AREQUIPA, Peru – Amid the island’s severe economic crisis, three homeless Cubans have been living outdoors in a Havana park for months.
Luis Leiva Marín, Juan Sánchez and Juan Carlos, names with which they identified themselves in statements for CubaNetspoke about the challenges and circumstances of the daily lives of the country’s homeless people.
“Life is like that. I was married in Florencia, back in Morón (Ciego de Ávila). I got divorced and came here,” says Leiva Marín.
The three men, from different provinces of Cuba, survive in adverse conditions. They store water in jugs and buckets, hang clothes on a line between the trees in the park and cook with firewood the little food they can get or buy.
A few days ago, there were four of them who survived, “united like brothers,” as they said on more than one occasion. However, the police intercepted them, asked for their identity cards, and one of them “told him that he had a case in Bayamo and they took him away.”
Beyond that incident, Leiva Marín assures that no have had many difficulties with the authorities or the citizens. “All the time I have been here I have never had any problems with anyone. My thing is to fight, look at my plastics there so I can sell them tomorrow,” he says.
In the middle of the makeshift camp, scattered here and there are several piles of cans, bottles and other raw materials that the men store in sacks for sale.
“One person puts something in… a loaf of bread, the other peels a piece of meat, and that’s how we invent something to eat. Often without salt,” explains Sánchez, 57, while showing an almost empty bottle. “This is coffee, we strained it yesterday. We cut open a pocket of a pair of pants and strain it right there.”
Juan Carlos is the most veteran in the park He is from Havana. He says he has lived there since 2013, then went to Santiago de Cuba and returned just a year ago. Although he says he has family on Paula and Alquizar streets, he prefers “not to bother them.”
“Santiago is worse,” he explains. In his opinion, his current situation is “a thousand times” better than life in the eastern province. “This is already our home,” the Cubans emphasize.
Homeless people in Cuba
The increase in the number of people living in poverty in Cuba is one of the most visible effects of the economic crisis that the island is going through, also marked by rampant inflationfuel shortages and housing problems.
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), cited by the official journal Workers3,690 homeless people have been registered on the Island between 2014 and 2023.
In contrast, the Cuban regime’s own official press recognizes that the problem is even greater if one takes into account the so-called “divers” of the garbage dumps, as well as “the grandparents, mothers and drunks who beg for alms outside businesses, churches and traffic lights.”
Belkis Delgado Cáceres, director of Social Prevention at the MTSS, recalled that a policy has been in place since 2014 to improve care for people who wander.
He also indicated that this is an agreement that is currently being modified due to the deficiencies and the perception of the increase in citizens who wander in the country.
“We must distinguish between these people and others who may be on the streets for a while with uncontrolled behaviour,” the official added.
Delgado Cáceres explained that those who wander “are those who do not have the conditions to stay at home and are on the street” and stated that there is a “certain percentage” among the homeless who have “a psychiatric disorder.” However, he had to acknowledge the increase in people under 60 years of age in that situation and that the Government does not care for them.
