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The spread of housing co-operatives in Barcelona through the scheme known as ‘cession of use’ attests to the inhabitants’ desire to reclaim both the housing sector and the territory. In this article, we discuss how the reemergence of this form of alternative housing tenure has raised the awareness of the actors in the housing sector and led to the development of municipal policies considering housing as a common good. We also argue that social movements for the right to housing regard the commons above all as a form of praxis and that by defending the idea of community action, they break with the concept used by the city council. Nevertheless, the cession of use housing co-operatives currently under development in Barcelona attest to a reconfiguration of actors approaching housing through the lens of commons, thus suggesting an original conception of housing as a vehicle for new territorial commons.