Housing Mission Gives 1,000 Homes to Venezuelans

Venezuela’s “Great Housing Mission” delivered just short of 1,000 homes to some of the poorest people across 10 states on Thursday, marking a milestone for the program to combat the housing shortage in the South American country.

The project finished 969 homes across Anzoategui, Aragua, Barinas, Falcon, Lara, Miranda, Monagas, Nueva Esparta, Zulia, and the Capital District, for families who were homeless or living in inadequate conditions.

The pre-fabricated homes consist of three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and washroom, set in 72 meters squared. All services are included, such as a phone line.

Since the former, late President Hugo Chavez founded the Great Housing Mission in 2011, Venezuela had created 742,510 homes, said Minister of Habitat and Housing Manuel Quevedo. Today, in the Capital District alone, 12,464 are underway.

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The project was created to end Venezuela’s housing deficit among the country’s poorest and most vulnerable, which previous governments tackled by providing metal containers, unsuitable in Venezuela’s tropical climate. The plan was to build thousands of homes that would be 80 percent subsidized by the government for families living in poverty.

Thousands of Venezuelans have also benefited from Petrocasas, a project to repurpose materials used in the oil industry for prefabricated homes, as well as more ​than a million from Barrio Nuevo Tricolor, which has refurbished and redecorated neighborhoods and public spaces to make them more pleasant to live in.

Maduro bet his iconic mustache that the government will meet its target of completing the construction of 1 million new homes by 2016.

“I'll make a bet: if by December 31 we do not reach one million new homes I will shave off my mustache,” said the president during his weekly Tuesday speech, broadcast on local media.