Study reveals that the majority of camps were formed after Piñera’s first government

A collaborative study between the Déficit Cero platform and the TECHO-Chile Study Center shed light on the diversity and complexity of camps in Chile. This analysis, titled “Typologies of camps in Chile,” has focused on the composition of precarious settlements, which, according to the survey, the vast majority have been formed since 2010—during the first government of the late former president Sebastián Piñera. -until today.

Pía Palacios, director of the TECHO-Chile study center, said that although from 2010 onwards there was an increase in families living in camps, approximately between 2,000 and 3,000 families per year, “It was much faster from 2019”—in the middle of Piñera’s second term—in terms of annual camp growth and also family growth.

Of course, Palacios explained, “it is important to note that since 2010 housing prices have grown much faster than salaries are growing on average. And the price of housing has increased four times what salaries have increased to date. In this way, housing has become increasingly unaffordable because people’s purchasing power is not sufficient to be able to access home ownership.”

This, according to the TECHO-Chile geographer, is also consistent with the reasons indicated by the families that took them to live in a camp – the vast majority of which were economic in nature -, “since we have been able to see that they are mainly families that lived “in the condition of allegation and that today they are not able to access housing in the formal market.”

The Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, Carlos Montes, agreed on this, who in an interview with Radio Schedule In March of last year, he stressed that “the problem here is the housing deficit.” The deficit, he said, “has to do with families that end up very overcrowded, in poor conditions, or in camps.” In that sense, the head of Minvu pointed out that ““We have to ask ourselves why in the period in which Chile grew the most the deficit increased.”.

Minister Montes, along with stating that ending the camps “is a 20-year issue,” stated on that occasion that “the underlying explanation for this has to do with the land and land speculation. Land is a factor of speculation in the financial markets, there is a lot of buying and selling of land. “It has speculative value.”

The TECHO-Chile and Déficit Cero study, through the application of clustering techniques, identified five main typologies of camps:

1. The camps“Little idle ones” (27.4% of the total) are of lower density, with an average of 41.9 families. The majority have no management, they are mostly inhabited by Chileans (92.8%) and located in the regions of Valparaíso and Biobío. They are exposed to risks such as floods and forest fires and have a low level of progress in housing solutions, possibly due to disenchantment with traditional housing policies and delays in the solution.
2. in the camps “Great migrants” (14.5% of the total) there are, on average, 99.6 families and 76.9% of them are migrants. The majority come from other neighborhoods within the same commune, but a considerable percentage arrives directly from other countries. The study maintains that the formation of these settlements responds to the high cost of rent, greater agglomeration due to the search for networks, expectations of settlement, etc.
3. Los “Macrocamps” (16.2% of the total) – a recent phenomenon – are distinguished because they adjoin other precarious settlements, forming large and complex camps. Groups are defined as more than 500 households, or more than 1,000 if they are made up of more than one territorial unit, presenting coordination between their directives. One of the differences they have with the “large migrants” is that they have greater progress in housing solutions and better access to basic services.
4. The camps “Strategic” They correspond to 29.7% of the country’s camps, made up mostly of Chilean households (92.8%). With better access to services and high progress in housing solutions, almost all of them have a board of directors that collaborates with the State. They are exposed to moderate risks and are more affected by forest fires. The main reason for arriving at these camps is the need for independence; the majority lived with previous relatives.
5. Los “Peripheral camps” (12.1%), made up mostly of Chileans and with low density. On average, they are located 24 km from facilities and 89.7 km from the nearest urban centers; The homes have a high index of materiality and good access to basic services, and they also have a close relationship with municipalities, but little contact with Serviu.

The study also carried out an analysis that reveals trends in the distribution and formation of camps.

• In the greater north, “Macrocamps” predominate, due to the high presence of migrant families and the attraction of population to cities like Antofagasta. Towards the center, the “Small inactive” increases, and in Valparaíso, the RM and O’Higgins, the “Strategic” are predominant, given the concentration of urban services.
• In the south, camps with a high proportion of Chilean households are common, with a notable presence of “Small inactive” and “Strategic”.

From this it follows that the majority of the camps were formed after 2010, in particular the “macro camps”, where 90% were formed since that date. While, according to the study, the “large migrants” tend to be formed in the last decade, associated with the migration phenomenon. Meanwhile, the small inactive ones were mostly formed before 2010, so they constitute, on average, the oldest typology.

Each typology has distinctive characteristics, accounting for a diversity of ways of establishing camps. “The analysis challenges the traditional notion of homogeneous settlements and highlights the need to adapt state interventions to diverse realities,” added Clemente Larraín, Coordinator of Zero Deficit Studies.

The Metropolitan, Arica and Parinacota, and Antofagasta regions have the largest number of settlements with a majority of migrants in the country.

“It is important to highlight that, although there has been the formation of migrant camps in recent years, currently camps of all types continue to be formed,” the study clarifies.