Economic crisis | Poverty progresses in Cuba

(Havana) William Abel shows the contents of a plastic bag he has just found in a trash can in a district of Havana and which will serve him as a meal: a little rice with vegetables and an already gnawed chicken bone. There are already dozens of flies there.

At 62, this Cuban is sleeping in the street since the collapse of his house in the vicinity of the capital, a frequent phenomenon due to the dilapidation of many buildings. “Food is the most difficult. I’ve been doing the trash cans for two years [trouver] Something to eat, ”he told AFP, the speech made difficult by the loss of several teeth.

Under its filthy t-shirt, the body is bone. He says he suffers from arthritis, hypertension and a liver problem. He recognizes that before, he drank “not bad”.

“You know, we have a dirty moment,” he says. According to him, beggars “always existed” in Cuba, but “today, there are more than ever […] who sleep in the street like me ”.

In mid-July, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó, resigned after aroused the indignation of the population.

The latter said there were no beggars in Cuba, only “people disguised as beggars” or who chose an “easy life”.

Severe economic crisis

A champion of an egalitarian socialism, Cuba has long retreated poverty thanks to important social programs, including a free health system and a distribution of food subsidized to the whole population, the famous “Libeta”.

But the severe economic crisis that has shaken the island for four years no longer allows the State, plagued by a cruel lack of currencies, to ensure all of its aid programs.

In question, the structural weaknesses of its centralized economy, a failed monetary reform and the strengthening of the American embargo.

At the same time, between 2018 and 2023, food prices increased by 470 %. Many Cubans have fallen into unprecedented precariousness, and some have changed in poverty.

Juan de la Cruz, 63, resolved to Mendier on the street a fortnight ago. Amputated a leg in 2021 due to diabetes, he sat under a colonnade in a neighborhood passing from the center of Havana. On a box, he wrote: “Please eat”.

“What social security gives me is not enough for me,” explains the sixty -something woman who receives 1092 monthly allocation pesos, or $ 62 CAD. Insufficient to buy a kilo of chicken, he deplores, and the social canteen is not a comfort: “the food is bad, rice, without butter, without oil”.

This former stretcher bearer, angry with his family, is only delighted to have a roof, “a very small room”, but “empty, empty”.

No official data

In Cuba, the authorities never use the word “poor”, preferring the terms of “vulnerable” or “vagabond” people.

According to the government, in 2024, 189,000 families and 350,000 single people vulnerable benefited from social assistance programs on an island of 9.7 million inhabitants.

But no official statistics are made public on poverty, which has nevertheless become a visible phenomenon in the streets of Havana.

Faced with the outcry caused by the words of his minister, President Miguel Díaz-Canel quickly went up to the niche.

“These people whom we sometimes describe as beggars […] are in reality the concrete expressions of social inequalities, ”said the head of state. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero recognized “a real problem”.

In the absence of official data, experts are trying “estimates”.

In a recent interview with the site The young Cubasociologist Mayra Espina Prieto assessed that “between 40 and 45 %” of Cubans are “in poverty”, unable to cover their basic needs.

And 9 % of Cuban children suffer from a “situation of food poverty”, according to UNICEF.

Arnaldo Victores sleeps in a motorcycle garage, on plastic bags, in a peripheral district of Havana. The absence of a formal address prevents him from accessing social benefits.

Every day, this 65-year-old who is a former physiotherapist, goes to the center of the capital and posts to a busy street for Mendier.

His dream? “Having a small bedroom with a bathroom,” he said without seeing that in front of him stands a brand new 42-storey, the highest in the capital. An investment harshly criticized by Cubans in the face of the social crisis.