Hopefully enough for Cubans, President Raul Castro recently announced, the citizens will be permitted to build their own homes and do so using private funds. It is the latest reforms to back off the hard line communism of the past five decades. The message comes just days after Cuba’s celebration of the 50-year anniversary of its 1959 revolution.
Home building in the country initially has been left to the Cuban administration. However, demand has outstripped supply and a terrible lack of housing has seriously frustrated the island of 11 million populations. Havana, capital city and top leading commercial centre of Cuba, has succeeded in building only roughly half its annual target of 100,000 new homes each year. On the other hand, the dearth of dwellings worsened previous year after it was struck in succession by three hurricanes that leveled about a half-million homes.
77-year-old Raul Castro, who got the presidency from his elder brother Fidel Castro February 2008, said the latest policy change would allow the very quick construction of hundreds of thousands of new houses. On a recent television program Castro said Cubans will be given clear guidelines about the dimensions of a proposed new dwelling. The former defenses minister said, they (Cubans) will be told: “OK, here you can build. I’ve given you this amount of space, that amount of room for a street, and that amount for a sidewalk. Now build your little home with whatever you can.” The remarks were made as when he visited the newly-built “La Risuena” neighborhood, a settlement of Venezuela-built homes erected with the support of oil money which has lessened, but not erased, the housing deficit.
During the past year, reforms initiated by the junior Castro brother have included putting vacant farmland in private hands along with increasing farmers’ pay, and allowing private contractors for example taxi drivers back into Cuba’s transport sector. So, concern Cubans says, the recent steps was a demand of time.
