Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas
Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez announced a major housing program on March 26, pledging the construction of 150,000 new homes by the end of the year and the possible expropriation of houses being sold at exorbitant prices. He delivered the announcement on his weekly television program Alo Presidente, which was broadcast from the site of a big new housing project in the state of Miranda called Nuevo Pueblo.
Chavez stressed that his government would ensure construction of quality housing, criticising previous governments for providing "little matchboxes that are delivered without doors, without windows and without toilet bowls" in areas without services such as transport.
He announced the investment of 478 billion bolivares (A$325 million) for the construction of 7000 houses in Ocumare del Tuy, where the first stage of the project is almost complete, according to the March 27 Diario Vea newspaper.
Chavez added, "Many people are owners of a number of houses, for example, five homes, because they are people who dedicate themselves to acquiring homes" with the intention of making a profit on the housing market. "If someone refuses to sell, except at a fabulous price, somewhere in the stratosphere, we will expropriate, and pay the real value."
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on March 29 that the mayor of Greater Caracas, Juan Barreto, has announced that the city will confiscate some 400 buildings and sell them to the people currently renting apartments within them.
"All good rented buildings that were constructed between 10 and 30 years ago, or longer and of which the sum of the rental contributions has been, when totalled up, more than five times the value of the building, [will be] expropriated", Barreto told Union Radio. "The business of renting is legitimate, but it can't be indefinite because eventually it becomes predatory."
The national government's plan to stabilise the price of housing will apply to the areas in the main cities that are most affected by housing-market speculation. The deep problems in the housing sector in Venezuela are indicated by the crisis in Nuevo Esparta, a poor suburb of Caracas where all the houses have been condemned, however many families have not been able to find alternative accommodation.
Two days before the new housing strategy was unveiled, Chavez announced a new social mission called Mothers of the Barrios (poor neighbourhoods) that aims to assist mothers living in extreme poverty, according to a March 25 Venezuelanalysis.com report. The mission will also assist drug users and pregnant teenagers. According to Chavez, the government will pay 80% of the minimum wage to mothers who live in extreme poverty, about US$180 per month.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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