know each other's names, and Catalan spoken on the stairs. That's how a middle class is built, and how a city's culture survives. Push people out, and you lose both.
We've done it before.
Barcelona's neighbours won parks, schools, transport and decent homes, street by street, from the late 1960s (UB). In 1972 they founded the FAVB, which still unites more than a hundred neighbourhood associations (Ajuntament).
The models exist here already. La Borda, in Sants, is a housing cooperative on city land ceded for 75 years: 28 homes that can't be sold or re-let at a higher price (betevé). Its building won the Mies van der Rohe prize for emerging architecture (3Cat). Homes built for living, not speculation, are not a dream. They're a street in Sants.
L'habitatge no és un negoci, és un dret."Housing is not a business, it's a right."We don't have to wait. We can buy our own rent control.
Nobody has to give us permission. When neighbours pool their money, they can buy homes and rent them at cost, for good. Every home bought this way is one no speculator can touch again, and a fair rent the market has to compete with.
Two choices: rent fairly, or sell to us.
Some owners say they'll sell rather than rent fairly. Good. More homes for sale means more chances for the people who live here to buy them back from speculation.
Some of us can put in €100, some €10,000. Pooled, it's buying power. Everyone who joins gets the same thing: a fair rent, in a home that stays fair.
“We'll sell instead.” Good. We'll buy, and rent to ourselves.
Rent that dodges the cap
A housing co-op
How the money works
- Pool. Members buy a share to join, and supporters lend or invest what they can. The money goes into a registered co-op, never to this campaign.
- Buy. The co-op buys a flat or a whole building, with an ethical loan for the rest. Tenants already living there can stay.
- Rent at cost. The rent pays the loans, the upkeep and the taxes. Nobody takes a profit, and the co-op's rules stop anyone selling for one.
- Pay neighbours back. The interest goes to the neighbours who lent, not to a fund. The money stays in the barri.
- Do it again. As the loans are paid down, the surplus helps buy the next home. In Germany, established houses pass their surplus to new ones (Mietshäuser Syndikat).
It's already happening
- €2 million in 13 hours.
In June 2025, people put €2 million into co-op housing through Coop57 in thirteen hours, buying securities from €1,000 at 2% a year (El Salto).
- More than €1 million from members.
Sostre Cívic members have put in more than €1 million of voluntary capital since 2022, at 3% a year (Sostre Cívic). The co-op is building 350 homes (3Cat).
- 167 houses in Germany.
The Mietshäuser Syndikat network counts 167 house projects, financed by bank loans and by direct loans from supporters (Mietshäuser Syndikat, direct loans).
- La Borda, in Sants.
A co-op whose homes can't be sold or re-let for profit (betevé).
- Vienna, at city scale.
Co-ops and limited-profit associations own half of Vienna's public housing and rent at cost: about €8.80 per m², against €12 for private flats (Ara).
One co-op arm in every district
We start by district. When enough households in one district are in, they meet, choose their first building, and start their co-op, working with co-ops that already know how. The count below shows which district is closest.
The road
- Promise. Say what you could put in. That's now.
- Register. A district's first co-op, with named founders and an ethical bank account.
- Raise. Shares, loans and investments, all into the glass fund.
- Buy. The first flats, then whole buildings.
- Allocate. By lottery while homes are few, then a queue. What you put in never buys your place in line.
The glass fund
Every euro that moves is seen by everyone. Promises are counted in public now, by district. Once a co-op is registered, every payment in and out goes on a public ledger: the date, the amount, and what it was for. Members vote on every purchase. It's all of our money, so it's all in the open. Contributors appear by number, not by name, unless they choose otherwise.
Start today
- Say you're in. Every name and every euro promised here is buying power we can show.
- Put savings to work now. Co-ops that already buy and build homes take members' capital and small investments today (Sostre Cívic, Coop57).
- Bring a skill. Money, law, building, organizing: a co-op needs all of them.
Honestly: buying at today's prices doesn't give miracle rents in year one. It gives fair rents that never rise for profit and get cheaper as the loans are paid. Co-ops take time, and their members are named in a registered co-op, so this part can't be anonymous. Money goes only into a registered co-op with accounts, never to this campaign or any person. Co-op securities aren't bank deposits: read the terms first.
The glass fund so far
households are in, and they've promised at least so far. Promised, not paid.
By district
Count me in
No money now. Tell us what you could put in once a co-op is registered, and your promise joins the count for your district.
The Barcelona we're building
- Homes we own together. Co-ops that rent at cost, so the savings stay in the barri. How.
- Locals stay. The people who made this city can afford to keep living in it.
- Newcomers become neighbours. On the padró, in the school, at the assembly, learning Catalan on the stairs.
- Owners earn a fair, steady return. With public guarantees and tenants who stay.
- Agents are trusted. Because they write the truth.
- Shops have staff, and staff have homes. Wages are spent in the barri, not drained by rent.
- The castell stands. Because everyone holds the base.
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Sources (21)
- Euronews, June 2026 (InfoJobs and Fotocasa data)
- Eurostat
- Ara, citing the Banco de España, October 2024
- Brains RE, citing the Banco de España
- El Salto, citing the Observatori Metropolità de l'Habitatge
- VilaWeb, July 2026, on a Pimec study
- 3Cat, July 2026, on a Pimec report
- 3Cat, March 2024
- Moncloa.com, citing Pimec, July 2026
- Universitat de Barcelona, on the neighbourhood movement
- Ajuntament de Barcelona, on the FAVB
- betevé, 2016
- 3Cat, on the Mies van der Rohe emerging architect prize
- 3Cat, 23 November 2024
- Mietshäuser Syndikat, how it works
- idealista, October 2026
- El Salto, June 2025
- Sostre Cívic, May 2025
- 3Cat, November 2025, on Sostre Cívic
- Mietshäuser Syndikat, direct loans
- Ara in English, July 2025, interview with Sarah Kumnig