When the February numbers were still being processed this Tuesday and two months seemed like a short time to judge compliance with the plans, Ernesto Herrera Pérez, deputy technical director of the Provincial Housing Directorate, was already ahead of his criteria: "we have started better than last year. The resources have been more stable”.

That same day, the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, mentioned the three provinces that had the greatest impact on a national program "that has not yet taken off" and, certainly, Ciego de Ávila was not in the rearguard, as it did happen last year, by closing its annual plan at 54.5 percent, with only 946 completed homes.

With 163 homes delivered to date, the province resumes the pace of construction on the three fundamental fronts; although the statistics once again show that, "the constructive capacity" of self-effort is superior to that of the state brigades and, above all, that of subsidized families, many times prevented from taking charge of the work, and others, waiting for others.

It was thus that, at the end of February, the basic housing cells (subsidies) advanced almost at the rate of state homes ―36 and 30 respectively―, while private ones multiplied by three: 97 completed houses.

The report of the Provincial Housing Directorate makes clear, however, its priorities: the subsidies and the state program constitute 72 percent of the 1,321 households that intend to get up this 2023; a less ambitious goal if one takes into account that in 2022 it provided for 1,757 and in 2021, 1,589.

Despite the fact that both periods ended with numbers that were far from their intentions -2021 even left the plans "on the floor", by 35 percent-, the strategy continues to set the commitments based on the resources that, according to the suppliers, can be provided and the needs of the territory. That is a section that remains critical here, since at the end of 2022 more than 900 total landslides, caused by meteorological events, were still not raised. The Irma of 2017, with greater bitterness.

The state of the housing fund, which four years ago already had a third of homes in regular or poor condition, and the logical and demographic needs, estimated at a deficit that then was close to 40,000 homes are added to that.

In this context, the change of use of premises, today unused, is unavoidable. 86 homes will come from there, 40 fewer than last year's effort, which could not translate into a shelter for the majority either: only 24 were finished. Sometimes they are places with marked deterioration.

For this reason, it also focuses on the conservation of some 400 buildings and the rehabilitation of others where some 1000 construction actions must be carried out; among them, waterproofing roofs, repairing and changing light and heavy roofs, repairing portals, solving leaks in buildings...

Likewise, the report puts in black and white a sad reality that seeks to be eradicated. This year 300 houses will no longer have a dirt floor. In addition, Majagua and Morón, in the two months that have elapsed, have almost fulfilled that promise.