Poor neighbour hoods grow in the shadow of high-end real estate projects in Argentina

Record ID: 77467

  • Title: Poor neighbour hoods grow in the shadow of high-end real estate projects in Argentina
  • Date: 25th November 2016
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ARGENTINE PRESIDENT MAURICIO MACRI CELEBRATING HIS ELECTORAL WIN WITH SUPPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2016 16:00
  • Keywords: real estate economy recession poor housing prices
  • Location: INGENIERO MASCHWITZ, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE AND BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • City: INGENIERO MASCHWITZ, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE AND BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA00259Y1E83
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Every time there is a storm, Valeria Vallejo and her four children become anxious: The poor neighbourhood where they live in the suburbs of Buenos Aires floods with rain and its fragile tin roof becomes easy prey for winds that destroyed their house six years ago.
    Amid unbeatable prospects for real estate projects targeting high social sectors, precarious settlements such as that of Vallejo are growing in Argentina because of the economic recession and because the new ventures fuel speculation that makes housing prices unattainable for the poor.
    Like Vallejo, many of the 3 million Argentines living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods have no paved streets or access to gas or running water. According to government data, 25 percent of the population - more than 10 million people - have housing problems.
    "The neighbourhood in the plans appears as a bathed (swamp). We do not exist for anyone. Policemen are sent here because they say it is a dangerous area. That we are a shantytown and I see that in other districts the situation is worse than it is here (in terms of security). Here we are all humble (poor) but we are workers," said Vallejo from her one-room apartment in the Doña Justa neighbourhood.
    Despite the promises by President Mauricio Macri to end poverty and revive an economy that would fall 1.5 percent this year, the indicators remain negative after a year of management in which trade liberalization only succeeded in attracting investments very slowly.
    Poverty reached 32.2 percent in the second quarter of the year, according to official data, compared to 29 percent registered last December by the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), due to high inflation and job losses.
    "In Argentina there are 3 million people living in shantytowns, slums and settlements. This means they live in irregular situations in terms of land and housing and have been falling, i.e., they were in a better economic situation in general terms and have fallen. They have gone to live in a settlement that in some cases do not have material floors (they have dirt floors), have no urban layout, do not have streets, do not have public spaces. The most relevant fact is that we have a phenomenon of new poverty in Argentina. People who were better, have been falling. We are facing a generation of tenants. There are no people who can access housing," explained the former deputy minister of Social Development and current member of the opposition Daniel Arroyo.
    Florencia Drucker is the director of communication for "Techo", an NGO that aims to help Argentina's poor.
    "Seven out of ten neighbourhoods are located near some risk factor such as a high voltage tower or a creek and unfortunately day by day we find ourselves with very difficult situations where there are even people who have lost their lives because they live in a settlement. This, we understand, has to change. It is an urgent problem and it is necessary to put it on the agenda and start to build public policies with neighbours and neighbours of the neighbourhoods that aim to improve the quality and life of people who today see their rights violated," she said.
    The development of mortgage lending is low in Argentina due to economic jumps and high inflation, but this situation still affects the poor, who often have informal jobs that do not allow them to access the banking system.
    The NGO Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) detected this year "an acceleration" - without giving figures - of land encroachments in the poor suburbs of Buenos Aires and in cities such as Cordoba and Resistencia.
    The problem of poverty has particular implications for Macri: With a divided Congress, it aims to win legislative elections next year to strengthen its changes. A defeat could mean the beginning of the end of his administration.
    In an attempt to alleviate the situation, the government announced extensive public works projects, including housing, but so far only partially activated.
    The real estate market has gone far beyond the average salary, said architect Eduardo Reese of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an NGO that advocates for human rights.
    "The particularity of the functioning of the real estate market is that it has a very high percentage of actors that operate in a speculative way and therefore increase the prices of land in a way that is much greater than the growth of the economy and therefore they separate, the prices of the land are completely divorced, completely separated from the average salary of the population and increasingly are becoming more. In fact, the last few years showed that even though you have been able to earn more or your salary has been able to have more income, you have increasingly been far from being able to buy a flat or a lot (of land). This is effectively showing that land prices or speculation about real estate or built spaces and land, etc. grew much more than the average wage in any of the circumstances," he said.
    In the city of Buenos Aires, property sales grew by 43.9 percent in August compared to the same month last year, averaging nearly $140,000, thanks to the release of the dollar market - with which most of the real estate in the country is bought - promoted by Macri.
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