Coastal residents of Venezuela of all classes share the same devastation after earthquakes

CARABALEDA, Venezuela (AP) — Rich and poor shared paradise in Caraballeda on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Their apartments, a few with direct access to the marina and hundreds in public housing towers, are located on the same curving street and offer stunning views of white-sand beaches and crystal waters.

The yacht owners and public transport passengers who shared this route embodied the social integration that the government set out to achieve. Many of them who were enjoying a holiday or resting at home on June 24 faced the same fate when the ground shook so violently that their homes were flattened in seconds.

Now, some 17,000 survivors are also living in the unfamiliar state of homelessness in Venezuela. As the official death toll rises to more than 3,500, many have to rely on a government that has been harshly criticized for its response to the tragedy, and which has politicized housing in the past, to find out where they will live — if they have a new home at all.

Housing remains stable even in times of crisis

Housing has generally been the number one aspiration of Venezuelan adults since the second half of the 20th century, when the oil boom allowed the government to finance housing complexes, the poor to build brick-and-cement shacks known locally as “ranchos,” and the rich to buy second and third homes.

Even when the country’s economy tanked in 2013, most Venezuelans still had a roof over their heads, whether it was acquiring one from the country’s self-described socialist government, buying one at a deeply discounted price from people desperate for money to immigrate, building farms on top of each other, or even raiding abandoned homes.

Those living in the housing built 27 years ago by the ruling party — currently headed by acting President Delcy Rodriguez — do not hold title deeds, but the homes have allowed them to bail out and keep entire families off the streets.

“It was their home, their home. It was a great joy when these houses were allocated to them here,” Carlos Ortega said of the 12 apartments in Caraballeda that were allocated to his relatives more than a decade ago after years of financial struggles following the mudslide.

“Imagine they got a house after losing everything, but now they have lost everything, even their lives.”

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Only one of Ortega’s siblings survived the collapse of the public housing towers, while his son, who lived in a ninth-floor apartment but was working in a convenience store when the quakes struck, remains missing more than a week after the disaster. Ortega hoped to find him in a hospital, a shelter, or one of the tent camps that took over public spaces and private parking lots.

Not far from where he took a break from clearing the rubble that buried his family, people were erecting flattened homes next to a yacht club and some towed jet skis. There, rescuers were handed cakes and other food items on a plastic tray as they stood on the rubble where a military general’s wife hopes he and their children will be found.

Government efforts to integrate different social and economic classes

Venezuelan governments, even before Hugo Chavez came to the presidency in 1999, tried to prevent social and economic segregation by building housing projects in or near areas that were considered exclusive, explained Ronal Rodriguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia. This strategy also gave them a political advantage by diversifying the voter base in wealthier neighborhoods that tend to vote for the opposition, he said.

But the homes built under Chavez’s “Great Housing Mission,” which his successor Nicolas Maduro continued to build until he was ousted by the US military in January, came with a caveat: the people had never received a title deed.

“What Chavismo is trying to do is maintain political subordination,” Rodriguez said of the political movement led by Chavez. “That is, if you ever turn against me and stop supporting me, I will remove the roof I gave you.”

This makes this population vulnerable to the whims of the government once again, especially as survivors have been vocal about the lack of government support in search and rescue efforts.

Rodriguez’s government, whose dismal response to the disaster has been denounced by residents across the board, has offered no timeline for long-term housing recovery efforts.

The extent of the damage remains unclear, but at least 10,000 buildings, or about a third, were damaged in Catia la Mar, a city west of Carrabaleda also in La Guaira state, based on satellite images analyzed by Microsoft for Good Lab’s artificial intelligence. Old buildings, substandard construction, and geography have left many neighborhoods in Venezuela vulnerable to strong earthquakes.

Pick up the pieces

Benito Mantilla, 68, is now living in a tent set up in the pharmacy parking lot in Catia La Mar after his own home was damaged. His wife left for the Dominican Republic last week, but he decided to stay and try to find work about 40 minutes away in the capital, Caracas, where the earthquakes also destroyed his and his brother’s auto repair shop.

Another woman who also lived in the parking lot was still hoping that the government would give her a house soon. She said her daughter is part of the local organizers of the ruling party.

Meanwhile, Karyodidi Gonzalez, who bought her own home when she was 21, hoped her working-class home, half of which had fallen into a ravine, could somehow be repaired.

“In many countries, it is very difficult to own a home, and here, we work hard to get what is ours,” said 44-year-old Gonzalez.

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