Housing & Construction
Historically, Coprodeli’s first sites were built with local volunteers’ and Coprodeli founder Padre Miguel’s very own hands. As Coprodeli has grown, however, we found it more and more necessary to incorporate construction as its very own program, recognizing the importance of public infrastructure, nobly-built homes, and access to credit and property rights in the strategy against poverty.
Anti-seismic homes built of noble materials prevent families from being vulnerable to losing their family’s shelter in this earthquake-prone region. Property rights and aid in accessing loans greatly enable marginalized, low-socioeconomic class families to make strides in their housing situation as it gives them the opportunity to pay off a stable house over time - instead of precariously building little by little, with whatever materials are present at the time.
Legal Aspects
Formalizing Property Ownership, Access to Loans
Unfortunately, due to Peruvian laws and bureaucracy, acquiring property rights by formalizing property ownership is often difficult, time-consuming, and resource-draining for a family of humble socioeconomic resources. This sets people that are already in a challenging position back even farther, especially in terms of accessing loans and government grant programs.
Today, Coprodeli has a legal subsidiary that works to formalize property ownership for families and small communities. This branch of Coprodeli is 100% financially self-sustainable.
To date, Coprodeli has enabled 9,382 individuals to formalize their property ownership.
Social Infrastructure Project
Once land rights are tackled, Coprodeli knows how important it is to install the proper public infrastructure that a community needs to function smoothly – running water, electricity, a sewage system. Most new Peruvian communities develop by a mass group of people ‘invading’ a new space, void of this infrastructure. This, in fact, sets an already marginalized group back even further, as it is much more difficult to install these services once a community is already built up on top of where the piping and wiring would need to be.
In general, Coprodeli potentiates the role of local government and organizations through the design of public infrastructure projects that optimize public funding sources to improve access to underprivileged communities and excluded groups: women, children, minorities, etc.
Some standard Coprodeli projects:
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Electricity
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Running water
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Sewage system
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Street building and paving
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Wells that produces 70 L of potable water per second and provides for 5,000 people in the district of Subtanjalla, Ica
Housing
1,453 anti-seismic homes built in place of
preexisting, precarious homes
1,300 anti-seismic homes built in
4 urbanizations
4 Centers for Social Services built that serve the urbanzation's new community
Once Coprodeli has community infrastructure installed, it constructs the Center for Social Services (school, medical center, youth outreach center) and begins aiding individuals in establishing property ownership. Once individuals have legal property ownership, Coprodeli works to help them build their homes.
This holistic urban planning model flourished as Coprodeli began working in the Ica Region following the devastating 2007 8.0-magnitude earthquake that left more than 80,000 families homeless and with even more limited access to basic services than they had before, as the majority of schools and medical centers were also destroyed. Coprodeli's Housing & Construction efforts became pivotal in the district's recovery.