Venezuela

Like many countries in Latin America, Venezuela faces a severe housing deficit: in 2011, the deficit hit 2 million units, with 3.1 million people living in inadequate housing conditions.^{1, 2} The housing crisis can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s when Venezuela’s oil economy boomed and its agricultural sector declined, sending many into the country’s urban centers in search of jobs. Venezuela for many years prioritized the construction of housing for the middle- and upper-classes, forcing low-income families to turn to informal housing in unplanned areas for shelter.³ Between 1990 and 2001, approximately 70% of houses were built informally through resident self-construction in Venezuela.⁴ Many families are forced to build on environmentally vulnerable terrain, further exacerbating the housing crisis in situations of extreme weather conditions. For example, in 2010, torrential rains and subsequent landslides led to the destruction of tens of thousands of homes.⁵

The Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela (GMVV) was established under President Hugo Chavez in 2011 to address the housing crisis in Venezuela, and has been continued under the Maduro administration. The program seeks to acknowledge housing as a social right and ensure participation in the process of housing provision.⁶

GMVV is notable due to its enormous scale. Its goal is to provide at least five million homes by 2025, and the program hit its halfway point of 2.5 million homes in January 2019. At the time of this writing (April 2020), 3,098,482 homes have been created under GMVV.^{8, 9}

Under the program, the government guarantees the right to housing through the acquisition of land or residences by the national bank. The scale of the housing production under GMVV can be in part attributed to the government’s acquisition of existing housing units that must only be renovated or repurposed. The housing may be constructed by contractors or community organizations themselves (communities are able to choose whether they are interested in hiring a contractor or constructing the housing through collective mobilization). If communities choose the participatory construction route, the government provides technical assistance, training, and the materials necessary for construction.¹⁰ The State also provides social services, such as food distribution, childcare, education, and healthcare, that allow for the improvement of the quality of life of the community.¹¹

The program offers housing subsidies for at-risk families in need of shelter. Free housing (100% subsidies) are given to families with incomes below the minimum living wage, and interest rates are otherwise proportional to income. Housing prices under the program are limited to 300,000 Bolivars (or approximately $48,000 USD in 2016 dollars).¹²

Funding for this program comes from the State (appropriated through the government housing authority, the Ministerio del Poder Popular para Hábitat y Vivienda) and from public banks. Decree Law 39 799 of 2011 authorized funding from the public banking sector to be used for the production of housing under GMVV. Uniquely, the funding of GMVV involves significant foreign capital (from Chinese, Russian, Belarusian, Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian interests) through bilateral agreements backed by oil (via Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.). The development of the projects themselves may be undertaken by private entities or social organizations. The very high costs associated with the scale of housing produced under GMVV necessitates foreign capital, as the State could not undertake these large-scale projects on its own.¹³ It should be noted that the dependence of this housing program on foreign oil investments — the backbone of Venezuela’s economy — can jeopardize the ability of the State to provide housing through GMVV, especially in times of economic downtown.

Under GMVV, residents may be involved in the construction of the housing itself (if the community chooses not to hire a contractor for construction). The program establishes a “Multifamily Management Committee” that oversees the construction stages of the housing project. The Committee then acts as a decision-making body for common problems that arise within the community.¹⁴ The Committee is made up of at least three main acting members and three alternate members, and all must be future residents of the community housing development in question. Committee members are elected democratically within the community (each family has one vote) and serve one-year terms. After one year, the Committee member may be re-elected or replaced by popular vote.¹⁵

The Venezuelan Constitution recognizes the right of its citizens to adequate housing.¹⁶ A constitutional reform in 1999 further promoted social rights, establishing that social policies should be universal in nature, recognizing citizens’ rights to democratic participation, and ultimately promoting transformations in Venezuela’s political, economic, and social structures.¹⁷ To accomplish these social goals provided in the 1999 Constitution, the Venezuelan government established “Missions” to act as executors of social policies. Specifically, the Housing Mission was created with the goal of constructing homes and redistributing land to low-income families.¹⁸

In response to the 2010 floods that left over 20,000 families homeless in Caracas, the Venezuelan Parliament passed a law allowing for more autonomous Presidential law-making power in emergency situations: the Emergency Law for Land and Housing (or Ley Orgánica de Emergencia para Terrenos y Vivienda). Through the powers granted in the Emergency Law, the Law of the Home Ownership Regime of the Great Venezuela Housing Mission (or Ley del Régimen de Propiedad de las Viviendas de la Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela) was passed in 2011.^{19, 20}

In terms of property ownership, the Law outlines a model that is quite similar to that of a condominium. Families have private rights to their individual units, while common spaces of the development are cared for collectively. Specifically, the law determines:

• A family may own its unit under “La Propiedad Familiar,” defined as the right to housing that is solely and exclusively used, enjoyed, and disposed of by the family unit (Article 9); and,

• Collective use and ownership is established as “La Propiedad Multifamiliar,” defined as the right on the land, real estate, and the areas of common use and enjoyment of all the members of the family units. The rights that make up Multifamily Property are inherent, inseparable, and indivisible from the family property; therefore, they are included within any alienation or transfer, total or partial, of the rights that make up the family property (Article 10).

Central facets of GMVV and the property framework in which it exists include discouraging the profitization of land and real estate and ensuring the productive use of properties. Profits are limited by Decree 929 of 2014 (Law on the Regulation of Real Estate Leasing for Commercial Use), which establishes profit limits on leased commercial spaces and mandates the sale of residential properties leased for more than 20 years.²¹

To promote the productive use of land under GMVV, the government may expropriate lands viewed as unused (land, public or private, that is being held for future value), underused (land on which is it possible to increase the efficiency of use (by building homes, for example)), or misused (the land use is not compatible with its location (large warehouses or parking lots in the city core, for example)) for the production of housing.²² The government’s ability to expropriate land and real estate under these categorizations has been essential in securing enough property for the production of housing on such a large scale.²³

Notably, Article 115 of the Venezuelan Constitution guarantees the right to private property, and establishes that “only for reasons of public benefit or social interest by final judgment, with timely payment of fair compensation, the expropriation of any kind of property may be declared.”²⁴ This constitutional guarantee is somewhat at odds with the practice of expropriation under GMVV, as there are instances of expropriation without compensation. Venezuela’s Second Socialist Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the Nation 2013-2019, understands new forms of property (public property, social property (direct and indirect), communal property, citizen property, collective property, and mixed property), which may further cause tension between the right to private property and the country’s advance toward socialism and collective ownership.²⁵

Footnotes

_{[1]. Andrew Cawthorne and Eyanir Chinea, “Venezuela Housing Shortage a Headache for Chavez,” Reuters, June 2, 2011.}_{[2]. Christopher Toothaker, “Chavez Struggles to Fix Venezuela’s Housing Crisis,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, December 27, 2011.}_{[3]. Toothaker, “Chavez Struggles to Fix Venezuela’s Housing Crisis.”}_{[4]. Beatriz Tamaso Mioto and Pietro Caldeirini Aruto, “Notes on the Contradictions of Housing Policy in Latin America Today: The Situation in Brazil and Venezuela,” R.B. Estudos Urbanos e Regionais 17, no. 2 (2015): 93.}_{[5]. Toothaker, “Chavez Struggles to Fix Venezuela’s Housing Crisis.”}_{[6]. Pedro A. Rosales, 2015, “Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela como Respuesta a la Situación Habitacional en Venezuela,” paper presented at Simposio de Nuevas Tendencias del Urbanismo, Caracas, July 11, 2013, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2716.9129.}_{[7]. “Constructores del Socialismo,” Ministerio del Poder Popular para Hábitat y Vivienda, Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela, accessed March 29, 2020.}_{[8]. TeleSUR English, “Venezuelan Housing Mission Passes ‘Milestone’ with 2.5M Homes,” Venezuelanalysis, January 2, 2019.}_{[9]. “Inicio,” Ministerio del Poder Popular para Hábitat y Vivienda, Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela, accessed March 29, 2020.}_{[10]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 197.}_{[11]. Ley del Régimen de Propiedad de las Viviendas de la Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela, Article 18 (2011).}_{[12]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 192-93.}_{[13]. Mioto and Aruto, “Notes on the Contradictions of Housing Policy in Latin America Today: The Situation in Brazil and Venezuela,” 94-5.}_{[14]. Ley del Régimen de Propiedad de las Viviendas de la Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela, Article 14 (2011).}_{[15]. Ley del Régimen de Propiedad de las Viviendas de la Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela, Article 15-16 (2011).}_{[16]. Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Article 82 (1999).}_{[17]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 184.}_{[18]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 184-185.}_{[19]. Mioto and Aruto, “Notes on the Contradictions of Housing Policy in Latin America Today: The Situation in Brazil and Venezuela,” 93-4.}_{[20]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 192.}_{[21]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 194.}_{[22]. Mioto and Aruto, “Notes on the Contradictions of Housing Policy in Latin America Today: The Situation in Brazil and Venezuela,” 94.}_{[23]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 194.}_{[24]. Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Article 115 (1999).}_{[25]. Mattioda and Rosa de Souza, “Medidas para Alimentación y Vivienda en Perspectiva Comparada: Venezuela y Brasil,” 194.}

Venezuela

GRAN MISIÓN VIVIENDA VENEZUELA (GMVV)

Background and Key Principles

Implementation and Impact

Project Financing

Self-management and Governance Structure

Enabling Legal and Political Framework