To meet the goal, the Ministry of Housing assured that it would need $197 billion and 123 years. Camacol and the Government are working to close the gap.
The Ministry of Housing has set a clear goal: to reduce the housing deficit and guarantee decent housing, especially in rural areas. According to the last annual report of the National Administrative Department of Statistics, Dane, in 2021 31% of Colombian households presented the housing deficit in the country, which corresponds to 5.24 million homes. Regarding qualitative deficit, that is, homes with non-structural deficiencies that need improvements or adjustments to achieve habitable conditions, about 23.5% of homes have this deficiency. In quantitative deficit, 7.5% of the properties have structural damage. With these figures, the Ministry of Housing carried out a study on what it would cost to correct this deficit, among the results it found that it would cost close to $197 billion pesos and it would take 123 years to eradicate it. In cities, the situation looks better than in rural areas. According to the Ministry of Housing, the housing deficit affects 20.4% of households in the city, while in rural areas it is at 68.2%. “You really understand why there is a conflict, a hopelessness. It is essential to reorient public investment proposals in terms of basic elements such as water and sanitation and social housing”, said the Minister of Housing, Catalina Velasco. By departments, Valle del Cauca ranks first with a deficit between 0 and 20%, where Cali barely has 14.02%, but in Buenaventura this figure exceeds 56%. In contrast, the Amazon faces a deficit of more than 80%. To combat this situation, the national territory from the regions has implemented strategies without a horizon. Only 20% of the municipalities have a current POT (Territorial Management Plan), this added to the fact that only 50% of the growth of cities in the last three decades is formal, has generated that housing has become one of the most relevant challenges of the portfolio in the country. With this in mind, the Ministry of Housing has raised resources to generate new rural housing subsidies and the portfolio plans to allocate 20% of the available resources at its expense for this purpose.
For Sandra Forero, president of the Colombian Chamber of Infrastructure, Camacol, this is a goal that she shares with the Government, which is why she works hand in hand with her members so that more and more Colombians can access housing. “Today the country has a program that, from its urban approach, contributes to reducing this type of deficit, Mi Casa Ya. According to the impact evaluation of the program carried out by the Universidad de los Andes and the Centro Nacional de Consultoría, Mi Casa Ya reduces the probability of being in a quantitative housing deficit by 46%. Maintaining and strengthening this program is essential in the deficit reduction strategy,” said the union leader.
On rural housing, the Chamber has proposed social rental programs focused on households with up to 1.5 minimum wages and programs to improve existing housing. Article taken from portafolio.co
By: Paula Galeano Balaguera