Focus on: Barrio Intercultural Vecinos Sin Techo
UpdatedA housing solution for low-income families and indigenous communities
Every week, the CoHabitat Network introduces you to a collaborative housing project documented on the cohabitat.io database.
The Barrio Intercultural is a neighbourhood project promoted by the civic organisation "Vecinos Sin Techo" as an integral housing solution for low-income families and indigenous communities in San Martin de los Andes, Argentina.
In 2006, around 2500 families living in San Martin de los Andes were unable to afford their own housing. They founded the organisation Vecinos Sin Techo por la Vivienda Digna (Homeless neighbours for dignifying homes, in English) and began to search for available land to build housing. They managed to find a large plot of land (400 ha) owned by the Argentinean state with a lease to the army, that was unused for several years.
With a lot of persistence and technical support from professionals, they managed to get the National congress to pass a law that ceded ownership of the land to this community. The ownership of the land was to remain communal, and not individual.
To date, this project has built 56 houses on this land. Communities have elaborated the site development plan, the community cohabitation rules and have carried out the construction of housing and other facilities (including a workshop and community room, a green house and vegetable garden) and the provision of water and energy.
Barrio Intercultural, a case study in our publication on access to land and finance for community-led housing
This short publication reviews some of the winning projects of the regional CLH Award by focusing on how they managed to secure land and accessed funding to plan and build, refurbish or improve, their living environment. It is our belief that, despite the diversity of their local contexts and particularities, these practices can inspire other people who are trying to conceive or strengthen CLH projects, especially given that access to affordable finance and land tend to be some of the main obstacles for developing CLH all over the world.
▶ Download here (PDF, 8.3 MB)