Informal camps in Chile, on the rise due to the coronavirus crisis

1Aerial view of the Bosque Hermoso camp on a hillside in the Lampa commune in Santiago.

The social outbreak of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered misery in the camps and informal settlements.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

2Elizabeth Rodríguez and her husband Patricio Cea enter their house in the Toma la Cancha camp, on a hillside in the Lo Barnechea commune in Santiago.

Informal settlements in Chile were less frequent than in other countries in the region, the recent growth is due to the increase in unemployment due to the pandemic.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

3Mónica Oviedo walks home with her daughter at Toma la Cancha camp, on a hillside in the Lo Barnechea commune in Santiago.

The country's political power believed that the drama of poverty had managed to be controlled in its years of economic boom, but the mobilizations that broke out as of October 18, 2019 impacted on productive activity and the coronavirus pandemic hit when the economy left afloat in early 2020. MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

4Abraham Morales, 63, eats near his wife Rosa Guinez, 47, in the kitchen of their home in the Pedro del Río Zanartu camp in Concepción, Chile GUILLERMO SALGADO AFP

5Abraham Morales, 63, sits at the table in the kitchen of his home in the Pedro del Río Zanartu camp in Concepción, Chile.

In 2020, the Chilean economy fell 5.8%, its worst record in 40 years, and more than a million people lost their jobs.

6Elizabeth Rodríguez in the kitchen of her home at Toma la Cancha camp in Santiago.

Informal settlements house a significant percentage of the impoverished urban population.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

7Rosa Guinez, 47, cooks at her home in the Pedro del Río Zanartu camp in Concepción, Chile.

Until 2019, Chile had the best poverty indicators in Latin America behind Uruguay, but after more than three decades of sustained decline, this rate rose from 8.1% to 12.1% in just over a year.

GUILLERMO SALGADO AFP

8An indigenous woman sets up a tent in the central plaza of Concepción, Chile.

The proliferation of tents in the streets, the installation of hundreds of common pots - as has not been seen since the dictatorship and the increase in families living in camps - portrays the way in which poverty has re-emerged in Chile.

GUILLERMO SALGADO AFP

9Consuelo Serrano, cook at a soup kitchen, is seen in the Nueva Esperanza camp, in the La Pintana commune, Santiago.

The progress made during the first decade and a half of this century to reduce poverty and inequality in several countries in the region was practically erased in just one year.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

10Ingrid Lara sitting in her house in the Nueva Esperanza camp, in the La Pintana commune, Santiago.

Ingrid took over the common pot in the Nueva Esperanza camp, in the municipality of La Pintana (south of Santiago), where she lives with her husband and daughter in a house that they built with wood and tin.

She cooks daily for the 46 families who have not been able to go to work during the pandemic.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

11Ingrid Lara prepares food for disadvantaged people in a soup kitchen located next to her house in the Nueva Esperanza camp. "The most difficult thing has been hunger," says Ingrid Lara, anguished by the misery she experiences in one of the camps in Santiago.

MARTIN BERNETTI AFP

12Ingrid Lara jokes with her daughter in her living room at the Nueva Esperanza camp. In the last year, 167 new camps were counted, with a total of 81,643 families living in 969 self-built settlements, figures that in a short time exceeded the 47,050 who resided in the 802 existing camps in 2019, according to a survey by the Techo Foundation. MARTIN BERNETTI AFP