Peru - Housing

Successive governments since the 1950s have recognized the importance of slum clearance and public housing programs in combating disease and high mortality rates. Most housing development programs carried out by the government and by private enterprise have been in the Lima area. In Lima and other towns, several "neighborhoods" (unidades vecinales) have been completed through government efforts since the early 1960s. Each such housing complex is designed to be a self-sufficient community. A typical neighborhood is built to house 6,000 persons at moderate rentals. In rural areas, however, a conservative estimate of the housing shortage runs to a minimum of 700,000. A 1970 earthquake tremendously increased the number of homeless, displacing some 500,000 persons.

One of the revolutionary government's early decrees gave the Housing Bank control over financing low-cost housing. Construction grew rapidly during 1970–73, to the point of depleting local cement supplies. By 1983, however, only 18% of the rural population had access to safe water; the figure for the urban population was 73%. Sewerage facilities are nearly nonexistent in rural areas. Eighty-eight percent of all housing units were detached or semi-detached houses; 4% were apartments; 4% were vecindads, or semi-private dwellings; and 3% were villas. Owners occupied 73% of all dwellings, 15% were rented, and 7% were occupied by usufructus, households legally living in a dwelling belonging to another. Mud houses comprised 47% of all dwellings, 31% were constructed of bricks, 7% were clay, 7% were wood, and 5% were of stone and mud. In 1993, there were 5,107,790 dwellings nationwide.