Where are we going to live? Data, projects and attempts to solve the housing problem in Latin America

In coffee conversations, in WhatsApp chats, in meetings with friends and family, there is a question that is repeated among young people:

Where and how are we going to live when we grow up?

According to ECLAC, in 2020 Latin America and the Caribbean was made up of 211 million people between 15 and 34 years old, 32.5% of the region’s total population. At least 50% are women and, on average, 9% are LGBTI+ people.

Of all these people, how many own a home today? How many will manage to be so in the future?

If a 25-year-old Latin American person earned a salary of 400 USD and allocated 100% of their income to the purchase of a 55 m2 home, on average they would finish paying it off around the age of 58. If he used only 25% of that salary, he would meet his goal at 158 ​​years old.

In 18 countries in the region, the right to decent housing has constitutional status. That is, Latin American countries recognize the importance of housing as a fundamental right. Furthermore, living with dignity is a right that enables others: “Because if you do not have a home you cannot exercise your right to identity, (…) the right to family protection, the right to education. There are a whole series of rights that are very interconnected with housing because it is the basis for people to exercise other rights,” explains Carla Escoffié, specialist in housing rights and writer of the book “Ciudad sin techo”. .

However, it is no surprise to anyone that – in practice – there are numerous barriers to making the right to decent housing effective.

33 years of savings is the average number of years necessary to purchase a one or two-bedroom home in the region (if 100% of a minimum wage is saved).

50% of jobs are held in informal markets, many of them unstable, with low salaries and no social protection.

“With the salaries of an average working person it is absolutely impossible to pay the installment of a loan for a home,” Sergio Miranda, Director of the Diversity Secretariat of the Municipality of Montevideo.

What you read here is a journalistic and regional investigation on access to housing that focuses on three population groups: young people, women and people of LGBTI+ diversity in Latin America and the Caribbean. But beyond recounting the problems, we wanted to show an overview of the responses that some organizations, independent groups and governments are providing to resolve this situation.

To do this, we put at your disposal several stories, as well as analysis of projects, programs and public legislation in this regard. Now, we have to say it in all its letters: in many cases these are experimental or developing projects, which are not – and will not be – systemic solutions, or which present insufficient results. In any case, it seems relevant to us to map them, investigate them, understand their achievements and limitations, with the aim that this research serves other groups, organizations, public officials and rulers to take action on the matter.

To identify these solutions or good practices, a team of 45 journalists from 16 countries in the region spent more than five months reading 80 legal instruments and nearly 80 housing projects in 20 countries in the region. Of the latter, we selected 10 to investigate their operating model and levels of success.

The difficulty of millions of people in Latin America in accessing their own home is a complex problem that has social, economic and even cultural causes. However, in all countries, this problem results in an additional situation: uncertainty. We don’t really know how we are going to live, where, or how we will pay the cost of decent housing.

To put it in perspective: throughout the region there is a growing increase in labor informality and this is usually marked by instability at work, low or variable income and lack of social protection, which directly affects the purchasing power of young people. and the possibility of accessing credits or housing programs.

And this phenomenon is not minor. According to a data collection made for this research that compared the minimum wage in nine countries in the region and the prices per square meter (m2) of housing use (in 2023), an average of 33 years of savings would be needed to purchase a 70m2 house; This is if 100% of the basic monthly salary is saved, because if the percentage of the salary allocated to the purchase of the home is 25%, the average rises to 133 years of savings.

“Unfortunately, the costs are unattainable, with the salaries of an average working person it is absolutely impossible to be able to afford the payment of a loan for a home,” analyzes Sergio Miranda, Director of the Diversity Secretariat of the Municipality of Montevideo. This becomes more acute when it comes to young people, women and the LGTBI+ population.

The difficulties that young people suffer in accessing housing, as explained by Axel Murillo, a researcher in the right to the city and urban conflicts in Colombia, “are the same barriers for access to employment, for access to credit and for access to housing. to health. Taking into account that six out of every 10 working young people are in the informal sector, the result is precarious young people without the ability to afford their own home.

If we focus on women, we know that – according to ECLAC for 2022 – 25% of them do not have their own income in Latin America. In Colombia, for example, this percentage rises to 35%. In many cases they are female caregivers, with lower salaries than their male counterparts, mothers—in many cases single—who must choose between caring, working, mothering, and promoting their independence. «Women everywhere have problems accessing housing. The first is precisely due to the lack of income, a formal income,” details Mónica Colin, dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the EAN University, in Colombia.

And of course, there are historically discriminated and persecuted populations, who to survive have had to build their own communities, outside of government projects. «They are running us out of our homes, they are killing us out there. We need to have a safe space to live,” says Octavio Mandujan, founder of the Xochiquetzalli Cooperative in Mexico City, an LGBTI+ organization that fights for the right to decent and safe housing for people of diversity.

The informality rate of young people who are actively working is 60%, vastly higher than the 47% recorded by adults.

For every 100 men active in the labor market, there are only 67 women.

In LATAM there are very few legal instruments that guarantee access to housing for people of LGBTI+ diversity.

A Mexican with a minimum salary of 360 USD can spend 190 years saving to buy a one- or two-bedroom home, if he allocates 25% of said income to this goal.

We know that many things are being done wrong, but it is undeniable that Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of resistance, struggle, resilience and creativity. Therefore, for this research we focused on attempts at housing solutions focused on serving a particular group, whether young people, women or LGBTI+ groups.

From the north of Mexico to the southernmost latitude of Argentina, LATAM Housing takes a regional tour of some attempted solutions to the housing problem: from a credit program for 100% of the value of a property for young people, to a cooperative of the LGBTI+ community that fought for 20 years to access their first home or rental subsidies for victims of gender violence.

Some of these projects are supported by governments or financial organizations. Others emerge from communities that have decided to self-manage housing solutions for themselves, with government support that ranges from moderate to almost zero. Some have failed or been left in limbo. However, a few have achieved their goal of facilitating access to housing for small communities of people.

The housing problem in Latin America and the Caribbean is complex, multi-causal and requires creative and systemic solutions. It requires budgets and political will. In that sense, we do not intend to romanticize or uncritically praise the projects we present. In any case, we want to create a repository of information, data and projects to remind us that the fight for decent housing is a necessary, community and regional effort. Because if not, where are we going to live?

This is an investigation carried out by the 7th Generation of the LATAM Network of Young Journalists from Different Latitudes and is available on the web: https://viviendalatam.distintaslatitudes.net/
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