The Wall Has Eyes

 

Remodeling Permits

Most people do not get the legal permmission to remodel or make additions to their homes, even though state licenses allow you access to subsidized materials. The more common illicit route is pursued with private under-the-table contracters and labor, and more costly stolen or mined materials from the black market.

This AP article does not explain why Cubans do not go the legal route. The assumption is that it takes too long and often results in rejected requests. Neither does the article mention why the state would be stingy on licenses when perpetually facing an extreme housing shortage.

State Opens Website for House Trading

Cuba currently suffers a shortage of over a half million homes. Popular remedies include subdivisions like makeshift walls and artificial ceilings/floors to accomodate ensuing generations and newly integrated in-laws. Or, alternately, the architectural dividers serve as the physical representation of marital separation.

Selling houses is prohibited in Cuba, but the state allows people to swap houses. One could even trade one house for two apartments, for example. Houses in Havana typically fetch two houses in the less desirable provinces.

Previously, there were informal real estate agents that worked to connect two or more parties interested in moving. More recently internet bulletins have sprouted up that serve as marketplaces. State television even had begun sporadically announcing offers to "permutar" houses on the evening news.

Now the state has entered the game with an official website dedicated to house swapping.

House in Matanzas

Infernal Migration

There is a famous song that says "La Habana no aguanta más". Havana cannot take anymore (migrants from other provinces, principally eastern).

There is a joke. But it works better in Spanish.

Por qué se llama el oriente, "el medio oriente"?
Why do they call the eastern end of the island, "the Middle East"?
(Its not because of the prison at the Guantanamo base.)

Porque la otra mitad está en La Habana.
Because half of the easterners are in Havana.

A common derogatory term for people from "El Oriente", the eastern end of the island, is "palestino", Palestinian.

A researcher on internnal migration summarizes:
"La contracción de la economía a partir de la década del 90 y del cese de la
política inversionista que favorecía otros territorios se manifestó en el
incremento, desde ese momento, de la migración a la capital, que retomó
prácticamente los niveles que la caracterizaron en los años próximos al
triunfo revolucionario."

The vast migration to the capital greatly aggravates the preexisting housing shortage.

Building Revolution

Before the hurricanes, Cuba had a housing shortage of around half a million dwellings. The natural disasters destroyed or damaged over a third of a million homes. Thats a current shortfall nearing a million houses.

In a move to redouble sheltering efforts (where materials are available), the Ministry of Construction is offering to train anybody who wants to learn the building trade.

The all-hands-on-deck modus operandi will not only focus on erecting homes, but also on repairing hotels in time for the peak mid-winter tourism season, as well as on concretizing ALBA-related projects.

The ministry's motto is "Construction is Revolution".