Habitat World Online


Habitat homeowner Rafael Camacho and his son stand in the doorway of a substandard dwelling in a village in the Guatemalan highlands.

Habitat Guatemala is soaring. But there is much, much more to do

by Bill Walsh

Many Happy Returns

Bill's Travelogue

Fully three-quarters of Guatemala's 14.6 million people live below the official poverty line, making Habitat for Humanity's accomplishments in the Central American republic even more startling than they initially appear. Since the first modest block house was completed with Francisco and Andrea Mendoza and their eight children in Aguacatan in 1980, Habitat Guatemala has built about 20,000 similar structures, nearly 10 percent of Habitat's worldwide construction output.

Money isn't the only obstacle Guatemalan local committees have overcome--perhaps not even the most daunting. The mountainous terrain is a difficulty. Literacy is a problem, and communication in general is troublesome: Spanish is the official language, but many of the poorest Guatemalans speak one of the country's 22 indigenous languages instead, each unintelligible to the other.

All this makes Guatemala an unlikely leader in the effort to eliminate poverty and substandard housing. But for nearly a decade, its local committees, also known as affiliates, have been increasing capacity in quantum leaps, loosening the tenacious grip of poverty upon thousands of Guatemalan families.

When Luis Samayoa took over as national director of the Central American country nine years ago, Habitat was building 400 homes a year in Guatemala. In 2005, it built 3,000. By 2007, it plans to be on pace to erect 5,000 houses a year. Fully 10,000 new homes a year, Samayoa says, now look possible in the near future. And 10,000 is simply another milestone en route to the longer-term goal of constructing an astonishing 25,000 new homes annually.

"Many Habitat affiliates," Samayoa muses, "are building 50 or 100 houses a year, and they are in their comfort zone with that, which is fine. We are constantly looking at ways we can expand our building. We not only think we can build ... 10,000 houses a year: We are looking at ways to get there very soon."

Habitat's is a noble goal: to eliminate poverty and substandard housing from the face of the earth. It might also seem a bit quixotic, with a timeline that stretches out, some say, 30,000 years. Not in Guatemala. The 22 local committees, says international donor manager Sharon Petrie, have now moved 2 percent of the country's below-poverty-line population from substandard housing into shelter that is safe, decent and affordable. The percentage that remains in unacceptable situations will be housed likewise, and sooner rather than later, she insists.


'We are into building houses, houses, houses.' Petrie says, 'but we are beginning to look at the wider picture. We are trying to be the force that gets other agencies to come together.'

The definition of a Habitat house in Guatemala is "simple." Simple means block construction. Simple means small scale. Simple means a tin roof _ which lacks the charm of the tile that tops many homes here, but is hardier, far cheaper and much easier to maintain. Decent, above all, means a concrete floor.

The houses are plain, adorned neither by decorative touches nor architectural flourishes. They are tiny, unpainted boxes made of block. But they are light years better than the shanties they replace.

"The reality here is that people are living in chicken coops with dirt floors and no walls," Petrie says. "We have to be realistic about what makes a simple, decent home in this country. It is hard to grasp how much people's lives have been improved by moving into one of our houses."

Hard to grasp until you visit. The Ignacio Garcia family lives--at least partially--in a new Habitat house in a small village in the municipality of Cantel, near Xela, Guatemala's second-largest city. Nine family members, including the Garcias' newly married son Santos and his wife, lived in the adjacent two-room, dirt-floored adobe before a Global Village team arrived from the United States to help them build anew.

"This is pretty standard of the living conditions," Petrie says, surveying the former residence. "It is not the worst by a long way. But the trouble with the dirt floor is it increases infant mortality by some ridiculous amount. The trouble with adobe is that it lets the damp in and crumbles and takes a long time to dry out. It rains here for six months of the year, so for six months the inside of these houses is going to be damp. That leads to lots of respiratory problems."

Enough can't be said about something so simple as a concrete floor, Petrie insists; the solid surface is a life-saver. It is also difficult to say too much about the life-enhancing benefits of having a proper door, sometimes two, and windows.

Mercedes Calderon, who lives in a 14-home Habitat colonia under development near the city of Xela, is clearly and enthusiastically delighted with her new surroundings.

"The kids can go out and play and breathe purer air," she says. "Where we were renting in the city, the kids had to be in the house all the time. Here they play with the other kids, the school is not too far away, and they don't get sick."

There is also something to be said for the extra space offered in a Habitat house. Erick Rene Salanic, his wife Dalila and 2-year-old daughter Roxana now have privacy, having moved out of a family compound that they shared with parents and grandparents, with brothers and sisters and in-laws, with nephews and nieces. They moved into a new Habitat home about 25 yards down the slope from the family home in La Estancia, another community in Cantel.

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