Argentina’s economic crisis has deepened levels of poverty and made housing inaccessible for many. In Buenos Aires, the rapid wave of profit-driven redevelopment has made this issue even worse, pushing low-income residents to the fringes. Movimiento de Ocupantes e Inquilinos (The Occupants’ and Tenants’ Movement, MOI, also known as Federation of Self-Managed Cooperatives), challenges this trend with La Fábrica, a housing cooperative, offering affordable and high-quality homes for those in need in the heart of Buenos Aires’ central Barracas district.

The experience is framed within Law 341, a soft credit loan with a 30-year term aimed at social organizations – cooperatives, associations, mutual societies – to finance land, construction, and professional assistance. This tool, the first self-management law in Argentina, was won and proposed by social organizations, and MOI played a driving role, inspired by the practice in Uruguay.

La Fábrica is driven by its members – the residents – who actively participate in decision-making. They also contribute their time and labour to build their future homes, in a system known as ‘ancestral mutual support’.

Today, in the face of an authoritarian landscape in Argentina where housing and habitat policies have been systematically dismantled, reinforcing the visibility of the self-management (autogestionaria) conception and the experience of La Fábrica is a crucial act of defense and a struggle for the future. Amidst this growing global polycrisis, these practices build a bridge toward an alternative to the ongoing barbarism.

Although La Fábrica was completed in 2017, MOI continues to work with self-organised groups across the country to expand its activities, with the wider aim of creating policy and legislation that enable similar cooperatives. La Fábrica is an impactful and sustainable model for affordable and beautiful habitat and housing. Its success is underpinned by MOI’s political advocacy for a self-management model, which promotes community-led housing and participation. By replicating the model in other parts of the country, and through policy reform, MOI is creating a more just and equitable habitat and housing landscape for Argentina and beyond.

Residents of La Fábrica are from low-income households. A survey conducted in 2018 among residents showed that 40% were living under the poverty line, but this has likely increased since the COVID pandemic. Interestingly, La Fábrica collaborates with nearby neuropsychiatric hospitals, as part of a wider re-integration programme for patients. Three current residents come from that programme.

La Fábrica is a housing cooperative project in Barracas, central Buenos Aires, providing 50 good quality, attractive, spacious and affordable homes for 150 people. 40% of residents live below the poverty line and suffer from welfare cuts and the consequences of high inflation. This project allows them to live centrally in the city and access secure, high-quality housing.

The project also focuses on building residents’ capacity and fostering a sense of community and integration with the neighbourhood. La Fábrica would not have been possible without MOI’s historical work on changing legal frameworks, which now ensure citizens’ rights to housing and to the city.

La Fábrica is an inspiring example of the wider work of MOI and its decades-long struggle to ensure the right to the city and to adequate housing for people on low incomes. The project was conceived during the crisis of 2000, a scenario which is all too familiar in the current climate. La Fábrica demonstrates that collective efforts can overcome challenging environments and change reality.

The implementation of Law 341 and its corresponding policy framework address three objectives that are fundamental to HIC’s history:

1) Access to central land. 

2) Renovation of existing property. 

3) Collaboration between different stakeholders.

Internally, MOI carried out systematic and regular evaluations with their interdisciplinary team starting with the formation of the cooperative and during construction. The data gathered looked at participation of members, management of finance, mutual aid provision, work progression, assemblies, etc. It aims to strengthen the ability for self-management and produces simple indicators of family situations, the main economic aspects of cooperative life, and progress of work. Externally, La Fábrica has been evaluated with other MOI projects, not on its own.

In 2013, MISEREOR (one of MOI’s funders) evaluated MOI’s cooperatives, including La Fábrica, looking at the self-help cooperative model’s social, personal and group skills aspects.

In 2018, Johns Hopkins University carried out a survey to look at living conditions in cooperatives in receipt of funding from Law 341, which included La Fábrica. It analysed various aspects of residents’ daily life, their organisational capacity for administration, management and maintenance of the buildings, their relationship with the neighbourhood and development as citizens. It developed indicators of costs, quality and access to urban infrastructure.

During the pandemic, the University of Buenos Aires conducted interviews as part of a project looking at how care and support among families benefited from organisational skills development acquired. The results were shared with policymakers and MOI uses them in their workshops and strategies.

These instances made it possible to identify challenges at different levels: i) the macro context (economic cycles that either favored or complicated access to land); ii) local policy orientations, since 2008 the adversity of having local governments of a neoliberal and opposing sign; iii) aspects of the functioning of the state apparatus (bureaucratization, mismatches, training or lack of adequate personnel); iv) limits in organizational capacities and in the reproduction of contradictory practices and values (battle of ideas and transformation of subjectivity, welfare dependency, individualism, etc.)

Conclusions from the evaluations and lessons learned

• Resistance and lack of knowledge of the public bodies involved have proven to be significant obstacles. For example, the regulating body for cooperatives ignores or hinders the exercise of free choice for collective property. As a result, cooperatives face bureaucratic obstacles before they can obtain registration. Although regulation exists, this tends to be ignored. In the same way, it took the local body responsible for Law 341 years to obtain the permissions that enable collective property to be an option.
• Another challenge is that collective property requires strong institutional support in order to provide trust and security to residents, promote a conscious and responsible (non-speculative) use of resources, and to present the city and property through its social function and as common good.
• By giving organisations and residents a central role, providing technical support and avoiding intermediaries and profit, La Fábrica has achieved homes that are bigger, better quality, more attractive and cheaper than conventional construction of social housing.
• Other benefits of the model include innovative design and high-quality architecture, the creation of decent work opportunities, the development of construction and administration skills, as well as other positive social effects, including integration into the wider neighbourhood.
• The central location of La Fábrica enables low-income households to benefit from urban renewal processes, in co-existence with higher income groups.
• La Fábrica strongly demonstrates how Law 341 has the capacity to maximize State resources with efficiency in public expenditure, whilst at the same time promoting ownership in residents and the community. 
• In relation to the characteristics of its comprehensive proposal, La Fábrica received the Silver World Habitat Award in 2025.

At 40 years old, after a violent and difficult separation, Sonia found herself without a home. Her daughter suggested she contact MOI, a housing organisation that offered not just shelter, but stability and a community.

She found temporary accommodation through their transitional housing programme, whilst working with others to create a permanent housing solution. She learned about self-management and collective ownership, transforming an old factory into a beautiful living space now called La Fábrica.

Today, Sonia is 67 and thriving in this vibrant community. Sonia says, “I’ve built a fulfilling life here, with meaningful work and strong friendships. My home is filled with light and laughter; my door is always open to my neighbours. La Fábrica is more than just housing; it’s a place of belonging, where I feel supported and empowered. It is my place in the world, a place I’m proud to call home.”

We advocate for current generations to embrace a way of life that centers respect for all forms of life, cooperation, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, rooted in the conviction that diversity is our fundamental wealth as a species. Together, building upon our history, we strive to create “a world where all worlds can fit”, a world centered on Life, socialist, communal, and self-managed.