Bogota to turn abandoned buildings into affordable housing .
Bogota to turn abandoned buildings into affordable housing .
Tuesday, 08 May 2012 08:25
Brandon Barrett
Colombia's government supported an initiative proposed by Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro to turn abandoned buildings downtown into affordable housing for the city's poor.
The newly-appointed Minister of Housing, German Vargas Lleras, backed Petro's plan as part of a new initiative called the Affordable Housing Priority (VIP), which would award 100,000 houses to Colombia's poorest.
"There are 198 acres of underutilized land in the center. This land could be a great engine for the development of VIP in the city," said Bogota's mayor.
Lleras backed the proposed plan, saying "we would not have to send the poor to poorer sites farther from the city."
More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/23928-bogota-to-turn-abandoned-buildings-into-affordable-housing.html
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Article on Gustavo Petro written before he was elected as Bogota's mayor:
Ex-Guerrilla Leads Colombia Opposition
February 20, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia - The political scandal that forced Colombia's foreign minister to quit and put other close allies of President Alvaro Uribe in jail is being driven in large part by a rebel-turned-senator who has defied death threats to become the opposition's most fearless provocateur.
Sen. Gustavo Petro has relentlessly accused the law-and-order president of letting a poisonous alliance prosper between the political class and illegal right-wing militias, which are responsible for brutal massacres and the theft of millions of acres from poor peasants.
Colombians who fear taking explosive information to police or prosecutors often turn to Petro instead, and the scrappy senator regularly goes public with their allegations, tempting fate in a country where political assassination has a long tradition.
A former leftist rebel, Petro has nine bodyguards, wears custom-tailored bulletproof sport jackets and has a crew of loyalists looking out for him. Twice, he has foiled paramilitary plots to kill him, and he has periodically fled into exile for safety. In an interview with The Associated Press, he casually mentioned that it would be nice to die of old age.
More:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1Y1-103436070.html?key=01-421613517E19146A1709041F016E4B2A225A24582E2626502749482C651B617E137119721B7B1D6B75174C
