“Habitação Hoje” translates into Housing, Today!, as we think of it in two ways, the pressing matter of housing conditions and accessibility in our cities and how they affect working class people everyday and what’s the history and what are the policies right now and how they are not designed to solve the problem.

Habitação Hoje! is an organization that was born in the city of Oporto for those who defend the radical fulfillment of the Right to Housing, for those who want to fight so that nobody becomes homeless and for those who believe that it is possible to solve this problem!

We know that collective organization is the only way to revert the problems created throughout so many years and for that reason we work, and we want to work, in more and more fronts; in solidarity with those who are farther away from seeing this right fulfilled; in the struggle in the streets with other movements that defend the Right to the City, and in the analysis of the mechanisms and multiple laws that cover up the problems with false hopes and that always affect the lower classes.

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In Grad za sve (City for all) we fight for better housing conditions of all people in our surroundings (Belgrade and beyond). We use international militant experience through direct action, through offering knowledge on similar struggles in the past and present, through helping shape narratives and demands and helping form new initiatives related to housing and the city.

The Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW) was established with the purpose to claim the right to live in the city, where renting is increasingly becoming temporary, uncertain or too expensive. A risk that the growth of the precarious forms of housing entails is that the indefinite renting contract with full rental rights and a healthy, well-functioning social housing stock is under pressure to conform with the free market. As a result, the stock of available social housing units is gradually diminishing, and the rental contracts are now short-term. Home seekers are increasingly finding themselves in almost lawless situations. The Bond Precaire Woonwormen (BPW) has been an active voluntary association since 2010 and fights to keep the long-term social housing spaces available for everyone. Specifically, the BPW organizes tenants in solidarity networks, offers advice regarding legal issues and provides moral support to flex residents who want to stand up for their rights.

Madrid Tenants’ Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid) is a member-led organization founded in 2017 with the mission of building popular power and mutual support in every building, neighborhood, and community. We believe homes should serve the people who live in them, not as profit-making assets for landlords and speculators. That’s why we organize collective conflicts and actions to challenge the current housing system, confronting landlords of all kinds – from large investment funds to smaller property owners who exploit tenants month after month.

As a conflict-driven union, we focus our efforts on organizing and mobilizing people through their own housing struggles, exposing the power imbalance between those who own property and those who rent. We see renting itself as a conflict, where landlords extract our wages on a monthly basis thanks to government approval, while neither the market nor the
state provides safe, stable, and decent housing as a fundamental right.

Our Union currently has around 2,000 members, with 85% of our budget funded through membership fees, allowing us to remain financially independent and responsive to our members’ needs. We employ four full-time staff members: a Communications Officer, an Organizational Officer, and two Union Action Officers. We also have six local branches
across the Madrid region.

Recent Work

We’ve recently published a Tenant Organizing Handbook, available in English and German, and are currently working on a co-authored book with the Catalonian Tenants’ Union titled Tenant Power. We’ve organized against major landlords, such as Blackstone—whom we’ve defeated twice—and Nestar, against whom we’re currently running a partial rent strike. We’re also actively resisting the impacts of tourism and turistification on housing and have also launched a campaign, “Landlordism is Racism,” addressing the intersection of housing and racial injustice. Recently, we established an ecosocial working group to connect our struggle for housing justice with the fight for environmental justice.

Our two primary goals for the coming years are:

To organize and sustain an indefinite rent strike, which we believe is the most effective way to pressure the government into truly transforming the housing system. To build a united front with other grassroots organizations, linking various struggles to promote a broader, cross-issue agenda.

Aslido – Association for homeless people, z.s. – is made of two groups (one in Ostrava and the other in Prague). We aim to emancipate homeless people through their participation in the situation with housing poverty and to open the dialogue among all of the actors who are committed in the homeless problematics. Association focuses on political and social activities in the public space and to education its own members in the topics connected with it.

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A new grassroots network in Cyprus emerged in 2019, under the name: Action Network for The Housing and The City – Solidarity for All. Some of the founders are ex-members of the Cypriot movement against foreclosures and the rest are people who want to contribute to the common European struggle on a wider, more inclusive spectrum. We are not one dimensional in our struggle. We do not only fight against foreclosures and the consequent evictions. For us the struggle does not lie in one track. It is more than that. We are in the front line struggling against high rents and their resulting evictions as well, as we are against gentrification, touristification, and a lot more.

We are ordinary working people who experience, as all do, the pauperization procedure imposed on us by the bourgeois through the crisis with which they have burdened us. Our organizational frame is that of a horizontal and non-hierarchical structure. We generally seek for consensus but when this is not possible, we vote. We work through local assemblies and a Pancyprian assembly as needed.

We address to our fellow citizens who consist the mass of the working people, who involuntarily suffered the tremendous consequences of the class war imposed on us through the crisis, by becoming unemployed or suffering a dramatic reduction of their income and the related benefits or losing their housing or are about to lose it, to the small family businessmen who lost their clientage and are now losing their working premises or the farmers who lost or are losing their farms. We address to all the violently pauperized people in Cyprus regardless of their origin, religion, sex or status. This is a call for common struggle.

Mutual-support network of activist and community organisations, supporting each other engaging with the planning process at all scales from neighbourhood to metropolis.

The aim of Halem (Habitants de Logements Éphémères ou Mobiles / inhabitants of temporary and mobile homes) is to promote the legal inclusion and social acceptance, of low-impact, temporary and mobile dwellings. Created in 2005 by a collective of camp-site residents and their supporters, who mobilised against an eviction order, the association rapidly expanded to work towards a legal recognition for all types of alternative dwellings. Such as: caravans, wagons, camping cars, trucks, buses, huts, sheds, yurts, tents. Halem has chosen an inclusive approach, fully embracing the diversity of peoples, dwellings, locations and lifestyles. These homes, whether for families, collectives or individuals, are the reflections of a multitude of different situations and can be found in urban, suburban and rural settings. They offer answers to the housing crisis, or they fulfil a need to travel for economic reasons (temporary work), or they can be a response to the desire to live in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Some people choose this lifestyle, other people are born into it and see it as their cultural heritage, while for others it is an economic necessity. Even though these dwellings have been adopted as a housing solution by a wide and ever increasing range of people, the state has chosen to reply with repressive measures: prohibitions, evictions, social controls. Halem is pro-active, and works towards influencing the decisions made by urban, town and country planning departments, in order to protect temporary, low-impact, and mobile home dweller’s rights. The association organises various events: collective analyses of particular situations from legal and practical points of view; close attention and study of all legal developments; collective pooling together of knowledge and experiences; support; legal processes; and protest gatherings. Halem has, on several occasions, been involved in successfully opposing the passage of a bill of law, for example LOPPSI 2, which would have seriously threatened the fundamental rights of the inhabitants of these dwellings. Halem works with several networks, and also in partnership with the “fédération Droit Au Logement” (DAL – Right to Housing). Today, Halem would like to develop an international network, working in partnership with other organisations, on the question of temporary, low-impact, and mobile dwellings, with the aim of exchanging information about the situation in different countries and sharing legal and practical knowledge.

The PAH is a citizen’s movement focused on the right to housing. It was created in February 2009 in Barcelona. The main aim of the PAH is to denounce the dramatic situation faced by thousands of families who are unable to pay their mortgages or rents, and are facing foreclosure and evictions as a result of the financial fraud of 2008 and the continuous financialization of housing. We seek to make housing fair and accessible to all.

Habita! Associação pelo direito à habitação e à cidade (Habita! Association for the right to housing and the city) is an association whose mission is the recognition, defense and affirmation of the right to housing and the city. We understand the right to adequate housing as a fundamental human right for the experience of all economic, social, cultural rights as well as civil and political. We also affirm the right to the city, with equal access and enjoyment to its various spaces, services and equipment and active participation in the process of its construction.

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Warsaw Tenants Association (Warszawskie Stowarzyszenie Lokatorów) was founded in 2006 by Jolanta Brzeska and other tenants who had been affected by the reprivatisation of municipal apartments in Warsaw.

Today, we continue the struggle by supporting tenants and fighting against the housing crisis driven by elites who are destroying our city. We demand significant investments in the construction of municipal housing with regulated low rents, as well as improvements to the conditions of existing housing! The city council and the president must start prioritizing the interests of the residents of Warsaw over those of developers and speculators!

The core idea behind WSL is opposition to the current housing situation in Poland — a rejection of the liberal policies of the state and local governments, the commercialization of social housing, and the stripping of more and more people of their right to housing, while simultaneously supporting private projects for luxury apartment complexes and office buildings.

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Ort till ort (English: Place to place/Hood to hood) is mainly based in Stockholm, Sweden, but has contacts with activists in other Swedish cities. Ort to Ort is a platform for individuals and groups who practice solidarity between struggles in different cities in metropolitan areas, in smaller cities and in rural areas. These places (in Swedish: ort) are characterized by growing sales of public housing, privatization and community service cuts. Ort till Ort (OTO) started its activities in the summer of 2015 when a number of conflicts flared up simultaneously on different sides of Stockholm and the need for exchange of experience and knowledge became apparent. The first conflict within which the “official” platform was used was the struggle of 35 families with children threatened by the eviction from the public housing company Svenska Bostäder in Tensta in the summer of 2015. OTO actively participates in conflicts but focuses also on building up an infrastructure for the exchange of knowledge and experience from place to place. In 2017 we have been working against evictions in Sundbyberg and Hagsätra (Stockholm). In both cases the residents have short-term contracts or other types of unsafe housing forms. In 2018 we have been organizing protests together with newly arrived migrants against housing policies forcing people out to the streets after two years. We see that landlords and property owners have found ways to circumvent the protection that is available to tenants to systematically replace their tenants (and gentrify) and that the most vulnerable groups when it comes to housing are: migrants, elderly, families with children and single-parent households. We also believe that it is important to spread the lessons we provide to others in similar situations. Therefore, we regularly organize meetings, workshops, film-screenings and panel discussions with people active in the fight against their landlords. We also work to spread perspectives and information from ongoing struggles and organizations through our website, a podcast, and other media channels. This is both for the purpose of forming public opinion and creating mutual assistance structures. OTO is not part of any political party and is not receiving funds from any organization or political party.

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At the end of 2019, single activists from the Mietenwahnsinn alliance came together to take a practical approach on the idea of establishing a tenant union in Berlin. Since February 2020, we have been meeting regularly in order to push this idea further.

Most of us already have experience in initiative work and are involved in neighborhood groups and urban initiatives. We ourselves are tenants and familiar with the numerous problems in the city: from a lack of affordable housing to rent increases and forced evictions. In order to counteract the perceived powerlessness and the conditions in the housing market, we want to build a strong tenants’ organization that stands up for the collective interests of tenants and unites the struggles for housing and open space in the city.

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“From Neighbourhood to Community” (shortly: The Neighbourhood Programme) is a community organizing program connected to Gólya Cooperative and Kazán Community House in Budapest, Hungary.

The building of Gólya and Kazán is a 1000-square-meter space on the edge of a previously industrial site in an underprivileged and very diverse area of the city. We operate a community and event space, a bar/café, and a community house giving office and workshop spaces to more than ten organizations of the social and solidarity economy.

In the Neighbourhood Programme, we have been working with residents of our immediate neighborhood since 2019; visibly increasing the social coherence and citizen self-awareness among them. 

One of our long-term goals is to make space for more solidarity-based practices in the neighbourhood. We have several activities through which we can connect to middle-class residents in the neighbourhood, but we want to work on making our programmes more inclusive to low-income residents.

In the Neighbourhood Programme we thematize urban and housing issues and try to find community-led solutions to the residents. By this we do not mean direct housing provision, but we are trying to create opportunities for people who normally lack access to platforms where they can formulate their opinions on urban politics and social issues. 

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Sindicat de Llogateres is an organization created in 2017 in Catalunya that fights for the right of tenants and to prevent evictions and abuse from landlords. We also work towards the creation of a better legislation in Spain, one that would stop rent rises, protect the tenants, and give stability and dignity back to renters.

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Stop Despejos is a collective fighting for an end to evictions, for the defence of the right to housing and for the collective, inclusive and fairer construction of our cities.

Stop Evictions is a collective fighting for an end to evictions, for the defence of the right to housing and for the collective, inclusive and fairer construction of our cities.

In Portugal, most significantly in Lisbon and Porto, the neoliberal turn in policies adopted during the 2008-2009 crisis has triggered a major crisis in access to housing and the increasingly precarious labour market, resulting from the financialisation of housing, the gentrification of our neighbourhoods and the affirmation of the monoculture of the tourism industry.

We defend the right to decent housing for all, the right to the city and the right for everyone to remain in their neighbourhood.We join the struggles of all those who are facing eviction or precarious housing,defending the creation of solidarity networks and the active and participatory construction of alternatives.

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The Wohnungslosen_Stiftung (Homeless_Foundation) is committed to a better world. It aims to combat and overcome poverty, exclusion, abuse, housing shortages, and homelessness. It works to ensure that the human right to housing is implemented worldwide and that concrete living situations are improved. We are convinced: Everything changes when we change it.

We believe that homeless people can speak for themselves. The mission of the Homeless Foundation is to support people experiencing homelessness to exchange ideas, network, and speak out without fear.

There is no place for people who advocate or spread racist, misanthropic, or nationalist views.

The Homeless Foundation consists of an institutional core (organisation, non-profit and charitable, responsible for funding, etc.) and an open and growing network of people with experiences of homelessness in various contexts and life situations.

Our open network now includes more than 120 humans in German-speaking countries. We have voluntarily committed ourselves to organizing open networking meetings every half year.

What exactly is done is discussed and agreed upon within the open network meetings in presence and also online every two weeks in Wednesday 11 am. We all work on a voluntary basis.

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Droit Au Logement (DAL – Right to Housing) was created at the end of 1990 by poorly-housed or homeless families and militants of the 20th arrondissement in Paris following the eviction of two requisitioned buildings. The 48 families and militants organised the occupation and camp-in of a public square, Place de la Réunion, from May to Octobre 1990, winning the families’ rehousing. Since then hundreds of camps in public areas, requisitions of empty buildings, sit-ins at the offices of social housing corporations and institutions have been carried out. An incomplete list would include rue du Dragon, Quai de la Gare, the Cachan University Residence, and more recently camps on rue de la Banque, and Place de la République…). Struggles in the Paris region have won the rehousing of more than 10,000 members. In 1999, several dozen committees around France created the Droit au Logement Federation, based on a unifying charter. The ill-housed and tenants who are DAL members participate in decisions, negotiations and in the elaboration of strategies and actions. Collective action and struggle are indispensable to obtain housing, stop evictions, and enforce the respect of the right of all to stable, decent, energy-efficient and affordable housing. Our action is non-violent. The DAL is independent of all institutions, political or religious movements. DAL’s struggles are supported by public celebrities with moral or artistic status and organisations that respect the DAL’s independence. Since 1990, new rights have been won such as the DALO law (giving the homeless or badly housed a judicial tool to contest their lack of decent housing), the rehousing of slum inhabitants, the right to shelter until being rehoused for all homeless people, the penalisation of illegal evictions… but these rights are insufficiently enforced. Successive governments have supported the race for rent and real estate profits by speculators and investors, the skyrocketing of rents, the overexploitation of tenants and homebuyers, the selling off of social housing units and the creation of ghettoised working class neighbourhoods that suffocate the working classes and reinforce their social and economic precarity. The struggle against expensive housing, against the profits of a handful of privileged exploiters is very much on the agenda.

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Locataires Ensemble is a federation of tenants unions based in Paris Region, Lyon and Grenoble. Members organize to lead campaings on energy leaking homes and overheating homes in public and private housing. There are some specific campaings on rent control in private housing, and against bureaucratic violence in public housing.

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CATU Ireland is a community union set up for and by tenants, mortgage holders and those living in precarious living situations. We believe in direct action, community democracy and organising as tools to build our collective power and voice. These are the core principles of the union. We are a grassroots organisation that is unaffiliated with any political party in Ireland, we organise across the island of Ireland, and alongside other affected community groups such as those living in direct provision and trans and queer organisations, as well as many more.

Our recent summer school exchange with comrades from across England, Spain and Scotland has only highlighted the importance of learning from and fighting alongside those involved in this struggle elsewhere. We found that we have been experiencing similar symptoms of the same crisis affecting us all, and were able to draw from each other’s actions in order to inform our future organising. We wish to join the EAC in order to widen our network of organisations so as to be able to learn from as diverse a plurality of approaches as possible, and create bonds of solidarity with others looking to fight and learn alongside each other.

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Founded by urbanists, economists, corporate executives, jurists…, Aitec is an international solidarity association committed in the fight for economic, social and ecological justice. Through research, advocacy and support provided to the social movements’ campaigns and mobilisations Aitec participates in building an expertise that is rooted in resistance and critical action. Aitec strives to propose alternative perspectives and policies.

The overall vision of AITEC was defined in its founding text (1983) : “To establish practically and professionally a refusal of the technical “diktats” and to give political debate its importance back”. This means “overcoming the divide between the professionals and the activists”, and “progressing on both a political and a professional front in order to better respond to the demands of workers and peoples for progress and independence”. By refusing to make knowledge exclusive and unaccessible, we encourage a variety of approaches and invite technicians to accept or to widen and develop debates. AITEC’s project is strongly rooted in the field of international political economy : it has developed its reflection on differents themes since its creation, among which :

• housing access and right to the city
• public services, access to rights and democracy
• the reform of the International financial institutions
• debt cancellation and financing for development
• trade and development, regulation of international trade

In this way expertise, in connection with social movements, NGOs and trade unions, represents a dominant axis. AITEC defines itself as a network of professionals, associations and professional and expertise groups, working itself in connection with a number of associations. Through various activities (seminars, workshops, publications, briefing and policy papers, experience sharings…), AITEC aims at contributing to the exchange of informations, analysis and expertise, while avoiding north/south dichotomy or citizens/specialists divisions. AITEC collaborates with other organizations for much of its work. AITEC is becoming increasingly involved in collectives, it has a strong presence in international conferences, working alongside other organizations challenging the dominant currents. AITEC participates in the alternative globalisation movement, particularly through themed seminars : social forums, particularly the first World Social Forum at Porto Alegre (in reaction to the Economic Forum at Davos), counter summits to the G7-G8, at the counter Franco-African summit, etc… Thus AITEC shows itself as a part of the world social and citizen’s movement.

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Pravo na grad (Right to the City) is an organisation engaged in advocacy and public campaigning against the economic overexploitation of urban space, corruption of public governance for the benefit of private over public interests, unsustainable urban development policies, and the disenfranchisement of citizens from urban planning processes in the city of Zagreb and Croatia. The initiative was established as a collaboration between civil society organizations engaged in the struggle against commercialization of Zagreb city centre and later formalised as NGO. Organization also closely collaborates with Croatian trade unions fighting against privatization of public infrastructure and resources and bases all of it’s campaigns on collaborative work of different organizations. Right to the city organization is also involved in numerous research projects and initiatives concerned with better governance of public resources and new models of municipal economy and planning.

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Piattaforma d’intervento sociale, nata nel 2022 dalle reti sociali e di lotta che già in precedenza si occupavano di lotta per la casa. Agisce sul territorio bolognese per aggredire il tema dell’abitare da diversi fronti, quello della casa, quello del lavoro, quello delle migrazioni, del cambiamento climatico, del diritto al cibo e dei servizi di welfare. Ha costruito reti di solidarietà nei territori alluvionati dell’Emilia Romagna ed è spazio di organizzazione dei comitati in lotta per la casa che hanno costruito sul territorio diverse esperienze di riappropriazione abitativa (come Carracci Casa Comune) e di vertenze metropolitane di diverso tipo. Sostiene e nutre le lotte contro guerra, riarmo e genocidio, per una vita bella per tutte e tutti.