Cuba has been all over the news in recent days!
The long expected news about Cubans being allowed to buy a house has been approved, the same way the government authorized Cubans to buy a car, or a computer.
From November,10th,2011, Cubans living on the island can legally sell or purchase a property and own a summer house outside the city.
However, these couple of days I have not been thinking about that. The reality is that I do not know a lot of people who can afford to buy a place in Havana. Â My thoughts have been more with the people who do have a family house which they cannot repair and their walls are barely standing.
In the last month rains have been heavy in the capital and not few residents get concern about what might come after the rain. It is widely known in Havana that after the rain stops and the sun comes out the structures of the buildings and old houses start to dry out and the possibility of pieces of building collapsing increases. It is not strange to hear that another family have had to evacuate an Old Havana house due to the danger of a total crumbling.
A really close friend from Havana lost his entire kitchen roof a couple of years ago since his family did not have the budget to maintain their ceilings. Ideally, a house built a over a century ago should be restored once a year, specially if it is by the coast. My friend’s family has enough money to maintain their bellies full and that is about it.
Buying a house in Cuba seems impossible to me if you depend on your salary and the sporadic extra money that can get to you one way or another. Unless you receive a considerable amount from a relative abroad or open a business that starts bringing you a constant cash flow buying a property is a luxury only available to a few.
Right now, people I know are struggling to amend their roofs and painting their walls, to keep their homes up and decent. They are watching to see if the hurricane is coming their way. Those are the news I follow. I promise I will happily blog about a friend buying a vacation house, when I have one…
