Caracas Chronicles

For the residents of a couple of recently-opened housing development in Caracas, their brand new homes are no longer bringing them joy, but really big headaches.

One, in El Morro (Petare), was apparently built over a geological fault line, which has recently caused problems with the water pipelines.

On the other side of the capital, the inhabitants of El Cristo complex (in Catia) are still stuck with the bad quality of their walls. Since its opening last year, this sort of thing has become quite a routine for them. Sadly, we are witnessing the same pattern with many G.M.V.V projects.

The hook of the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela program is to have the largest number of houses and buildings ready ASAP. Nicolás Maduro has now pledged to continue it, so the promise of three million homes made by the late comandante presidente can be kept.

It’s true there’s a large housing deficit in Venezuela, much of which built up over the first 10 years of the Chávez era. It’s true that many people are now living in terrible conditions. But there’s no excuse to simply build like crazy without any planning or minimum quality control standards.

People who have been waiting for years in improvised shelters deserve much better than a home that’s going to collapse and leave them homeless again in a few months.