Social Rent NOW Campaign

Social Rent NOW is a Hábitat para la Humanidad Argentina awareness campaign designed to raise awareness about the problem of lack of access to formal rent.

For almost 15 years, we have been addressing the rent problem of people living in “conventillos”, tenements and boarding houses on the south side of the city of Buenos Aires, where there is a high number of these types of lodging. They are unsuitable places for anyone, where there are no basic services like safe drinking water, gas or electricity. The rights of those who live there are being violated. When they go to a job interview or a real estate agency with the hope of getting something better, they are discriminated against for not having a “proper address”, contracted salary, or owner’s collateral for tenancy, among other conditions.

The main right being violated is access to housing. Families that live in these places usually have no other option, except the street. Neither the market nor the State currently offer them a way out. The requirements for formal rent are still unattainable for many families. And in many cases, these people pay a similar price to live in a tenement, rented room or boarding house as they would pay to live in adequate housing on the formal market.

Based on this diagnosis, we created the Estela de Esperanzas supervised rental model by constructing a 9-unit apartment building where more than 30 families have lived and which seeks to disrupt the cycle of inadequate housing in order to “build” new possibilities through the opportunity for “formal rent”. The conditions to rent in the building are: to have lived at least 4 years in a “conventillo” or tenement, not have collateral and not necessarily have formal income.

In March of 2020, the Law 27.551 was passed, which creates in Art. 17, the National Social Rent Program, whose potential to respond to the problem is still unexplored. This policy, tried in other countries in the region, would allow thousands of families to access adequate housing.

According to the law itself, it is the Ministry of Land and Housing Development, through the Housing Secretary, that should implement the Social Rent Program. That is why we are asking the Minister of Engineering Jorge Ferraresi and Secretary Santiago Maggiotti to carry out the Social Rent policy as established by law. Add your signature.

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At the same time, we have created a website Alquileres Blue. On this site, users can find the same “housing options” that the thousands of families who cannot access adequate housing in our country must resort to.

“Conventillos” with structural problems, rooms in boarding houses with constant threats of eviction, and tenements that violate all kinds of rights are only a few examples. We want to bring this problem to light along with the urgency that the families that live there have for a housing solution that respects their rights.

If we want to provide a way out for these thousands of people, a way out that isn’t the street, we must advocate for Social Rent. Get to know Alquileres Blue.