Houses in Old Havana crumble as residents fear collapse

Wrought iron on the railings, tiles with prints of flirtatious pink flowers, ceilings with very high struts, spacious semicircular arches and steps covered in marble. Neighbors and legend claim that it was the residence of a marchioness; is Old Havana.

But everything else is chaos: tree roots protrude through a makeshift toilet, birds have made nests, the roofs of the first and second floors have been propped up, rubble rubble and fresh sand are scattered here and there. The walls look tilted and the façade completely disappeared, exposing a patio where freshly washed clothes hang.

Six families, about 17 people, live in this building in Old Havana, similar to many, once luxurious, converted into neighborhoods with partial collapses (eaves, balconies, parts of the roof) in recent years or visible danger of total collapse.

Just 100 meters away, the fall of a building like this one, on the same Villegas street, left three dead at the beginning of this month, including two rescuers; Last week another collapse closed with two injuries.

The residents of the Villegas house said that they carried out all kinds of procedures and requests to the authorities to recondition and secure the property.

In dozens of homes with poor conditions in the surrounding area, especially in the historic center, fears of collapses were revived along with the weather, the crisis and the wet season.

The government recognized the problem of the deterioration of the housing stock in the country, but attributed the impossibility of cleaning it up to the lack of material resources.

Meanwhile, some wonder why the pace of investment in tourism megaprojects such as hotels – a vital sector that has failed to take off in at least the last two years – is not slowed down to address the situation.

“How can we not live in fear? Every time it rains I feel the stones falling on me.” said Maricelys Colás, a small, retired woman, 64 years old, who has resided in the stately house with her mother — 85 — for 59 years. “And the collapse gives no warning!”

His room, for which he built a bathroom, although it has a number “two” At the door, he was first in front of a cracked staircase. The entire entrance—where the room with the “one”—, as well as the portal, collapsed in the 90s. The rubble was removed, but the neighbors were still there.

“Before we were 11 families,” Colás recalled. “The upstairs rooms had a balcony overlooking the street and all the neighbors got along as if we were one… I grew old here.”

The two-story building was built at the end of the 18th century or beginning of the 19th century, on a plot of land of about 15 meters front by 60 meters deep.

In the lower part, where there was a rectangular main patio and the domestic service rooms, three families live; At the top – the most deteriorated with cracks and a staircase that creaks when going up –, three others.

All the neighbors repeat that the construction belonged to the Marchioness of Pinar del Río, a title granted by the Spanish Crown when the island was part of its domains.

Now everything smells of humidity, of wet cement. Until each of the subsequent residents built their own quarters, there were only two bathrooms—one per floor—that were used collectively.

Unanimously, they report having made efforts to obtain spaces to live with dignity or materials for repair, both with the municipal or provincial government and in the attention offices of the Communist Party without receiving a response.

“I go to (the state Directorate of the) all the time. living place and it is talking for the sake of talking”, lamented Mario Luis Poll, a 57-year-old master restaurateur who has lived for 19 years three doors from Colás, towards the back of the house. There he raised his son alone.

“I was with my newborn child and I had nowhere to live and the government authorized me to stay here,” Poll summarized by showing the way he had tried to hold up his room after the ceiling—that is, the floor of the room above—of his makeshift kitchen collapsed.

“What’s missing from the front (of the house) is nothing. There is a bush (a tree) that has its roots facing upwards and that hugs the walls, but it weakens the beam.”he said, pointing with his right arm high at the thick twisted trunk.

Precisely, the neighbor on the upper floor, Marcos Villa – a 47-year-old musician – showed how the foliage was coming out of his improvised bathroom.

“The struts (wooden posts that support the roof of the entire construction) are almost decorative figures,” Poll remarked, shaking his head and raising his shoulders in resignation.

Despite the risk and precariousness, they do not move elsewhere because there is nowhere, said all those involved. The State usually puts families in shelters or gives them state spaces – old disused stores or warehouses – but these are also in poor condition.

Residential construction is one of the problems that causes the most tension in Cuba, where the humid climate, the passage of cyclones, the poor maintenance of old buildings and a low rate of completion of new units, are usually among the most notable complaints of citizens. .

At the beginning of the month, a report from the general director of Housing, Vivian Rodríguez, indicated that the deficit of houses on the island stands at 800,000. From 2019 to date, only 127,345 units have been completed and 106,332 have been repaired nationwide.

An official count indicated that at the end of 2020 on the island there were 3.9 million homes, almost 40% of which were in fair and poor condition. 76% were in urban locations, which visibly have the worst conditions, such as Central Havana or Havana itself. Old Havana.

At the moment, no one expects the situation to improve amid the current economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of recovery of the strategic tourism sector and a long period of increased United States sanctions – especially harsh in terms of travel, remittances or fuel—that seek to suffocate the island’s economy to pressure a change in the political model.

Even Old Havana looks deteriorated despite the fact that it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since in the last decade it underwent a gentrification process when investors bought mansions.

Many homes were rescued by the state Office of the Historian or by private individuals to convert them into hostels.

“The situation is critical”recognized the professor of the Faculty of Architecture of the Technological University of Havana, Abel Tablada, who recalled that health and public safety have always been a priority issue for the revolution.

Maintain the housing fund “it requires many resources that the Cuban State does not have in these moments of acute crisis and that the population, with its low salaries, cannot assume,” Tablada acknowledged.

“If we add to that that investment in hotels occurs just when we are in a tourist depression, then the first solution would be to allocate part of those resources to repair or demolish the most critical buildings and to support an emergency program of decent housing,” Tablada reflected on how much of the national budget is going to build hotels—a dozen luxurious towers can be counted in Havana alone—and not to cover the needs for homes.

As scared as they were hopeful, the residents of the Villegas mansion did not stop being ironic.

“If those marquises come back to life and see this house, they will surely die again.”said Elayne Clavel, the 26-year-old wife of musician Villa.

Source: AP