Claudia Márquez Linares, Grupo de Trabajo Decoro
HAVANA, January (www.cubanet.org) - In Cuba, buying a house is impossible,
at least through legal means. The State has created a machinery of forbidding
decrees that impose severe penalties upon those who violate housing laws.
Something as simple as repairing a house depends on the approval of the
municipal housing authorities. As far as building a house by private means,
according to a source in the field, they are only delivering cement, sand and
others, the Ministries of Sugar, Construction and Interior. People who decide to
build must have all documentation for the materials in order, as approved by
those entities. If not, they run the risk that the house will be confiscated.
In spite of the official assurances that most heads of households own their
own homes, there are strong obstacles to adding residents to ones address,
which means that many cannot legalize their status, especially those who move
from one province to another. According to sources in the field, approximately
200,000 live illegally in Havanas 18 municipalities.
Behind the government's control on the sale of building materials, it is
possible to obtain them in the black market. This is the avenue many Cubans take
to build their homes illegally.
According to the Department of the Census of Housing and Population, the
number of those not registered is upwards of 400,000.
It is evident that the Cuban States zeal to control everything is
detrimental to citizens that dont belong to the privileged class.
Versión
original en español
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