El Problema de la Vivienda, The Housing Problem in Cuba

"No hay patria en que pueda tener el hombre más orgullo que en nuestras dolorosas repúblicas americanas. -- There is no homeland in which a man can have more pride than in our pain-ridden American republics." --José Marti

My room is like a tree house. Steep outdoor steps snake up the back of an old mansion, probably first constructed to connect servants' quarters, and they give me such overwhelming vertigo that I have to hold on and remember to breathe at every move. They are narrow, broken and rounded steps only a foot and a half wide, with a rusted railing that I doubt would break a fall. I climb the backside of the building amid open apartment windows and laundry lines, the criss cross of other stairways like mine on neighboring buildings making this place seem like a hidden city in itself. I get barked at by a dog on the third floor and keep climbing, looking in paneless windows at dinner tables and children playing marbles on the floor beside old fans that are never turned off. Should I need to pee at 3 am, it's a flight down in the dark to a tiny converted closet under my room with another set of locks to struggle through. God help me if it rains--the steps will be all the more treacherous. But most of my climb I'm greeted by the classic Cuban warmth I've come to love: "Es la Jennifer!" they shout, as if my name has become a noun, as if I am not just any Jennifer but THE Jennifer, their Jennifer, their neighbor and friend. If "la migra" shows up in this neighborhood, no one will give me away to immigration officers--they know they'll all benefit from the donations I brought Ana, who becomes like a local drugstore now, bestowing free Pepto Bismol and Ibuprofen on her jealous neighbors. No one will give away the secret of the gringa living in an illegal room on the fourth floor because everyone knows I'm part of the family now--not just part of Ana's family, but the family that is my community here in Vedado, our district of Havana.

After the Revolution triumphed in 1959, all private property became state property. As the rich fled the island to the U.S., Mexico and Europe, their homes were split into parcels and apartments just as massive farms were parcelled out to farmers in the countryside. Gigantic, gorgeous homes that once held one small family became apartments for 10-15 families. One can still see all the vestiges of a rich past in these homes, with their faded but beautiful tile work and ornate chandeliers. The few panes of glass in ceiling-high windows hold the X of masking tape that marks this as a region prone to hurricanes, and old stained glass windows hold only a few touches of color today.

Most important was the philosophical shift--housing became a RIGHT in Cuba with the Revolution, not a priviledge. According to Fidel, ALL Cubans could count on a roof over their heads--and today this remains the rule. There are no homeless in Cuba--they have truly made housing a right, just as the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggested should be done across the globe in 1946. Ironically, I've seen the worst homelessness in the most developed countries--people may not have glass windows and the lights and water may go off without warning, but you won't find Cubans living under bridges or in old cars as the poor so often have to in the U.S.

In spite of Castro's good intentions, housing becomes a bigger problem every day as the younger generations grow up and start needing their own spaces for new families. Life expectancy here hovers around 90 years, as the slow pace of life combined with free medical services keeps people alive longer than in most countries. As my friend Caridad said, you can't exactly kick out or euthanize the elderly to make room for the young, and Cuba's weak economy hasn't allowed enough new homes to be built in the last twenty years. The former Soviet Union did build thousands of hideous cinder-block apartment buildings here in the 1970s and '80s, but since 1990 there has been no Mother Russia to help build more as the population continues to grow. It's not uncommon to see three generations of families stuffed into tiny homes--my friend Ana continues to live in an airless, lightless basement apartment with a man she divorced over 15 years ago because there's nowhere else for him to go. Conflict breeds like mold in a home like that, where everyone has a different opinion on how to run a household or raise a child. A few people have good luck--Ana's son Micha now shares a huge 3-bedroom apartment with only his wife and new baby because his wife's family dispersed into other homes as they married. But these cases are rare. And so every corner is used, every closet turned into a bathroom, every storage room now a tiny, nearly airless apartment.

Ana's younger son Raymer takes me a flight higher to meet the woman who lives above my room, and the rooftops of Havana spread out around us. I hear voices from all directions: a child crying, a father soothing, a mother shouting obscenities. The smell of onion and garlic wafts in from all directions. This is the heart of La Habana, the guts of a city I love for all its crumbling majesty and tight quarters, for neighbors who stop to kiss me hello and admire Ana's first grandchild, for its tiny little treehouse rooms, tucked up high in the back of faded mansions. It's hotter than hell up here, but there's nowhere else I'd rather be than living here among these friends, my Cuban family. I just hope it doesn't rain before I need to pee again.