CUBA-HABITAT: Crackdown on Illegal Housing

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Apr 13 1997 (IPS) - A government offensive against illegal housing, including letting rooms to tourists, is picking up steam in the Cuban capital.

The campaign, carried out as a pilot programme in one Havana neighbourhood, has now been extended to 12 of Havana’s 15 municipalities, according to the National Information Agency (AIN). Havana occupies one percent of the national territory and is home to 2.2 million people, 20 percent of the total population.

A high-level official of the ruling Communist Party, Esteban Lazo, declared at a meeting last week that the government would not tolerate “the construction of one more house or room without the proper authorisation.”

The housing measures will affect the thousands who flock to the capital from the countryside or small towns, as well as the large number of Havana inhabitants who make a living by renting rooms or houses in dollars – an activity not included by the government on its list of legal forms of self-employment.

The offensive followed a call from President Fidel Castro earlier this month to fight “social indiscipline,” including uncontrolled internal migration, illegal settlements and the letting of units or rooms to tourists. “The housing problem will not be resolved, no matter how many houses are built, as long as people come to the capital anytime they want and stay here,” Castro said.

Official figures indicated the influx of immigrants from other areas of Cuba had pushed up the population here every year — by 13,000 in 1990, 16,000 in 1994, 22,000 in 1995 and 27,000 in 1996.

The phenomenon, linked to the economic crisis racking Cuba since 1990, has aggravated difficulties in satisfying demands for electricity, gas, potable water and sewerage.

“From 1989 to 1992, for every worker that came to the city, close to 30 inactive people arrived, mainly adults of working age who did not look for work,” said Blanca Morejon, with the University of Havana’s Centre for Demographic Studies.

Castro said many of those who come to Havana and settle in without authorisation do not get jobs and become “nomad delinquents,” turning to theft in other neighbourhoods.

Overcrowding is common, with nine or 10 people living in housing units designed for four or five. The latest study on the problem by the Cuban Academy of Sciences, carried out in the late 1980s, prior to the crisis, revealed that 57 percent of Cuban families already lived in overcrowded homes.

Renting to tourists is an attractive, but illegal, option in Cuba, where a one-room apartment can bring in more than 100 dollars a month, and a single room will cost visitors around 20 dollars a day – much lower than hotel rates.

Most illegal housing transactions are carried out in U.S. dollars, with one dollar worth 22 Cuban pesos in the government exchange bureaus.