4.1 Caracterización del modelo a utilizar para determinar el valor del alquiler
4.1.1 Bienes y agregados elementales
The families living in the precarios were mainly nuclear families, young couples with children. Their degrees of poverty varied a lot, from extremely poor shanty dwellings to wooden homes in new materials belonging to public servants or middle income families. The families from the early 1980s were poorer than the members of housing community groups which formed the three major precarios during the electoral period of 1985-1986. The latter had greater ability to
YEARS OF ARRIVAL PRECARIOS OF THE GAM
poptlation m d homes 10 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 j PO PULATIO N 764 80 75 685 270 326 1205 10999 378 6779 1177 7247 39665 254 HOMES 152 17 15 129 54 58 241 2506 70 1297 241 1349 8206 45 1 BARRIOS 2 2 1 5 1 2 2 6 3 7 4 20 « 4 yean I POPULATK3N ITEMS B HOMES Figure: 3.1
POPULATION AND HOUSING DENSITY PRECARIOS OF THE GAM
1000 h
mm V
1974 1975 1976 : 1977 !_ ^ 9 ^ 1979 1980 1981 1982 i 1983 1984 1985 ' 1986 1987 j IN H A B IT A N T S X BARRIO 40 75 137 270 163 1 602 1833 126 968 i 294 1 362 881 63 ' HOMES X BARRIO 1 76 8 ! 13 25 L i i j 29 120 417 23_J 1 60 ! 67 182 11 y e a n ITEMSIN H ABrrA.VTS X BARRIO HOMES X BAR R IO
Figure 3.2
Own elaboration Source; INVU-M IVAH
pay and many who had permanent jobs and stable incomes could contribute themselves to the building of two or three bedroom concrete houses.
The survey shows that only in six small sites was there a significant percentage of single parent families, with predominantly women heads of households working at least part time. In these barrios other women took care of the children. Out of the whole population 85% were considered ’nuclear’ families, mainly ’married’ couples with children, though some of them could share the home with some other relative. The average number of people per home (sometimes simply scrap huts) was 4.8 in 1987 and this figure is constant regardless of the year of foundation or the place. The INVU-MIVAH survey shows smaller numbers of homes per barrio in the precarios founded before 1979, but this means only that they were in small old undisturbed places that made no trouble because most of the biggest land invasions (more than 150 families) from the late 1970s and early 1980s were relocated.
Many of the barrios had conditions typical of recent land invasions; poor building materials and basic services. Thirty six barrios (including the largest) used mainly scrap materials in the shelters. However, many others had new wood or even concrete buildings, as shown in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2 BUILDING MATERIALS USED IN THE PRECARIOS
Materials Number of homes %
concrete/wood and zinc in good/regular conditions 858 9.1 concrete, zinc and wood in bad conditions 3,398 35.9 wood in average and bad conditions 821 8.7 wood in bad conditions and scrap 3,436 36.3
scrap or junk materials 943 10.0
TOTAL 9.456
. .. ...
100 Source: INVU-MIVAH, 1987.
The building materials used reflect the different incomes of families. Almost 10% had large well-built houses in new concrete blocks or wood. At the bottom of the scale another 10% had only scrap dwellings of cardboard, plastic or junk wood. In the middle of the scale there are two groups with around 36% of the homes that also showed contrasting conditions. Most of the houses were very small (from 16 m^ to 30 m^), with the exceptions concentrated in the oldest barrios, but the lots were of very different sizes, from very small of 30 m^ to ones of 250 m^, similar to the average sizes of formal urban lots in middle-income barrios. Most of the lots were between 120 m^ and 150 m^ in size.
c.
Services and infrastructureThe INVU-MIVAH survey presents a broad picture of the Infrastructure becoming run down from over-use, but it also shows improvements in some places, such as new ballast or asphalt roads and community centres. Most of the families did not pay for any services (74%), but they had water and electricity. Apart from their everyday expenditures (food, transport, etc), they made a weekly or monthly payment to their community groups or the major housing fronts, particularly in the places controlled by COPAN, FDV or FCV. However, these main organizations supplied better services, such as individual water supply and electricity, public transport, community centres and schools. The poorest precarios received food and other basic goods from government organizations and most of them received some building materials from IMAS, INVU or political parties.
In 1987, the biggest barrios had electricity, but there were still 74 of the 104 without even illegal connections. The legal connections developed by ICE were charged collectively to the community group which organized their own procedures to charge the users. They used a number of ways of charging the families, including counting the number of light bulbs and other electrical equipment. Other community groups paid from their collective funds. Normally the community groups using illegal connections only allowed the use of light bulbs and small equipment such as radios or TVs, but not refrigerators or cookers, but in the larger precarios the families had electrical equipment in relation to their individual income.
The illegality of the barrios was the reason given by ICE for not installing standard street lighting, 83 barrios with 80% of the population did not have street lighting. This made for insecurity and distress particularly during the rainy season nights on dirt streets. This contrasted with the general conditions of the city, where from 1980 more than 94% of the population had individual electricity connections and public lighting (ORAM, 1983:272).
Most of the families had individual water connections -legal or illegal- (55.5%), but there was still a significant number using stand-pipes. Most of the homes had one of these forms of water supply near their homes as shown in Table 3.3. Other forms, such as rivers, wells or fountains were not usual in the GAM, so families only used them in exceptional cases. The rivers would probably be polluted because they are normally open drains for the whole city. For that reason many families without stand-pipes or water networks had to use water supplied periodically by trucks. Nationwide, the water supply conditions were much better; in 1984 more than 80% had individual legal connections.
Table 3.3 WATER SUPPLY
Type of supply Number of homes percentage
individual connections 4,807 55.5 individual or stand-pipes 1,725 19.9 stand-pipes 1,734 20.0 river ' 75 1.0 1 i fountain or weil ; 137 1.6
none (water-truck deiiveries) i 173 2.0
TOTAL 8,651 100
Source: iNVU-MIVAH; 1987.
One of the main problems in precarios was the lack of proper sanitary systems. In 1987 the percentage of families using iatrines was very high, and oniy a few barrios used as a norm septic tanks, as shown in Tabie 3.4. A third of the popuiation stili used coiiective latrines. These conditions did not improve significantiy during the iast administration because the CEV houses did not provide septic tanks. The famiiies had to build their own sanitary system, so most continued using individual latrines.
Table 3.4 SANITARY SYSTEMS
Type of system Number of barrios population
individual iatrine 60 66%
collective iatrine 34 29%
open drain or river 3 1%
septic tank 5 4%
none 2 0%
Source: iNVU-MIVAH; 1987.
The fact that the main precarios were transformed into projects on the same public land they had been occupying for years increased the danger of diseases caused by extreme pollution, even after their projects were officialiy finished.
In some of the main precarios the new projects used the same improvised lay-outs that community groups had developed during their occupation. Some had asphait or baliast streets in iay-outs approved by local governments, so CEV simply built houses in the lots previously distributed by local community groups or the main housing fronts. In some other precarios CEV built the houses in various stages, so the families released some parts of the site for the CEV to build houses, and then once they occupied the new houses, CEV began a new stage in their
previous site. In these projects CEV built basic infrastructure, such as asphalt roads, concrete sidewalks, standard public lighting, sewers and drains, but many families continued using concrete latrines instead of septic-tanks. Before the beginning of CEV activities, half the population had only dirt streets and more than 20% of those were in bad condition (Table 3.5), even though the survey was done during the dry season.
Table 3.5 ROAD CONDITIONS
Type of roads # of barrios population dirt road in bad conditions 56 22%
dirt road 16 29%
ballast in good conditions 6 19% ballast in average conditions 7 9% ballast in bad conditions 3 3%
asphalt road 3 12%
concrete walks 8 5%
none 5 1%
Source: INVU-MIVAH; 1987.
Public transport in the barrios depended on the community organizations and their negotiations with private companies. Some local companies refused to go into the barrios because of the lack of proper asphalt or ballast roads, so the families put pressure on the Ministry of Transport to get the minimum conditions for the buses to go inside the barrios, particularly in the larger ones that occupied 50 to 70 hectares. These negotiations were almost always a success: 92% of the population (81 out of 104 barrios) had buses coming into their barrios or less than 500 metres from them.
Commercial services in the barrios were also private. Many families had small shops in their houses and some built proper shops on corners. In the main precarios when the CEV projects began, some of these shops became restaurants and bars because of the enormous new demand caused by dozens of construction workers. In 1987 83% of the population had proper shops with standard services, but many of the small barrios used the shops in barrios nearby. Most of the CEV projects did not have any designated places for commercial use or bus stops, so they continued using the ones previously established.
The location of precarios near the centres of districts or cantons allowed them easy access to primary or secondary schools, health centres and surgeries: 45 barrios (43% of the population) had these centres less than 500 metres from their sites, 33 barrios (31% of the population) were located less than one km. from these services. The main precarios had to build their own schools and health centres because the ordinary local centres could not take in
thousands of new families. In seven barrios (24,425 people or 35% of the total precario population) the primary school activities used community centres, churches or health centres. From 1988 some new schools were built in the major projects, but some of them were still too small. Half of the sites were located less than one kilometre from Community Child-Care Centres (CEN-CINAI)*.