Cuba's housing shortage: the insurmountable challenge.

Housing was and continues to be a major problem for most developing countries and urban societies. Pre-revolutionary Cuba was no exception.

The Truslow mission in the 1940s and a 1957 report by Catholic researchers made it very clear: a construction boom by the middle and upper classses was, at the time, paralleled by an unprecedented decline in lower-income housing, along with a growing proliferation of slums, shantytowns and bidonvilles.

In a famous 1970 speech on vagrancy, Fidel Castro said the housing problem in Cuba was creating tremendous tensions. And he was absolutely correct.

It was a time when three different sets of circumstances had converged in aggravating a growing social problem: first, the Cuban government had dropped Fidel's early emphasis on housing construction in cities and the countryside. Second, the population boom was in full swing, accelerating demand for housing.

And third, maintenance operations and access to materials had completely disappeared.

Gloomy reports that were not made public at the time from the now-defunct Instituto de Planificacion Fisica substantiated with detailed research the real magnitude of the problem. The reports highlighted increased degradation of housing conditions, a near-virtual paralysis of housing construction since the mid-1960s, complete lack of maintenance for apartment buildings and city slums, and scores of "llega-y-pon" squatter towns flourishing throughout Havana's suburbs.

In the early 1970s, Cuba launched a housing policy based on the so-called "microbrigadas"--a surplus workforce ready to help build apartment buildings with a share of their allocation. That, coupled with the growing role of a Ministry of Construction Materials, created hundreds of urban and rural housing projects in Havana and elsewhere.

But only five years later, that initiative was abandoned, and the housing sector became an "orphan" among government priorities.

By the 1980s, habaneros were joking that "the city is falling apart, and the king should know about it."

In 2000, Fidel formally unveiled a plan aimed at building 150,000 houses every year. But such a plan could not go forward with the resources and policies in place. That forced the goal down to 100,000 houses a year, but even that was an impossible objective. The real numbers were somewhere between 46,000 and 57,000 dwellings a year.

In 2008, the National Housing Institute hoped to build 70,300 homes, but by late November had reached only 45,918, according to chairman Victor Ramirez. Again, bureaucratic wishful thinking had collided with reality.

CHAOS EVEN BEFORE THE 2008 HURRICANES

In the aftermath of Hurricane Michelle in November 2001 and Tropical Storm Noel in October 2007, some 700,000 houses had been severely damaged. Over a seven-year period, 600,000 of them were repaired, while conservation and other major repairs had saved 180,000 dwellings--but tens of thousands of others were still waiting for urgent assistance.

For example, Hurricane Dennis (July 2005) damaged 120,000 houses and totally destroyed 15,000. As a result, by the time of the 2008 hurricanes, there were still 70,000 houses and apartments waiting to be repaired, including 11,000 in Pinar del Rio province alone.

Then came the 2008 hurricanes, destroying and/or damaging half a million homes. As usual, Pinar del Rio was again hit the hardest--and twice this time. Some 50% of all dwellings in that province were severely damaged, and 29,762 were totally destroyed.

But last year, only 2,252 dwellings were actually built in Pinar del Rio. At that rate, it would take a decade to fix all the damaged homes, not to mention the 11,000 families waiting for housing from the 2002-05 period.

A similar picture can be seen throughout the 47 municipalities devastated or seriously damaged by the 2008 storms. In the eastern province of Holguin, 124,000 dwellings--one-third of the total--were either totally or partially destroyed.

Jose Luis Rodriguez, Cuba's minister of economy and planning, told the National Assembly that the problem will be solved within three years. Is this bureaucratic optimism or sheer blindness to the complexities of Cuba's housing dilemma? Are these the same people who suggested Cuba needed to build 150,000 dwellings a year, then 100,000, then 70,000 and finally 46,000?

Raul Castro strongly rejected such numbers, insisting that "We must not deceive ourselves...it may take up to six years." Many policies and resources could be deployed to accelerate effective solutions, but the question is: will they be adopted?

Unless they are, this insurmountable challenge will not be met effectively--not in three nor even in six years.