[van-discuss] Re: [van-announce] Help a youth go to Cuba

[Geordie Birch]

said Marcel Hatch (on 2002-11-04),

> At 23:52 -0500 11/3/02, Geordie Birch wrote:
> >said Marcel Hatch (on 2002-11-01),

> Cuba is very different than BC under the NDP.

point taken (and thanks for a thoughtful response to my flamebait.)

> Homelessness does not exist in Cuba. Hunger too is absent. To be
> certain, more housing IS needed and many Cubans would like and could
> use more food.

This makes no sense.  "More housing IS needed" implies homelessness and
"many Cubans would like and could use more food" implies hunger.

Homelessness isn't just a guy with two loaded shopping carts living in a
cardboard box in the town square.  Hunger isn't just a kid with a
distended belly, too weak to brush the flies off her face.

Geordie.


http://www.campus.ncl.ac.uk/cardo/virtualconf/papers/Definitions.htm
<-- `This paper explores the diverse definitions of homelessness in 10
developing countries and how those definitions have developed. Definition
is important because "... most researchers agree on one fact: who we
define as homeless determines how we count them."'

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/06/06/cuba.housing/ <-- Brief
first-hand accounts of homelessness in Havana.

http://64.21.33.164/CNews/y00/jun00/19e3.htm  <-- Government Involves
Physicians In Plan To Eradicate Homeless.

http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/isc/UTarticle.htm  <-- `...housing for the masses
isn't much of a priority in a city where 30,000 people live in permanent
public shelters, and many more live in severely crowded apartments and
houses -- though homelessness does not officially exit.'

http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/10/06/intl/intl.4.html  <-- `"This
law against the Palestinos, it's really aimed at keeping down the
prostitution problem," says a Havana ice-cream seller. "There are too many
girls from the east [end of Cuba] who think they can make easy dollars
moving here and hooking up with the tourists."'

`"A lot of the petty thieves and beggars we now see in our streets are not
people from Havana, they're the scum who are unwilling to work in the
countryside," adds a woman selling oranges in a Havana market. "They
should go back to the fields they came from."'

http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagjc005.html  <--  `Official
statistics corroborate the visual perspective. According to 1997
statistics, metropolitan Havana had over 2,200,000 inhabitants living in
560,000 dwellings. Of these, half were ranked as defective or in bad
condition, while 60,000 were beyond repair and should be demolished. There
are 75,000 with "apuntalamientos" and over 7,800 are waiting to be
"apuntaladas" to prevent their derrumbe. (San Lazaro) According to the
same source, by 1996 there were 188 marginal neighborhoods, lacking the
most essential services, comprising 23,000 dwellings and 76,000 residents.
Another official report indicated the presence of 1,500
(ciudadelas-cuarterias), 1000 of which were ranked in bad condition. Due
to the derrumbes, a total of 6,000 families needed shelter (albergue),
while only 350 had received it; also 500 multidwelling buildings were in
great risk of a derrumbe and 40 were considered to be "miracously" still
standing.'

`Most of those neighborhoods in bad conditions are inhabited by migrants
from the interior, mostly from the former Oriente province, nicknamed
"palestinos", coming to the capital seeking better job opportunities and
greater availability of consumer goods. Indeed, internal migration has
been a critical factor in the growth of Cuba's capital, which is
considered beyond the capability to adequately support that population.
According to those official sources, that type of migration averaged
annually between 10 to 12,000 persons for the 60's decade through 80's,
while by 1996, it reached 28,000 with a growing trend. To make future
prospects worse, a recent investigation by Havana's Centro de Estudios
Demograficos (CEDEM) indicated that about 185,000 Cubans from the interior
would like to move to the capital.'

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/cuba/racial-attitudes.htm <--`In
Cuba, the word oriental, meaning a person from those provinces, is
virtually synonymous with "black." In Havana, people sometimes refer to
easterners as palestinos, or poor people without a fixed home.'

`While official statistics suggest Santiago has salaries and infant
mortality rates comparable to the country as a whole, interviews tell a
different story. "I have been to other provinces, and I can tell you that
here in Santiago we have an enormous number of children who are
malnourished," said Dr. Teresa de la Cruz, a pediatrician assigned by the
government to the poor, largely black, neighborhood of Chicharrones.'

`She said workers living in marginal neighborhoods in Santiago earn barely
more than 100 pesos a month, less than $5.  Those people in Chicharrones
who work in hotels tend to be cooks and other back-area workers, people in
the neighborhood said.'

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/search/sfl-sierra09dec09.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
<-- `Despite their apparent patriotism, thousands have left cities and
towns in Cuba's easternmost provinces in the past decade, often taking up
residence illegally in Havana's crowded tenements, where they are known as
"Palestinos," or Palestinians, because of their wandering homelessness.'

`Unemployment in these provinces is two to three times greater than the
national average, according to Granma, the communist party's newspaper.
Dollars are scarcer in this part of the island and in recent years serious
droughts have caused serious food shortages.'

http://www.cubafreepress.org/art/apic970703k.html  <-- `It's time to
report on what I saw last October 25th at the site of a lot extending from
Miraflores 250 and old Miraflores, in Havana.  All the residents from
about 20 families were evicted.  To be exact.  All the neighbors
between 3rd Street and Lindero.  These compatriots were violently and
indiscriminately thrown out from their homes due to specific instances of
homelessness which took place in their native provinces, or any of the
other areas to the East of Havana City and Pinar del Rio to the West:
the  electricity was cut off, power outtages, lack of drinking water even
worse than in the capital, restrictions in the rationing of the food
stuffs, and minimal conditions for basic output at their job sites.'