In February of 1939, a devastating earthquake had as epicentre the city of Chillán (in the centre/south of Chile) affecting a good part of the Chilean population and forcing the creation of new institutions in housing, constructive matters, and in social development planning as well. With the enacting of the Law 6334 were born the Corporation of Reconstruction and Assistance and also the Corporation of Foment (CORFO). These new institutions made joint efforts to solve the housing problem.
In 1953 the National Plan of Housing and the Corporation of Housing (CORVI) were created. The latter institution replaced the Saving Bank of Housing (Ministry of Work) and became one with the programs of the Corporation of Reconstruction and Assistance and the Corporation of Foment (depending on the Treasury Ministry), all this under the administration of the newly created Ministry of Public Construction.
One situation that we have to highlight at this particular point in the history of social housing politics of Chile is the establishment and institutionalization of self-build as an important element in the access to a decent housing solution. The state limited itself to building partially completed homes in minimally urbanized spaces, and the final stages of construction of the house had to be completed by the families living there.
This is a concept that has continued (with important improvements) as one of fundamental parts of the politics of housing access until today. Housing during this period was built by the CORVI, the Housing Unit Diego Portales, as emblematic buildings influenced by Modernism and now considered National Heritage (Fig. 4.7).
If we try to make a balance of this period, we can say that now the country has strong institutions and the housing problem is addressed in a rational way by the state through planning processes based on real diagnoses. It defines that the middle class sectors should have a saving capacity to qualify for a house with the help of the state, meanwhile the poorest families need direct and complete help, giving them priority in the allocation of resources. We can also see some weakness when CORVI concentrate efforts in the construction of housing complexes through the Savings Banks, which means houses for organized workers that are not necessary the poorest sectors of the Chilean society. At the end of this period the poorest families of the country continued living in the slum neighbourhoods7 without urbanization in the most terrible conditions.
In 1964 President Eduardo Frei Montalva of the Christian Democratic Party was elected in an international context, special to Latin America, defined by cooperation with the United States to instigate of social policies for national development. The intention was to diminish the risk of revolutionary nationalist projects, such that in Cuba, which threatened the hegemony of United States in the region. Chile, due to its democratic tradition and order, was a privileged field for experimentation.
Also important was the structuralist doctrine of the CEPAL (United Nations Agency for America Development, with headquarters in Santiago de Chile) that offered a theoretical framework for the development8. In Chile this process was called
“Revolution in Freedom”. The significant increase of housing production achieved at that moment led to the Chilean state being one of the most important producers of urban spaces through the actions of CORVI. But despite these achievements, the answer to the housing problem was never found, mainly because the deficit dragged
7 Called “poblaciones callampas” literally mushrooming neighbourhoods because they appear in the vacant sites in the cities in one night just like mushrooms.
8 Raposo, A. (2001) Espacios Urbanos e Ideología el Paradigma de la Corporación de la Vivienda en la arquitectura Habitacional chilena. Ediciones Universidad Central, Santiago. p. 118
on for several decades, and migration continued from the rural sectors to the cities (it kept happening in significant numbers until the 1970s) and finally because of a strong demographic growth9.
Frei Montalva’s government decided that actions should be directed preferably to the poorest families, setting the goal of building 360.000 houses in the 6 years of the government’s mandate (1964-1970). Of that total number, 213.000 were intended to go to the poorest sectors10. Every action was developed within a general politics of social integration and participation directed by the state, showing the ideological content of the government and the ruling Christian Democratic party, that claimed the virtues from the popular community of achieving self-built homes and the self-organization of living conditions.
During this period a big change of approach in housing happened with respect to the previous government of Alessandri: the goal no longer consisting in the reactivation of economic activity and an increase in the country’s total growth, using housing as a means to achieve it (which explains the strategic inclusion of the private sector in the construction of houses). The government of Frei Montalva was centred on the redistribution of resources and the incorporation of the poorest groups in society, through their mobilization and organization.
The housing politics developed by the Christian Democrat government had other important components. First it established a deeper rationalization of housing production especially around the regulation of the market and the organization of demand through the creation of the Plan for Popular Savings. Another component was the relation established between of this was reorganized by Law 16391 of 1965 that
9 MINVU op. cit., p. 29
10 Palma, E. and Sanfuentes, A. (1979). Políticas Estatales en condiciones de Movilización Social: Las Políticas de Vivienda en Chile (1964-1973) in EURE, Vol VI, Santiago. p. 21- 55
created the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (MINVU, still in existence today). Other institutions were reorganized and new ones created: Corporation of Housing Services (CORABITH), the Corporation for Urban Improvement (CORMU), the Corporation of Urban Constructions (COU) and the reorganized Corporation of Housing (CORVI). All these institutions were given maximum autonomy, through the legal statutes of
“companies owned by the state with legal status, patrimony separate from the treasury, and related with the government through the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism”11.
The creation of the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism was one of the main actions to address the housing problem in Chile in the 1970s. The Ministry was in charge of housing politics for the whole country and also the coordination of all the corporations and other institutions involved in the state building programme12.
During these years the private sector had the task of covering two thirds of the national housing deficit, under the specific requirement made by the State that construction companies should devote most of their efforts to building popular housing projects. To achieve this, they kept the benefits that had already been established, adding new mechanisms to promote capital investment in the poorest family housing.
Under the idea of building decent housing that could fit the real payment capacity of the beneficiaries, the policy directed to the poorest sectors set the construction of units to an average size of 50 m2 (considerably smaller than the houses built before), but with a strong emphasis on urban equipment, as services like sanitation and water13.
11 Jugovic, M. (1998). Naturaleza Jurídica de los Servicios de Vivienda y Urbanización. Informe en Derecho, Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo, División Jurídica, Santiago. p. 79
12 See Hidalgo R. (1999) La vivienda social en Chile: La acción del estado en un siglo de planes y programas. Scripta Nova Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Barcelona nº 45 (1).
13 Palma, E. and Sanfuentes, A. op.cit., p. 21- 55
The construction of an average 60,000 houses proposed during the six years of Frei Montalva’s administration, starting with 54,000 for 1965 and ending with 67,000 in 197014. The original idea was that the Housing Ministry and the corporations would have constant financial resources, because they would recover a good part of the money spent through the payment of liabilities by the beneficiaries. But this never really happened, and the state had to take over all the expenditure until 1967, when a big reduction of public spending affected all government plans, especially housing, so it was impossible to achieve the numbers projected.
The social change resulting from all this was that the new ideas of participation and organization spread by the Christian Democrat government with its “Revolution in Freedom” eventually increased the need for housing, exceeding the 360,000 dwellings promised. The social mobilizations came under such constant pressure that, in many cases, a modification of the plans was required. Besides that, increases in housing subsidies for the poorest families encouraged them to ask for more and better solutions, and to contribute to the lack of correspondence between the housing offers and the population’s expectations.
The target of 360,000 houses could only be kept during the first three years, so after that the language changed to 360,000 “housing solutions”, a change of goal that caused a steady decline in the house-building standards.
After 1967, the illegal occupation of sites multiplied, centred on the lands already bought by the state for housing projects. Installed there, families pressed to achieve a permanent solution. In this situation Frei Montalva’s government created the Plan of Popular Saving that contemplated the provision of a site without urbanization to an apartment of 45 m2 approximately. The idea of this plan was that each line responded
14 MINVU op. cit., p. 43
to the paying capacity of the families. The first three (marked sites, urbanized sites and sites with sanitary installation) responded to the site-operations. These site-operations were one of the most emblematic programs of the Christian democrat government and also one of the most criticized. The lack of financial resources for the next stages to consolidated among other things the sanitary infrastructure, resulted finally in housing groups built under the site-operation in enormous insanitary zones.
We can also highlight some other housing projects produced at this time such as the San Borja Remodeling, an example of urban intervention produced for middle class families (Fig. 4.8).
The experience accumulated with the site-operation showed the need to give the families not just a house, but also economic and social capacities. This was translated into the Programme of Self Construction, that tried to change the idea of built houses for a few to a definitive built house by stages for many, creating a relation between the small economic, technical and human resources in a attempt to address the needs of a larger number of families15.
In 1970 President Salvador Allende Gossen was elected, leading the so-called Popular Unity of left side parties and political movements. The new left wing government in its programmatic approaches about the housing deficit adopted from the very first moment a critical position about how the State housing system had worked under the previous administrations16. According to the ideology of the government of president Allende, a complete and deep social change was necessary and he took on
15 Suarez, M. (1983) Programa de vivienda progresiva en la política habitacional chilena, in Mac Donald, J (ed.). Vivienda social reflexiones y experiencias. Corporación de Promoción Universitaria, Santiago, p. 189
16 Palma, E. and Sanfuentes, A. op. cit., p. 21- 55
the self-imposed obligation of ending the housing deficit in a short period of time and at a cost supported entirely by the Chilean State17.
The CORVI estimated the deficit at 592.324 houses until December 197018. The diagnoses say that this large number of missing houses was another result of the conditions under which the capitalist urban and housing development functioned that considered the house as a commodity, allowing constructive activity to be guided only by profit. Although the government of Frei Montalva had already pointed out that the house was a necessary good, and that the State should have the obligation to provide housing to the people so it couldn’t be considered as a commodity pursuing profits, under the ideology of a Popular Unity government we can see a real change in housing concepts, indicating that a decent house was a basic right for all Chilean families.
In 1971 the MINVU indicated that housing can be a powerful tool to accelerate and facilitate human and social development. Along with the declaration that each family must own a house, the government proposed different measures looking to revert the tendencies of segregation to the urban peripheries of popular housing, and this was to be achieved through remodelling cities and neighbourhoods without eradicating the current residents19.
The main objectives of the housing policies were now to solve the deficit with integral proposals that could deliver a definitive house unit, not progressive or emergency solutions20. Because of this, it is not surprising that the government cancelled all the self-construction programmes promoted by previous administrations.
17 Haramoto, E. (1983). “Políticas de vivienda social: Experiencia chilena de las tres últimas décadas, in Mac Donald, J (ed.). Vivienda social reflexiones y experiencias. Corporación de Promoción Universitaria, Santiago, p. 124
18 MINVU op.cit., p. 61
19 Raposo, A. (2001) Espacios Urbanos e Ideología el Paradigma de la Corporación de la Vivienda en la arquitectura Habitacional chilena. Ediciones Universidad Central, Santiago. p. 98
20 Palma, E. and Sanfuentes, A.op. cit., p. 34
According to the Ministry, these plans had discriminated against the poorest sectors because the house that resulted from this process was of inferior quality and the end results even more expensive than those produced by a specialized constructor. During Salvador Allende’s government, the construction sector took a important role in the reactivation of the economy and the generation of jobs.
The formulation of housing plans during this period was strongly influenced by the illegal occupation of sites, which increased in frequency during the second half of 197021. In 1968 the illegal occupations were less than 10, but in 1970 this number changed to more than 22022. These occupations were mainly of vacant lots, but also of sites where housing complexes were under construction and even in a finished but not yet released state.
The extent of real housing production during this period has provoked controversy. Even when the total goals couldn’t be achieved, in the second presidential message of Salvador Allende to the National Parliament, he pointed out that the public sector had built 73,000 units while the private one had managed only 7000 in the same time. The reliability of these numbers has been debated by several authors, but anyway the huge increase of housing production achieved in 1971 was something that could not be repeated in Chile until the 1990s under the democratic governments after the dictatorship.
The production of 1971 proved impossible to sustain, and there were serious problems in achieving the high goals proposed. There is a consensus in the idea that the increasing work of the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism, trying to accomplish all the government proposals, failed to notice that the housing institutions didn’t really
21 MINVU op. cit., p. 61
22 Ducci, M.E. (1997) Chile, el lado oscuro de una política de vivienda exitosa, in Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbanos Regionales EURE. Vol. XXIII, No 69, Santiago. p. 112
have the organizational and professional capacity of a rational administrative management. This draws attention to the fact that after all the analysis about the housing situation made by the Popular Unit government, it failed to notice the gap between the goals proposed and the existing financial and technical resources.
What the government of the president Salvador Allende was intending to do to reverse the situation will remain a mystery, due the abrupt end of the mandate in September of 1973, when a coup d’etat established a military dictatorship presided over by General Augusto Pinochet that would last 17 years.
An example that can be named as characteristic of this stage in the evolution of social housing in Chile is the housing group “German Riesco” (see image 4.9). This typology was to be repeated, with minor modifications, inside what is known as basic progressive housing programmes. It consisted of a single room built in solid material with a bathroom, and a site where future growth through self-construction was projected.