Social Classes Coexist Among Matanzas Squatters’ Homes
The inspectors with their fines and evictions no longer instill fear in the people at these illegal settlements.
By Julio Cesar Contreras (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Walls made of old rusted metal sheets and roofs that wouldn’t stand up to a hurricane characterize most of the houses in the illegal settlement that’s been growing around the entrance to the city of Matanzas, near the industrial zone. The residents, mostly from the eastern part of Cuba, have hunkered down on the land there, despite the lack of basic infrastructure and services in this zone.
The ”get in and set up” squatters’ movement has been silently growing for over a decade, avoiding the gaze of the inspectors from the feared Institute for Physical Planning. Up until 2021, these inspectors instilled terror among the residents of the illegal settlements, with their fines and evictions. “I arrived here when there were only two shacks that some Easterners had put up, near the former Vocational School,” Juan Carlos told 14ymedio. After fleeing the misery of his native Guantanamo province, Juan Carlos has built a home here.
With his own hands, he began cleaning up a piece of land in the neighborhood that was covered with garbage. He cleared the brush and weeds, set apart the scraps of metal, leveled the ground, and hastily learned the mason’s trade. A fisherman’s son and grandson who had grown up among nets and empty shells, he learned the builder’s trade at full throttle by raising up his own house – small and fragile, but his own.
“You always have to buy the materials for building under the table, so many people here who don’t have the resources have had to resign themselves to putting up a one-room shack of wood and cardboard,” Juan Carlos explained. “The main thing is to have somewhere to live. Over time, they’ll be able to improve things,” he added. With a housing deficit in Cuba that was estimated at over 850,000 homes in 2024, having a roof over your head is nearly a privilege in the country.
Juan Carlos, like many other residents in the squatters’ settlement, wasn’t content to just improvise a shelter and live uncomfortably in it. While there are some houses that resemble more closely a hut on the verge of collapsing, others have solid walls of concrete blocks, with small yards and wooden or metal blinds on the windows to let the breeze in. Social differences have also arisen in the neighborhood – those who come from other parts of Matanzas province have better contacts for improving their houses. Those from Eastern Cuba inhabit the poorest houses, along with the elderly.
Yorelbis is one of the Matanza natives who arrived in the settlement propelled by the crowding at his parents’ house in Pueblo Nuevo. A government worker, he had been waiting years for a subsidy to buy construction materials they’d promised him at work. The money never arrived, the resources for building a house began to grow scarce, and the young man – married and with a pregnant wife – decided to wait no longer.
Like Juan Carlos, Yorelbis chose a piece of land; sketched out the dimensions; put up the outside walls using bricks recovered from old collapsed buildings or purchased on the informal market; and finally used wood and cardboard to divide the space into two bedrooms, a tiny living room, and a kitchen that doubles as a dining room. Seen from outside, the façade is unfinished, and some of the siding is showing, right where the asbestos-cement tiles that cover the dwelling begin.
“When you come for the first time, it looks like the end of the world to you. There’s no pavement, and the dust penetrates right into your ears. On the other hand, our electricity never goes out, since we draw it from the wires that provide energy to the industrial zone,” Yorelbis boasted. The hanging cables reveal the illegal channeling of electricity, for which none of the settlement’s families pay a cent. “Even though we’re far from the city center, the things people lack appear out here,” the young man assured, showing us a number of liters of cooking oil he has for sale.
Self-employment has also gained ground in the neighborhood. There are several small private cafes and little stands[SH1] selling anything from lighters to Shein clothing. There aren’t any official shops that sell rationed items, but there are plenty of small vendors hawking bags of bread or the popular little ice cream snacks that get the kids all excited and empty the pockets of their parents. The government inspectors barely approach, perhaps out of fear, or because they sense that the residents of this zone inhabit a wild universe, where the law and the fines will achieve very little.
The smile of pride in his house fades from Yorelbis’ face when he begins to list the disadvantages of living in an illegal settlement. One of the principal obstacles is the lack of an ID card with his real address on it. “My parents’ address is still on all our paperwork, and that greatly complicates our life,” he recognized. “It was a headache to get the doctor’s office to attend to my wife when she was pregnant, and when the boy gets bigger, we’ll have to figure out how we can enroll him in school.”
The neighborhood has grown and is full of kids. While a large part of Cuba is burdened with an aging population, the squatters in the Dubrocq settlement include many families with small children. Women carry babies; baby carriages clatter over the uneven and unpaved street; and the wails of the newborn babies emanate from some of the houses. It all gives the zone a youthful face that seems to be bursting with life.
But this notable presence of children also puts a spotlight on one of the problems that most affects the zone – teen pregnancies. The birth rate among 15 – 19-year-olds in the province of Matanzas is 51.5 for every 1,000 women. In the poorest neighborhoods, the data is even more alarming, with the related problems of maternal malnutrition, low birthweight, dropping out of school, and the material poverty of the family.
Among the group from the Eastern part of the country, many also came with small children. “I came here from Bayamo with my two little boys, because my brother left the country and offered me this room,” Yanelis tells us. She lives in a modest house made from metal sheets that were once destined to become cans for food. “At least I don’t get wet when it rains,” she highlighted.
This woman from Bayamo doesn’t hide her concern about not having succeeded in changing the address on her ID card. “I’ve been able to keep my kids in school because the school principal helped me, but I don’t know how long this will be possible.” Even though the regulations for enrolling a student in a given school are strict, there are some principals who look the other way or even facilitate the incorporation of these undocumented children into the classrooms, since they’re aware of the serious housing problem in the country.
Like most of her neighbors, Yanelis has a large list of dissatisfactions, ranging from problems with the water supply, or the lack of safety that extends through these cramped alleys as soon as night falls, and the lack of recreational spaces for the kids and teens. However, also like many of the residents in this Matanzas squatters’ settlement, she feels that this piece of dry earth and precarious houses is, in the end, her home.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
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