Havana boasts its first two modular homes as Cuba's capital disintegrates

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba has unveiled Havana’s first two modular homes using repurposed shipping containers, a critical step in a capital where once-majestic residences are collapsing.

Government officials including President Miguel Díaz-Canel gathered this weekend in front of the homes awarded to two single mothers: one had spent more than a dozen years living in a shelter and the other dwelled in a single room with two teenage children, according to state media.

The media reported that crews built the homes in one month using surplus material from tourism investment projects, technologies developed by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces and containers previously used to import parts from China for solar panel farms.

Officials said Saturday that Cuba has a housing deficit of more than 800,000 homes. The most pressing need is in Havana.

Unable to escape a collapsing home

Yurieska Artunet Martí, a 29-year-old beautician who lives in the historic part of Havana, was forced to move out of her last apartment because it disintegrated. She still lives on the same floor and in the same building, but the back part of it, which is standing — for now.

“Everybody here in Havana lives in fear,” she said as she looked up at her rotting ceiling and disintegrating walls. They shelter Artunet Martí, who is four-months pregnant, and her three children, ages 7 months, 1 and 5.

Plaster from the wall falls on their bed while they sleep, she said.

Artunet Martí can’t afford to live elsewhere. Two months ago, she was forced to close the beauty business she ran out of her home, where clients were forced to climb eroded steps, side-step splintered wood and avoid a gaping hole where an elevator once operated.

“People stopped coming because of the building’s condition,” she said.

The widely admired homes in Old Havana that range in style from Spanish Colonial to Cuban Baroque are known to collapse, especially after heavy rains, sometimes killing their occupants.

Government data from 2020 found that the island of nearly 10 million people had 3.9 million homes, with nearly 40% in only fair or poor condition. Lack of maintenance, a deep economic crisis and adverse weather are to blame.

No one lives in the upper floors of Artunet Martí's building anymore; they were all evacuated and placed in shelters for safety.

“What are we going to do?” she said. “We know we’re in danger, but we have to accept reality.”

Fear grips Havana residents

In another area of historic Havana, 60-year-old Carlos Sablón recalled how a portion of his building’s third floor collapsed at night. Sablón was watching TV at that moment but knew what had happened.

“It’s quite damaged by time,” he said of the building’s infrastructure as he looked out his second-story window and onto a tiny, crumbling courtyard.

No one was on the third floor when the collapse occurred, but firefighters evacuated everyone else. Unable to afford to live elsewhere, Sablón, an engineer, returned to his apartment. It wasn’t damaged, so he hooked up power and water for himself and a handful of other residents who stayed.

“You’re always going to be afraid,” he said as he lamented that no one ensures the safety of homes in Havana.

“This is the one I fear the most,” Sablón said of his apartment building, which he believes will keep collapsing. “I hope it’s not when someone is walking by.”

Several blocks from Sablón lives 63-year-old Magalys Caro. She is confined to a single room, a makeshift kitchen and a bathroom in the front part of her building. It used to house a company that let her move in when her home next door disintegrated during a hurricane.

But the building where she lives now poses a threat.

“The back there has collapsed,” Caro said as she pointed to a spacious, open-air area behind her.

“I’ve been living here in these poor conditions for about 10 years,” Caro said. “Nothing gets resolved. The Housing Department does nothing.”

A push for more modular homes

At Saturday’s event to unveil Havana’s first two modular homes, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz acknowledged that the program of converting shipping containers into homes could be sped up.

“It is not moving at the desired pace,” he said, adding that the work is underway.

Delilah Díaz Fernández, housing director general at Cuba’s Ministry of Construction, said that more than 2,000 containers destined to become homes have been approved, and that some 700 are currently being converted.

“The program … holds immense potential and is here to stay,” she said, adding that as new containers arrive, they will be considered for eventual housing.

Díaz Fernández said the program’s main beneficiaries will include people who lost their homes to extreme weather events or were destroyed by structural collapses.

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