Promises Without Materials Won’t Rebuild After Melissa
They offer 50% financing to people who have nothing
By Raul Medina Orama (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – Dust turned to mud. More poverty upon barren land. The little food grown in the fields washed away and thousands of homes destroyed or damaged. That is the picture across several towns in eastern Cuba after Hurricane Melissa struck on October 29, 2025, battering the region for roughly seven hours with heavy rain and winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour. According to preliminary official data, there were at least 45,282 housing damages reported.
In response to “the severe damage caused by the hurricane’s impact,” Cuba’s Council of Ministers on October 31 promised assistance to families affected in the provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguín, and Las Tunas.
Signed by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, the offer stipulates that the State will finance 50% “of the prices of construction materials sold to people whose homes have suffered total or partial damage.”
It also authorizes people with insufficient income to access bank loans, subsidies, or social assistance, and promises that the State will assume the difference in interest rates on loans related to construction efforts.
The document further empowers the Ministry of Finance and Prices to grant price discounts and rate reductions on services or durable goods for disaster victims.
Four Hurricanes Later: Hilda and Her Family’s Ordeal
After losing almost everything in four hurricanes, Hilda has lived for 17 years in a crumbling house, without government help and under the constant threat that the next storm will leave her, her daughter, and her five-year-old granddaughter out on the street.
According to economist Pedro Monreal, the promise “does not make clear how subsidies and loans could translate into real resources.”
Monreal—who also served as a program specialist in UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences sector from 2008 to 2023—wrote on social media that the promise “reveals the backwardness of Cuba’s protection systems” following disasters, compared with other Caribbean countries where mechanisms such as “parametric microinsurance and cash transfers (conditional or unconditional) for vulnerable households” are activated in similar situations.
A parametric microinsurance is a low-cost insurance designed to protect low-income individuals or communities against specific events, where compensation is triggered automatically when a predefined condition or parameter is met—for example, a certain amount of rainfall, wind speed, or earthquake magnitude.
Construction Materials in Cuba: Where Are They?
The government offer went into effect immediately upon its publication in the Official Gazette. However, the measure’s effectiveness depends on one crucial factor: that there are materials to sell.
Its practical usefulness remains in question. Cuba’s National Housing Program remains stalled, and “indicators for local production of construction materials are not being met,” the authorities admitted in July 2025 during a session of the National Assembly’s Commission for Industry, Construction, and Energy.
At that time, it was reported that “all provinces are facing limitations in access to cement and steel.” Moreover, “production levels are very low everywhere, with little diversity of products made from the natural and recyclable raw materials available,” the state outlet Cubadebate noted.
Meanwhile, the state-owned Construction Materials Business Group (Geicon) confirmed that in 2024 there had been “a notable decrease in the production of aggregates, wall slabs, clay and cement products, mortars, cast iron, and asbestos roofing, among other items.”
It Would Take Half a Century to Cover Cuba’s Housing Deficit
Cuba faces a housing deficit exceeding 850,000 homes, while state investment continues to prioritize hotels over housing needs.
In February 2025, during a review of the previous year’s performance, it was revealed that “almost all production targets were missed across the 44 entities” that make up Geicon.
The Ministry of Construction (Micons) reported to Parliament that the island’s housing deficit stands at 805,583. By mid-2025, only 2,728 homes had been built—a mere 0.1% annual growth.
Homes Damaged by Previous Hurricanes Still Not Recovered
The more than 45,000 homes now reported damaged after Hurricane Melissa add to the tens of thousands destroyed or damaged by earlier storms that have still not been repaired, according to official figures.
In November 2024, Economy and Planning Minister Joaquín Alonso Vásquez acknowledged that unresolved cases remained for people affected by Hurricane Ian in Pinar del Río (2022) and Hurricane Matthew in Guantánamo (2017).
His counterpart at the Ministry of Construction, Rene Mesa Villafranca, specified in July 2025 that 94,421 homes were still awaiting recovery from damage caused by hurricanes and two earthquakes recorded in 2024. The official also warned about the growing prevalence of lightweight roofs and the resulting vulnerability to future tropical cyclones.
In the eastern province of Guantánamo, dozens of families in the town of Imías affected by Cyclone Oscar (which hit the island on October 20, 2024) had no choice but to live for months in tents provided by the United Nations System’s Action Plan in Cuba. Some were later relocated to makeshift wooden and zinc shelters or into relatives’ homes, according to local sources.
El Toque has reported on several families in Pinar del Río who still lack safe and dignified housing more than 20 years after their homes were destroyed by hurricanes. This despite government promises of recovery within months or a few years.
With every new hurricane season, the State’s debt to disaster victims grows. Cuba’s housing deficit will not diminish as long as new announcements, like the recent one from the Council of Ministers, fail to produce real results, and as long as the materials needed to rebuild remain unavailable.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.