http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7795891.stm
Maria Julia is desperate. She lives in a Havana flat that belongs to her husband's grandparents.
Cuba's housing stock: Inadequate and in poor repair
For the last seven years she and her husband have shared a bedroom with their two children.
Maria Julia - not her real name - fears her relationship with her husband will not withstand the pressures of their living arrangements for much longer.
She says she has only one chance of securing a separate flat in Havana for her family and saving her relationship - and it is drastic.
"The only option I have is to divorce my husband, and to marry a man who has legal title to a flat. I will pay him. Then in two years, he will sign over the property to me, we will get divorced and I will marry my husband again."
This complicated transaction will cost Maria Julia $10,000 (£6,800). It is a fortune in Cuba, but the minimum going rate. Her sister has sent her the money from the US, and Maria Julia has it hidden - in cash - somewhere in Havana.
Maria Julia's plan to buy a flat is illegal, which is why we cannot identify her. In Cuba, only the state has the right to sell property. Private buyers - or sellers - may end up having their home confiscated altogether by the state if they are caught.
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There was already a shortfall of more than half a million homes before three hurricanes wrought widespread destruction in 2008.
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The transaction will take time, because the man she will buy from in Havana is still securing his own new property.
"He has a girlfriend in Santiago de Cuba," she says. "They have seen somewhere in Santiago they want to buy. And his girlfriend is going to have to marry a very old man in his 80s to get that property.
"They will have to pay the old man too, with the money that I am going to give them. It is a really long chain."
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Juan Marcos Mendez, the vice president of the government's National Housing Institute, does not deny there are huge challenges. But he maintains that the answer does not lie in privatising housing.
"Housing is social property. We don't believe it's right for people to make a profit from it. Of course, some people still haven't understood the reasons why we have these rules and they try to get ahead illegally.
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Originally posted by zeeblebotWhy are you telling us this??
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7795891.stm
Maria Julia is desperate. She lives in a Havana flat that belongs to her husband's grandparents.
Cuba's housing stock: Inadequate and in poor repair
For the last seven years she and her husband have shared a bedroom with their two children.
Maria Julia - not her real na ...[text shortened]... the reasons why we have these rules and they try to get ahead illegally.
...
Originally posted by zeeblebotIS this from Micheal Moores movie?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7795891.stm
Maria Julia is desperate. She lives in a Havana flat that belongs to her husband's grandparents.
Cuba's housing stock: Inadequate and in poor repair
For the last seven years she and her husband have shared a bedroom with their two children.
Maria Julia - not her real na ...[text shortened]... the reasons why we have these rules and they try to get ahead illegally.
...