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by Raimundo Urrechaga
CARACAS, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government has engaged in a massive social program over the past four years to house many of low-income families, moving them from shanty slums to newly-built communities.
In April of 2011, the Great Housing Mission Venezuela was launched by late President Hugo Chavez after tens of thousands of families lost their homes in heavy rains and severe floods that swept across the country.
Those victims were given temporary shelters by the government and others were helped by the authorities to fix their precarious homes.
However, about 33,000 families lost everything and had to stay in shelters.
The housing project has planned to build 3 million homes by 2019 and so far, 742,000 homes have been handed over to low-income Venezuelan families.
According to former minister of housing, Ricardo Molina, this program brings a "new life" to poor Venezuelans who had never hoped for or dreamed of moving into a new apartment at low costs.
"The lives of these 742,000 families have changed radically. Initially we handed over the apartments to those who had lost everything and now we have a solid mission that has never been done in the history of our country," Molina to Xinhua.
Currently, over 1 million homes are being built and around 402,000 will be started in the coming months as the project also seeks to relocate millions of Venezuelans out of violent and poor slums.
Furthermore, said the former minister, the project does not only provide homes, it also organizes the communities to discuss their social and economic needs and ways to work together to solve them.
"We not only provide a house but we also promote new family values and in the new communities we guarantee health, food and education services," the official added.
Molina said 1 million homes will be handed over by the end of 2015 and cooperation agreements were forged last year with different international companies to maximize the building capacity in this South American nation.
The international companies are mainly from China, Belarus, Cuba, Brazil, Russia, Portugal, Iran, Spain, Turkey and Colombia.
Commenting on China's cooperation in the project, Molina said it has surpassed the purely commercial ties and it has contributed decisively to boost the sector.
"We've managed to establish joint management schemes and show that it is possible to build low-cost but high quality homes in a small amount of time with raw materials produced in our country thanks to the cooperation with China," he said.
Nonetheless, the program has faced setbacks and even major criticism from opposition regarding the mechanism the government uses to grant the apartments or houses.
Even Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered in recent weeks to review the mechanism after alleged Colombian paramilitaries were arrested in the newly-built neighborhoods and crimes soared there.
A special security operation was launched two months ago in nearly all the Great Housing Mission zones and a new census was done in the communities to sort out all possible criminals or gang leaders who were awarded a home before.
The opposition has also complained that the government is distributing the houses for free to gain popularity and votes in future elections.
However, Molina denies the accusations, saying all the apartments built by the social program are charged. "Those funds that we collect each month go to a government savings program that is used to build new homes for other Venezuelan families," the official added.
The social project is part of a government strategy initiated by Chavez and now carried on by Maduro to provide Venezuelans with free education and health as well as subsidized food products, medicines, technology and transportation, among others.
Venezuela has reduced extreme poverty in the last 15 years from 16 percent to 5.5 percent, an achievement that has been recognized by different United Nations organization programs.
