Venezuela’s Housing Program Achieves 96% of 2011 Construction Goal [View all]

[Peace Patriot]

Venezuela’s Housing Program Achieves 96% of 2011 Construction Goal

By EWAN ROBERTSON - VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM

Mérida, 5th January 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – 144,061 homes were constructed during 2011 as part of the Venezuelan government’s mass house building program, the Great Housing Mission (GMV), representing 96% of the 150,000 construction goal for that year.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the figures during an event in Barinas State in the South-West of Venezuela last Saturday, where 4,537 homes were handed over to families.

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The GMV was launched in April 2011 to address Venezuelan’s long-term shortage of decent affordable housing. Following a register of those requiring a new house completed in October 2011, the program’s aim is to construct 2.7 million homes by 2019.

The construction aim for 2011 was 150,000 new homes. For 2012 it is 200,000, and then 300,000 each year thereafter.

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http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6723

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Just wanted to provide an update on the Chavez government's big housing construction project because you won't hear a word about it in the Corporate Press. The rightwing opposition tried to kill this program--or the part of it that addresses the housing needs of thousands of displaced people due to catastrophic floods last year. Chavez's elected supporters in the National Assembly got around that planned rightwing blockade--in a clever legislative maneuver reminiscent of some of things LBJ did, to get his anti-poverty and civil rights legislation through Congress. They created last minute legislation to give Chavez 18 months of monetary and legal power to build the houses and did it before the obstructive rightwing elements (who had won some seats in the National Assembly) were seated. The opposition cried "foul!" (the dirtbags) but the people without homes won. Chavez did exactly what he said he was going to do with these "powers of decree": build homes for the homeless and for shanty dwellers.

The rightwing obstructionists also very much reminded me of the rightwing obstructionists during the New Deal here, and, of course, of the Diebold Congress now. They are into wrecking government itself as well as looting the public coffers and looting and abandoning the poor. And Chavez very much reminds me of FDR (and not so much LBJ, who fatally gave the war profiteers what they wanted). Chavez's government favors the poor majority that elected and re-elected him, and it is providing the proper balance in society that is so lacking here, where our political leaders serve or toady to the rich and powerful, creating an imbalance--in income, opportunity and the common good--that is so severe that it may destroy us altogether. A successful society NEEDS the government to protect the poor or the society will topple over from the heavy weight of rich greedbags and plunderers.