Housing Construction in Cuba Advances at a Snail’s Pace
HAVANA TIMES – Despite Cuba’s declining population, the island’ continues to have a large housing deficit, with the greatest impact falling on the shoulders of those the government has a responsibility to protect – people who lost their homes to hurricanes, women raising children alone, and other vulnerable individuals and families.
Yudisleydis Perez, 39, a resident of the El Baron community in the municipality of San Juan y Martinez, lost her home after the passage of Hurricane Ian, which devastated the western part of this Caribbean island in September 2022. The storm partially or completely damaged 102,000 homes in the province of Pinar del Río, in the far western part of the country.
Yudisleydis lived with her three children in a makeshift tarpaulin tent, until she was able to collect wooden planks and pieces of zinc roof tiles strewn among the wreckage, and reassemble a wooden house. The structure still leaks when it rains, and a nearby sewage ditch sometimes overflows and floods the yard.
“They [the government] didn’t give us anything, except for the mattresses, grudgingly, after a thousand requests. With the same things the hurricane left scattered about -a little here, a little there – we were able to rebuild the house,” she told IPS in a telephone interview from her home town.
Almost three years later, the construction of 38,000 houses for Pinar del Río families affected by Hurricane Ian is still pending, of the 43,000 needed to assist all the people affected by the hurricane in that area, according to Niurka Morero, vice governor of the province.
“Many of these families are in temporary facilities (‘provisional homes’), so they can have a roof over their heads and minimum conditions, until the time comes for the construction of housing. Others have relocated to the homes of relatives or friends,” Morero told a group of foreign correspondents, IPS among them, during a visit to the Pinar del Río province at the end of May.
Many residents of the El Baron community lost their homes to Ian. The only infrastructure support they received from the authorities in the days following the storm was a sheet of tarpaulin to temporarily replace the roof. Those same tarps are still in use in some of the structures, Perez admitted.
Jesus Alberto Gorgoy, director of Territorial Development, stated during the same meeting in the Pinar del Rio capital that there are several ways of financing the replacement of housing affected by hurricanes. For example, he explained, complete home reconstructions are subsidized through the State budget, and partial replacement of damaged buildings are financed through a system of bank credits to cover the cost of construction materials, or through international collaborations, among other formulas.
“Here in the area I know, I haven’t seen any progress anywhere. I see the same poverty, the same dignity. Nothing has been done here, we are all in the same situation, including sick people, bedridden people, old people who live alone and don’t have anyone,” Perez stated during her June 24 interview with IPS.
Rivers of Bureaucracy
Pérez has raised her three children alone. Since her economic situation and the conditions of her home were not the most ideal – with an infrastructure vulnerable to extreme weather and a dirt floor – she’s been eligible for government-financed new housing since long before the hurricane.
The central government’s 2021 Demographic Policy Agreement prioritizes the allocation of housing and financial resources for the construction, rehabilitation, expansion or remodeling of housing for mothers, fathers or legal guardians with three or more children under 17 years of age.
A similar policy previously existed, but with a lower age limit for the children. Perez took advantage of this social benefit and applied for a more habitable home seven years ago.
However, between the excuse of the country’s financial problems and the general shortage of construction materials, this process drowned in a bureaucratic river that never reached the sea.
After meeting on multiple occasions with officials at the municipal, provincial and national levels, the last time Perez visited Havana two years ago to discuss her case with the authorities, she was told that her eldest son had already turned 18, hence the family no longer met the program’s requirements.
“I haven’t tried anymore [with the government], because every time you go there it’s always the same thing. It’s just a runaround, back and forth, with their “we don’t have this” here, even though you can see it there. Truth is, I’ve given up already, because I’m tired of their stories,” Perez admitted.
Progress on the Demographic Policy remains abysmal, complained Delilah Diaz, director of Housing of the Ministry of Construction, in the parliamentary session of July 2024.
At that time, 66,494 mothers in this country of almost ten million inhabitants were identified as meeting the conditions to be beneficiaries of the Agreement. Seven out of ten need a house or improvements in the structure they were living in. The official also noted that the deteriorated housing included the persistence of 87,368 homes with dirt floors.
Restoration at a tortoise’s pace
Cuba had a deficit of more than 855,000 housing units by the end of 2023, only slightly less than the shortfall recorded in 2018, when the government presented a policy, still in force, to improve that situation by restoring 402,000 housing nuclei and constructing 527,000 more within ten years. At that time, the Cuban housing stock consisted of some 3.8 million properties, of which almost 40% were in fair or poor condition.
According to data released by Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information, only 7,427 homes were constructed in 2024, representing 55% of the government’s goal for that period, and 46% with respect to the 16,065 homes built in 2023.
The gap between the demand for housing and the government’s real capacity for construction continues to be a serious problem for the quality of life in Cuba. The greatest challenge lies in the production of construction materials.
According to the Statistics and Information Office, during 2024 Cuba only produced 468,000 cubic meters of calcium carbonate sand – 67.1% of the 2023 production – plus 2,300 tons of rebar and 257,800 tons of gray cement – 67.1% and 49.6% respectively, compared to 2023. All of these are basic materials for construction.
“The main problem we have for the province to be able to reconstruct all the lost housing in the shortest time, are the building materials. It’s no secret that the production of cement and steel in the country is totally diminished. [The province receives] a super minimum amount [from the state], which has no relation to the need”, confirmed Gorgoy, the director of Pinar del Río Territorial Development Office.
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.