HAVANA, Cuba. – “I am afraid that one day I will go to work and that everything will collapse with my mother here inside,” he told CubaNet Aracelia Gónzalez Díaz, a Havana resident who lives with her family in a building in danger of collapse.
The house, located on Churruca street, between Daoiz and Velarde, in the municipality Hillhas already suffered two partial collapses.
“They gave this house to my grandmother and it was already uninhabitable. Then they told us that they would give us a shelter but they didn’t. So it seems that we have to build it ourselves and I don’t have the money to build it,” the woman lamented.
She also clarified that she has asked the authorities, in vain so far, to grant her a subsidy to avoid the total collapse of the house. “They said no because the property is still in my grandmother’s name,” she said.
According to González Díaz, the first thing that collapsed was the ceiling of his room. “The ceiling was already bad, so I went to Housing [Dirección Municipal de Vivienda del Cerro] “I had to go and make a report so they could come and knock it down, but they never came, until it fell. As if that weren’t enough, I had to go and make a report so they could come and knock down the piece that was left; and they came, knocked it down, and left,” he explained.
For the interviewee, the authorities always find an excuse. “They start giving you the runaround, baba; there are never any materials or anything for the needy; however, you go to El Rastro [tienda estatal de venta de materiales de construcción] and there are hills of stone, sand and rebar. Then you see how they resell everything on the outside,” he complained.
González Díaz also recalled that the second collapse – the roof of the second room – occurred at the beginning of this year. However, she says, to date the authorities have not been concerned about what happened. “The Housing Department came, looked, wrote on a piece of paper and that was it,” said the woman.
González Díaz lives with his mother, a 90-year-old woman with a visual disability, diabetes and high blood pressure, among other illnesses, and his little grandson, so his main fear, he says, is that his family will be buried under the rubble.
“My biggest fear is losing my family if a landslide occurs. Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone to help me, not even on the other side.” [extranjero] nor on this side. It’s just me and everything is expensive, even food,” she concluded.
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