{"id":1070,"date":"2018-05-22T15:24:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T18:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chequeado.com\/investigacion\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2018-06-12T15:45:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T18:45:54","slug":"almost-20-of-social-housing-in-the-city-of-buenos-aires-does-not-have-property-deeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chequeado.com\/investigacion\/almost-20-of-social-housing-in-the-city-of-buenos-aires-does-not-have-property-deeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents in 17 percent of public housing apartments in Buenos Aires lack property deeds"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the night of Feb. 7, 2007, Monica witnessed the shantytown where she lived engulfed in flames. How the fire started is unknown, but it destroyed most of the precarious houses beneath Highway 7, in Villa Soldati, a neighborhood in south Buenos Aires. The place was also known as Villa Cart\u00f3n, since most of the residents made their living retrieving cardboard and recycled materials from trash. Monica\u2019s house did not burn down, but the government decided to evacuate everybody. Residents were transferred to temporary housing in Park Roca, on the southwestern limits of the city, where they waited for the public housing the government had promised.<\/p>\n

The government builds public housing to solve the housing problems of those who need it most. However, instead of providing a long-lasting solution, the government often leaves public housing residents in a legal limbo, where they do not fully own their apartments or houses. This is the case with Monica and other residents in 17 percent of the 52,000 public housing apartments in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n

In 2013, six long years after the fire, the government allocated a two-bedroom apartment for Monica, her partner and their children in the public housing Father Mugica Complex, located in Villa Lugano, a few feet away from General Paz, the highway that divides the city from the Province of Buenos Aires. The apartment had a gas connection and a toilet connected to the sanitation network. For Monica, it seemed like a dream come true. And it was, for a few months, until one rainy day when water started to pour through the roof of Monica\u2019s fourth-floor apartment, the top story of her building. Walls cracked. Short-circuits multiplied. In other flats in her housing complex, water flowed directly from the sockets, creating panic among neighbors. The ceilings collapsed. Later, floors gave out, as when a kitchen collapsed into an apartment beneath it. The apartments that had been allocated to Monica and others were full of structural problems. \u201cIt\u2019s a miracle that no one has been killed yet,\u201d Monica said.<\/p>\n

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Water flowed directly from the sockets, creating panic among neighbors.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Besides the construction issues, residents of the Father Mugica Complex also face problems stemming from having to live with new neighbors. Although the houses the residents lived in previously were not high-quality constructions, they were their own houses nonetheless. In the public apartment complex, however, residents have less control and are dependent on their neighbors: The upstairs neighbors have to allow access to their apartment so that you can fix the water leak in your apartment, and if the neighbors do not cooperate, there is nothing to be done. The fact that people are from different\u00a0neighborhoods\u00a0and had never met before does not help. Besides the former residents of Villa Cart\u00f3n, the Father Mugica Complex houses families from Villa 21-24 and Agust\u00edn Magaldi settlement, next to the Riachuelo River\u2019s basin.<\/p>\n

On top of being stuck in a no man\u2019s land, at the edge of the city, residents found themselves in the middle of a dispute between the national and the city governments, back when they were governed by opposing parties. The issue is further complicated by the construction peculiarities of the housing complex. The Father Mugica Complex started in 2008 as an agreement between the national government and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo association, a human rights organization, as part of Shared Dreams, a program focused on low-income neighborhoods. Under the agreement, the association was responsible for the housing construction, which was paid for by the national government, while the city government allocated the housing to the families. There were many people involved in carrying out the project, with no one accepting final responsibility.<\/p>\n

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\"DSC_0966\"<\/p>\n

In 2012, the association was accused of embezzling construction funds. Many of the people who were in charge, like Hebe de Bonafini, the association\u2019s president, and Sergio Shoklender, her adviser, are under judicial investigation. As a result, the construction was assigned to a private company, Sentra S.A., which finally completed the apartments. However, both the national and the city governments had their reservations \u2014\u00a0 <\/span>they did not believe the apartments were ready due to structural flaws.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the City Institute for Housing (Instituto de Vivienda de la Ciudad or IVC) responsible for state funding housing in the city was in a rush to relocate those living in poor housing conditions elsewhere to these apartments. Some, like Monica, moved in. They did not know what they were getting themselves into.<\/p>\n

From then on, the new residents began years of struggle for the government to acknowledge and resolve the apartments\u2019 structural problems. The judiciary ruled in favor of the families several times, and in 2013, the national and city governments were ordered to make the necessary repairs. However, the core problems remain unresolved. Nowadays, there is a small maintenance team from the IVC that makes minor repairs, but it cannot cope with the needs of the 2,800 people living in over 600 apartments.<\/p>\n

While the legal battle continues, Monica is trying to organize her neighbors to take care of the buildings. However, there is the legal barrier: Monica and others are not the formal owners of their apartments. The property is still in the hands of the government, which means that the residents cannot form a homeowners\u2019 association, which would normally make sure that the common areas are clean, the stairs are fixed, and the park is tidy.<\/p>\n

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