Barcelona The key meetings for the Organizers’ Forum delegation on the second full day in Barcelona, were with Mujeres Plantes and the Invisible City. The first group in the center of the city specialized in assisting migrant women become registered and stabilized in the city. The second group turned out to be a series of cooperatives in a one of the neighborhoods abutting the center.
The migrant story is one repeated too often around Europe and North American now. Where formerly, Spain had employed something close to open borders, the influx of migrants, especially from Africa, has led to the socialist government tightening controls and increasing restrictions. Mujeres Plantes specializes in assisting and supporting women largely from Latin America. Those coming with a job or money still have a relatively easy registration procedure, but those who might be fleeing domestic abuse or economic circumstances face a harder process, demanding more assistance and advocacy. The organization also helps locate work assignments for some of these women. In fact, when we visited the complex of organizations within the Invisible City, we heard that Mujeres had prevailed on them to take one of their people as a cleaner in order to register her successfully. This is a largely volunteer operation that shared offices with the Barcelona Tenants Union.
The response from the Mujeres spokeswoman to a query from one of our members was a classic that will stay with be forever and applies to so many situations. Asked about whether the government provided something or other that migrants would need, she answered, “they must, but they don’t.” Such a simple, elegant phrase captures so much of the tenor of our times!
Next, we trudged over several kilometers thinking that we were visiting a radical, alternative bookstore that might have been called the Invisible City. There was in fact a bookstore, but this was just one of the cooperative projects that was part of a web of cooperatives, a café, credit union, and mutual housing coop development in the larger neighborhood that had been developed since 2005. Their growth had developed in stages from the first coop to the credit union to 2011, when they occupied a factory that had shutdown until finally the property was turned over to them. Now in the huge space of more than 50,000 square feet there were many different cooperatives, as well as common areas, childcare, and more. The cooperative has continued now to the point where they are able to develop and finance housing developments. The space where we ended up meeting was one that we thought might have held housing in the upper floors, but instead was used as offices for other cooperatives.
Their housing cooperatives follow an interesting model. Residents have “indefinite use,” meaning they can stay there forever, pass down the unit within their family, and more, but they can never be owners of the unit outright, so in that sense they can neither buy, nor sell. Some of their developmental properties have been turned over by the municipality on 75-year leases, which our guide said was “not ideal,” but what they won. They are now developing a 6-building, 150 unit complex in this same area as part of their commitment to localism. The financing becomes ever more complicated, which he described uniquely as a “revolution of contradictions.”
Their campaigns use an interesting tactic in dealing with the city, state, and other land and housing owners. He described it as a “tick-tock” tactic, not based on the social media app, but based on the clock. When they first confront the authorities, they use a large clock. They mark the time and the promises made. They take no action then, but wait and see if the commitment is fulfilled “by the clock.” Years may go by, but when the time expires on the clock, then they take over and occupy the property, if all has not been delivered as agreed. There’s a lot to like in that tactic.
These are experienced activists. These are different organizations than our own, but there’s no question that they are doing real and solid work.