Venezuelan government fails to meet goal of 120,000 housing units

[ChangoLoa]

Source: El Universal

During his Annual Address to the National Assembly, President Hugo Chávez referred to the housing deficit in Venezuela, but rather than announcing completion of housing units, he disclosed plans to build houses in the future.

Chávez disclosed an "ambitious" plan to build 150,000 housing units in 2011 and 200.000 housing units in 2012.

The government made similar announcements in previous fiscal years, but has always failed to meet the goal. In 2005, Chávez said that his government would build 120,000 housing units throughout the period and in 2006. However, according to the Reports and Accounts of the Ministry of Housing, the government failed the target during those two years.

In fact, the Reports and Accounts of the Ministry of Housing show that the government built 21,400 housing units in 2005, which is only 18 percent of the target (120,000 housing units.) Meanwhile, 40,340 housing units were built in 2006 (88 percent more than in the previous period, but only 34 percent of the initial goal of building 120,000 housing units).

Read more: http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/01/17/en_eco_esp_venezuelan-governmen_17A4997051.shtml

[dipsydoodle]

1. Well at least he tried.

Would you rather he'd done nothing ?

[ChangoLoa]

2. Far from enough

This government is building a small number of social housing units while there's a huge need. You saw what La Niña is causing this year.

They have admitted that social housing is one of the biggest failures of their economic/social policy but haven't been able to correct.

[Wilms]

4. Maybe he should consult US bankers on how to solve the housing problem.

Now, what else is bothering you and the VZ right-wingers today about Chavez. I haven't had time to check FoxVZ News for the latest outrage.

:eyes:

[spanza]

23. Clueless Wilms

So you mean the "right-wingers" are asking for more social housing and you're against that.

How stupid!

[SocialistJan]

24. + 1000

Some self-appointed leftists are nothing more than reactionary scum. The leader must never be criticized, right ? Fucking idiots !

[EFerrari]

3. It's too bad we can't fail like that

instead of having our government looking the other way while banks turn people out of their homes with fraudulent foreclosures.

[Downwinder]

5. We have managed to shut down 1 million in a year.

The US is probably #1 in kicking people out of their homes. 2011 is on track to be a bumper year.

[Wilms]

6. Now. Now. You're off-topic.

The subject is what a bad guy Chavez is (for the spoiled class in VZ).

[dipsydoodle]

7. Off topic ?

They're not all that anyway. :)

[Citizen Worker]

13. Spot on, Wilms.

[bread_and_roses]

9. ++++1 (n/t)

[ChangoLoa]

11. Well.. how many social housing units does the US govt build in a year?

[EFerrari]

12. I don't think they build any. Reagan killed that program at HUD, iirc.

What they do is give some funds to the states to somehow come up with "affordable housing" but as you know, the UN recently criticized the US for ignoring the homeless.

This is the only hard number I can find so far:

"Since 1990 when the HOME Program was signed into law as Title II of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (the HOME Investment Partnerships Act), over 450,000 affordable housing units have been acquired, constructed or rehabilitated, and nearly 84,000 tenants have received direct rental assistance."

http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordablehousing/index.cfm

[David__77]

8. It's definitely true that more resources need to go into housing.

I think the Venezuelan government should redirect resources, perform all work - including political work - frugally and modestly. The question of national defense has been solved insofar as it can be. The best guarantee of the existing political process is to ensure economic growth and social stability.

[EFerrari]

10. Part of the debate in Caracas is like the one in Port au Prince.

Do you put up all these units in an already very crowded city? Is that sustainable? Do you put them up elsewhere? If the latter, what will be the economic basis of the community?

[David__77]

14. Isn't there some in-between?

I think the "socialist cities" idea was a good one. Build new cities, in favorable geography, with housing, production, etc. A lot can be learned from the former socialist countries in that regard, though many denigrate their experience. Take the East German, Eisenhuettenstadt for example. But, in the interim, Caracas need more housing, and a lot of it. The "socialist cities" strategy is necessarily longer-term than simply replacing tens of thousands of substandard housing units.

[EFerrari]

15. Sure.

And Caracas is going to be dealing with a housing shortage for a long time. It will be interesting to see how they go about it. Unlike poor Haiti, where it's more likely that work camps will be set up to house sweatshop workers than that communities will be planned and developed. :(

[Odin2005]

16. The housing and settlement policies of Stalinist countries have been a inhuman debacle.

They were The Projects x 1000.

A better answer is something like a fusion of Habitat for Humanity and Section 8 on a massive scale. The creation of truly livable, humane communities.

[David__77]

17. The city I cited was a good city until capitalism was restored.

I don't know what a "Stalinist country" was, other than the Soviet Union from 1929-1953.

[Odin2005]

19. Every country that was a Russian satellite during the Cold War.

I surely hope you don't think that is something to emulate.

[Catherina]

18. Too late to unrec. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

20. I tried to unrec it as well...

Seeing we've also suffered from the same weather pattern that has caused lots of damage in Venezuela, maybe I should send the OP some articles about the Queensland floods so they can get really picky and finicky and complain that people aren't being helped quickly enough, there's not enough housing now for people who can't return to their homes, and that whichever polly it was who said the clean up would take 6 months is an out and out liar, as it's only going to take 5 months! Oh, that's right. That sort of picking wouldn't be of interest as it doesn't involve Chavez...

[Catherina]

21. +1 Amusing isn't it? n/t

[ChangoLoa]

22. This has little to do with the weather, Violet

Even if weather becomes an additional problem every year when the rainy season comes and thousands of houses collapse in the shantytown.

A bigger problem is to live without without social services, without running water, without having the possibility to call the firemen when they're needed or a policeman when you feel threatened. Children need to walk downhill for an hour to go to school, there are no roads, there's no public transportation and no ambulances going to those areas. People have no other options than constructing their house on what could potentially become a steep river bed when it rains. The growth of this shantytowns hasn't stopped because this people haven't been proposed the only other possibility they would have: social housing and a decent urban habitat.

So really, when half Australians live in such hills and in a comparable situation, I'll read the articles you want to send me with a lot of interest and I'll find your reflexive comparison more valid than I do now.



I'm a public university teacher, currently working with the community living in this shantytown (Petare). We've been doing so since the neoliberal reforms in the late 80's and 90's and didn't magically stop complaining and asking for decent housing in 1999, when Chavez was elected.

[SocialistJan]

25. Thanks a lot for the precious information you always provide, ChangoLoa

The only balanced point of view on Venezuela around here.