Chile is going through a major crisis of access to housing, with a deficit of more than 600,000 housing solutions throughout the country. For this reason, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development prepared the Housing Emergency Plan (PEH) which, among other things, proposes to take care of 40% of that deficit. For the Metropolitan Region, where 43% of the country’s housing needs are concentrated, the Plan establishes a goal of 81,155 solutions. It is not an easy task, as a regional team, integrated by the Seremi and Metropolitan Serfu, it will mean us to work at much greater speed than in previous years, but we are on the right track, more than 60% of the projects necessary to reach the goal are finished, in execution or about to start.
The PEH has allowed us to recover the role of the State in land management. While it will take time for the responsibility for finding land suitable for construction to fall on the housing committees, today MINVU is managing the transfer and acquisition of well-located public and private land. This is key in a region like the Metropolitan, where the value of land has driven the most vulnerable families to the periphery of cities and has hindered the implementation of programs such as the Solidarity Housing Fund. A good example is the recent purchase of the land of Ciudad del Niño, where the MINVU will develop an urban housing project with the collaboration of the Municipality of San Miguel.
To this is added the circular of President Boric that instructs all public services to make public lands available for the implementation of the Housing Emergency Plan, in order to facilitate the management of land throughout the country. In addition, through the Interministerial Commission on City, Housing and Territory, twelve ministries are collaborating to manage land, accelerate project review processes and provide new neighborhoods with the services they require.
In that sense, this Plan is an opportunity to make a city. We want to build neighborhoods and not only housing solutions, recognizing and understanding the diverse realities of the region, seeking to accompany the projects of new housing with access to quality public goods and spaces, recovering deteriorated sectors of our cities. Likewise, we hope to be able to diversify the ways of accessing housing with the lines proposed by the PEH. With the Housing Program for Workers to reach people from middle sectors, with industrialized housing to rural sectors where the region has little supply or with small condominiums to different communes where it is possible to densify in a sustainable way.
This is a collective effort, which does not depend on a single sector. Together with the recently created Center for Training, Dialogue and Participation of the MINVU, we are working to generate collaboration in the six provinces of our region. We have met with leaders of housing committees, neighborhood councils, mayors, representatives of companies and NGOs, not only to present this Plan, but to listen to their voices, which are what will allow us to implement actions and solutions closer to their reality.
From the Metropolitan Seremi of Housing and Urbanism, we invite you to join the Housing Emergency Plan. We must face the crisis together, this is not only a responsibility of the current government, but also of communities, civil society, academia, the private sector and all citizens. We will continue to generate instances to talk about housing and the city, because this Plan is done by all of us.
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