HAVANA.- An official press report said in January 2020 that there are more than a hundred transit communities in Havana alone. But these so-called “transit” communities end up becoming the place of residence for many years of those who are transferred there. That is the case of those housed in Vedado, located on streets 11 and 24 of the Cuban capital.
Heriberto says that he arrived in Vedado when he was only 4 years old. Before, he lived with his family near the boardwalk, just one block away. The saltpeter caused the building to deteriorate until part of it collapsed. That was when they were sent to Vedado. The time they were supposed to stay in the shelter was one year. However, they have been there for 24 years now.
Heriberto expresses that life in the shelter “in a certain way is living, or surviving.” “Many people come in, look, it’s not that one has gotten used to seeing, it’s that there is no other option, and here we are surviving,” he told martinoticias.com. The man expresses himself with sadness, but at the same time he hopes one day “to be able to offer it to my children, so that they do not experience what I have experienced.”
In an exhortation to the authorities of the regime, he asks that they “really take action on the matter. Not in words, that they really kept their word, that they really did what they have to do, that they carry out the supposed project they have so that everyone has decent housing.”
Huge deficit
In 2018, the regime created the housing policy and assured that its objective was to comprehensively solve the deficit, which currently stands at 856,500 homes, according to a report on official figures. However, in 2023 only 6,065 homes were built. Furthermore, only 53% of the homes intended for mothers with three or more children – 1,192 of the 2,257 that were planned – were completed.
Rigoberto’s case is similar. He has been in Vedado for 10 years. He says that in response to the housing request that they have submitted to the competent authorities, the response is that “the homes are going to be built, that the projects are there,” but he affirms that “there is no work and if there is no work, those projects do not advance.” “.
Rigoberto describes that the conditions in which he lives with his family in the shelter are “terrible.” “People come in, they urinate down there… at least now, at the moment, I have these two rooms, but when I started here I only had this little room, because here the children play in this little room, the gas is all here inside and there are no conditions.
Rigoberto is not optimistic, he does not have much hope that he will have the solution he hopes for soon.
“I find the issue of the house a little difficult, up there they are building the neighbors’ houses, which is not my turn yet, but they are the neighbors’ houses, whose houses have been under construction for around three years, and you can go there and observe today and in a year they are at the same level because there is no work. The materials they carry are simply diverted elsewhere,” he indicated.
Carmen Amanda also lives in the Vedado shelter 11 and 24. Her family has been there for 23 years. “My mother lived between 3rd and 5th. Where they lived was a lot that was in bad condition and collapsed. So they brought them here. In fact, when they brought them it was still an inn, there were still people inside, and they brought them here for six months… we’ve been living here for 23 years now.
The young woman said that “The last thing we heard is that the shelters were already left as a definitive solution.”
Source: EDITORIAL / With information from martinoticias.com
