Experts propose resuming microbrigades to solve housing crisis in Cuba

Experts from the National Innovation Council proposed this Friday to the Cuban government that what are known as “microbrigades” be resumed to help solve the housing crisis in Cuba.

“It is because of the construction by microbrigades that Alamar exists today. It is true that it is rightly criticized for urban planning, architectural problems and some construction quality problems. But, despite this, today around 100,000 people live in that municipality,” said Dr.Gilberto Quevedo Sotolongo, professor at the Central University of Las Villas.

Listened attentively by the rulerMiguel Diaz-Canel, the Minister of Economy and Planning,Alejandro Gil Fernandez and other leaders of the Cuban regime, the professor considered that the “microbrigades” constitute a viable formula to increase the very poor housing fund in Cuba.

“I can assure you that it is a very socialist concept that, over time, we ourselves eliminated.", indicated the expert without explaining the reasons that led to the abandonment of the "microbrigades" in Cuba, despite being a "very socialist concept" and an idea of the eternal leader and commander in chief who, in person, sifted sand in several jibes of island geography.

The construction “microbrigade” crews were made up of state employees who left their jobs to dedicate themselves, without experience in most cases, to erecting buildings in exchange for obtaining their own house, the fruit of their efforts.

The result of this idea, which began to be implemented in the 1970s, was the proliferation throughout Cuba of ugly concrete buildings with their small Eastern European-style apartments. Conceived as an example of functional architecture and rational urban planning, the execution of these projects turned out to be one of the greatest failures of the totalitarian regime in terms of construction.

Known as "micro," the apartment buildings, generally three or four stories high, use a method that came to Cuba from the former Soviet Union in the construction of which prefabricated parts are used. After the failure of Alamar and "Micro 10", no one wanted to hear about microbrigades again, until, in September 1986, Fidel Castro revitalized the concept and proposed the completion of 20 thousand homes each year, a plan that he barely managed to fulfill. at 12 percent.

“We have not obtained everything we had proposed at this point, but without a doubt we have made progress,” Castro said on September 30, 1989 in a speech in which, however, he blamed the inept, the corrupt and the wasteful for having slowed down the efficiency of the Microbrigade Movement.

According to him, someone (he did not say who) had proposed to stop the country's economic advance through orthodox theories and dogmatic action manuals on how to build communism. Just as collectedThe sneezeIn a speech days later before the Blas Roca contingent, the dictator said that “those people” deserved to be shot.

Fortunately, he assured, the process of rectification of errors begun in 1986 had arrived to straighten the country's ideological and economic kinks, beginning with the reactivation of the microbrigades.

Now “continuity” wants to repeat the “success” of the microbrigades, but these are different times and the speech of the heirs of the so-called “revolution” says that “the housing problem is a state responsibility,” but this is not It means “that it must be financed entirely by the Budget.”

This was reflected inGranma the head of communication of the Presidency, the colleagueLeticia Martínez Hernández, singing an ode to the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba.

According to the official journalist, in the meeting this Friday with the advisory body of the Cuban State, the ruler of the “creative resistance” called to “never renounce the ideal of well-being, beauty, comfort, harmony between housing , the environment and the design, so that our people have a better quality of life.”

One month has passed sinceThe Cuban government acknowledged having failed to comply by almost 35% with its housing construction plan for 2022 -despite the fact that its housing debt with the population rose to 862,879 houses in 2021-, Díaz-Canel calls to “never give up the ideal of well-being and beauty.”

The housing debt of the Cuban regime continues to accumulate year after year. In 2021, the government failed to comply with the house delivery plan by more than 40%, but instead of resolving the failure with more construction, it simply reduced its goals for the following year, and also failed to meet them. The situation worsened even more after Hurricane Ian last September left more than 102,527 homes affected in Pinar del Río alone.

Before the passage of Hurricane Ian, in Pinar del Río a total of 6,347 families had been waiting for a new house for twenty years; after having lost theirs during weather events.

Last January, the Cuban government recognized that in 2021, 89,496 homes with dirt floors, some 8,907 quarters and 48,293 homes affected by weather events were pending, of which 66% are total collapses, according to official data.