Rain victims in five-star hotels

It is rare to see bunk beds in the rooms of any five-star hotel or TV sets besides the elevators. In the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, however, these items are commonly found in luxury hotels. Following heavy rains in 2010, the government provided homeless people with shelter in privately owned properties, and even world-famed hotel chains are hosting rain victims.

"They are special hotel guests," said sources in hotels in Caracas. They have their own food and space. They have made themselves so comfortable that they have spent the last two New Year's evenings eating grapes in hotel rooms in hotels Tamanaco and Eurobuilding.

USD 200 per night

The Civil Association of Small and Medium-Sized Hotel Owners of Great Caracas warned last month that losses amount to USD 145.5 million, for the services provided to rain victims in the 170 hotels where they are staying.

Summit of the Community of Latin American and States (Clacs) early in December 2011 five presidents of the region stayed in the room suites of Tamanaco hotel. They arrived and left in the first days of December without suspecting that a group of 20 families made homeless by heavy rains were also staying in that hotel. One year after they checked in, these families have not checked out.

Venezuelan Association of Five-Star Hotels (Avecintel) refuses to discuss this issue. Unlike their colleagues in the Civil Association of Small and Medium-Sized Hotel Owners of Great Caracas, they have opted for keeping the subject under wraps. Unsuccesful attempts were made to contact authorities in connection with this issue.

In Caracas, the cheapest hotel rates at any luxury hotel are above USD 200 a night, which at the official exchange rate exceeds 860 bolivars per day. "How many houses could have built with that sum of money?" wonders opposition deputy Julio Borges.

Members of opposition Primero Justicia party (Justice First) estimated that the government could build a social interest house with USD 20,000. Therefore, the yearly bill for each five-star hotel room occupied by homeless people is as high as the amount of money required to build three and half houses.

Over 100,000 people are living in shelters, in the premises of ministries, malls and hotels, said Minister of the Interior and Justice Tareck El Aissami on December 8. Only 5,000 people of some 28,000 families have been relocated. In this sense, Borges reports a mismatch in the government's figures: "If authorities supposedly delivered 146,000 houses in 2011, why are there more than 100,000 rain victims in the country?"

President Hugo Chávez last December 10 cut the house construction goal for 2011. On that same day, he forgot he had vowed to build 153,549 housing units, and announced that 130,000 houses would be delivered in 2011.

Two weeks later -on December 24 and during a council of ministers- out of nowhere Chávez added other 10,000 houses to the above number. He said then that the Great Mission Housing Venezuela would actually deliver more than 140,000 dwellings. Early in January, the President of the National Bank for Housing and Habitat (Banavih), Mario Isea, told the media that the government had delivered 146,000 houses.

"They claimed to have built 16,000 houses out of nowhere the last week (of 2011)," said Borges. "But remember that the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) altered the number of buildings that it had already reported in the first quarter; the central bank counted some 40,000 houses that were improved or remodeled as new houses. Further, houses by the private sector were included as houses built by the government."

Sixty-one percent of Venezuelans is waiting

More than 3.7 million families enrolled in the register of the Great Housing Mission Venezuela, which represents 61% of the Venezuelan population. The line of people who are waiting for the government to grant them houses is very long. Meanwhile, homeless shelters seem to be here to stay. A number of cable service Direct TV antennas have started to appear at the premises where the Sambil Mall of La Candelaria, downtown Caracas, was supposed to start operations before it was seized by Chávez's government. The building is currently used as a shelter, and it is only one example suggesting that temporary shelters are becoming a habit.

What if a new emergency arises? Ex director of Civil Protection Agency Ángel Rangel points out that it is necessary to identify the places where temporary refuges can be established. However, he believes that using hotels is not a wild idea. But he claims that first an agreement must be reached with hotel owners that hotel rooms will be used as temporary shelters where the check-out date is established at check-in.

"We have not fully understood that shelters have a temporary nature. They are intended to host people until victims are relocated in new houses or in relatives' and friends' houses," pointed out Rangel. "No country in the world passes a law on refuges."

Via enabling law, Chávez enacted, in January 2011, the Law on Decent Refuges, which classify shelters into five categories: Type A refuges are equipped with rooms with ensuite bath, while type E refuges -the lowest in the ranking- are with rooms and restrooms in schools and sports facilities.

That is why the variety of refuges in Caracas goes from Tamanaco hotel to Psychiatric Hospital Jesús Yerena.

Attempts were made to contact the Presidential Commission on Decent Refuges for information about this issue, but they would not answer the calls. President Chávez, anyway, previously made it clear how this works. "I am asking you to be more and more patient," he said on December 12. "If you have been waiting for a year, then you can wait for six months more, right?"

jpoliszuk@eluniversal.com

Translated by Adrián Valera