Cardenal Caro Province governor: Pichilemu Municipality to leave 107 families homeless

One year and one month after the earthquake that affected most of Chile, and triggered a destructive tsunami throughout its coast, the governor of the Cardenal Caro Province, Julio Ibarra, told El Mercurio Online that the Pichilemu Municipality "did not register, nor conducted inspection visits" to the homes of 107 families affected by the earthquake. Their registration, and the inspection visits are a needed step for those families, in order to request housing subsidies given by the government because of the catastrophe.

"We found a list of persons that had requested inspection visits from the Public Works Department [of the Pichilemu Municipality], and we were surprised to notice that that people were not registered in our system, and that the director of the Public Works Department never visited them. There is a double fault, an absolute abandonment, because the applications for the subsidies are now closed," Julio Ibarra said.

"[...] We have received criticism that we have not advanced in terms of reconstruction, and the responsibility of giving the information [to the government] is the municipality," Ibarra added. The governor gave the detailed information of the families to the General Comptroller of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República), and is requesting special extension of the deadlines for application to the Ministry of Housing.

"We are overdue in the issue of housing reconstruction. [...] The Ministry of Housing did not create a special program for the housing reconstruction, they are using the same programs implemented in 2004, [or] 2005, to try to give a solution to the people," Mayor of Pichilemu, Roberto Córdova, told Wikinews in November 2010.