Madrid/There are 138 apartments in the 12 Sancti Spíritus plants, an iconic building, for being the highest – and modern in its day – of the city. It resides 92 people over 60, a good sample of the aging of the Cuban population, but also young children and pregnant women. All of them share a common space in which the deterioration, responsibility of the authorities, is as evident as the lack of hygiene, which is responsible for neighbors.
The Municipal Housing Directorate excuses Wednesday, In a dedicated report The emblematic building, of the evils that affect the block, opened in 1986 in the cast Olivos I. “Today, almost 40 years later, it is still standing, but it is no longer looking with admiration. It is observed with concern, with frustration,” admits the newspaper.
The agency acknowledges that a considerable work was raised for years, which included a change in the main drainage pipe, but only the windows were precariously replaced. “Today it is impossible to carry out this action due to the budget assigned and the great investment and mobilization that would be needed in the search for capital reparation,” they argue.
However, most of the responsibility is attributed to neighbors who have not even formed the Board of Administration to which they are bound by law. Housing recalls that this body is essential for the organization of the communities of multiple owners, including cleaning management, minor repairs, norms and their compliance or responsibility that everyone has with the common space. In the absence of this Board, the calls attend no one attends.
/ Escambray
One of the direct consequences is the unhealthiness of the building, since the cleanliness of the tanks and the cistern exclusively competes to the neighbors. Many of them denounce that the water comes dirty, even with snails, although nothing comparable to the event that occurred in 2009, when Antonio Iglesias’s body was found, a neighbor wandering to whom, Without wanting, residents drank.
“The cleaning of the tanks and the cistern is from the neighbors themselves,” he says to Escambray Rufina Edita Díaz Rojas, administrator in charge of the building. “That is not done by the State, the organized community does. If it is not organized, it is not done. The last time it was cleaned was a year ago. Only five neighbors participated,” he reveals.
The Municipal Housing Directorate enjoys all the space to explain. No neighbor has been interviewed by the middle. The agency affirms that it has done everything possible by the building, from days of hygienization in common areas to repair and replacement of lights, including those outside the property. They have fixed gardens, delivered tools and personal envoy to support residents. But these not only are not added, but reject cooperation. “While we worked, from the upper part we have thrown garbage, nylon soaps full of garbage, with other things that are a bit uncomfortable to say,” says Yadira Cantero Álvarez, deputy director general of the Municipal Housing Directorate.
The management of the property ensures that the neighbors break newly installed lamps, start plants and rise from bicycles and debris and even gas bullets by elevators, something prohibited by the regulation, for weight and danger.
“We do recognize that the salary we offer is low, it is difficult to cover places, but we have also taken initiatives, even agreements with the prison system, to keep the property with the required cleaning. But if you do not take care of it, you do not watch, you do not work … everything is lost,” says housing officials, who report that, when the elevators fail, there are those who throw garbage through the balcony.
The Housing Director speaks of the culture of the common, of the collective organization and of assuming responsibilities. “And he does not say it to evade responsibilities, but to remember a forgotten truth: this building does not belong only to the State, it belongs to those who live in it,” says the note, which concludes with a sentence: “The 12 plants will not fall for time, it will fall for carelessness.”
