Chile’s Solidarity Movement ‘Vida Digna’ Organizes Housing Protest Marches

Original article: Chile: Movimiento Solidario Vida Digna convoca a jornada de protesta por la vivienda

On Saturday, October 25th, the Solidarity Movement «Vida Digna» has called for local demonstrations to demand the acceleration of ongoing housing projects, prioritization of social housing in the 2026 MINVU budget, and the inclusion of new tools for SERVIU as part of the extension of the Housing Emergency Plan—topics currently under discussion in Congress.

The territorial marches organized by Vida Digna will take place in the municipalities of Huechuraba, San Ramón, and San Joaquín, and will include rallies and promotional actions led by Land and Housing Fighters and TejeR-Construir in the municipalities of La Florida, Macul, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and Ñuñoa.

Extension of the Housing Emergency Plan with New Powers

Currently, Congress is discussing the four-year extension of the Housing Emergency Plan, which is set to expire in December 2025. The recently approved project by the Senate’s Housing Commission comprises a single article extending its duration for four years without introducing any modifications.

For housing activists, extending this policy in its current form would only exacerbate the issue, associated with a greater transfer of public resources and family savings that simply become private profit.

«None of the measures included in the Housing Emergency Plan have curbed land price speculation, the main cause of the crisis. Instead of balancing the scales, the government has followed a neoliberal legacy, passing costs onto families without homes by requiring more savings as a condition for allocating additional public resources via subsidies to speculators, which is unsustainable in a context where the cost of living continuously rises,» the movement stated in their declaration, which you can read in full here.

Concerns Over the 2026 MINVU Budget

The movement highlights the distribution of spending in the 2026 MINVU budget. According to leader Simón González, «In 2026, half of the DS49 subsidies awarded in 2025 will be distributed because a large portion of the budget for that item is allocated to pay commitments from previous years, known as carryover. This means that due to increasing production costs imposed by the market, the construction and delivery of social housing would become slower, with subsidies decreasing from 50,000 to 25,000, while debt-based housing like DS19 only drops from 27,000 to 22,000.»

«What seems most critical to us is the continued increase in resources allocated to lend money to construction companies for land acquisition and project initiation, which is the item showing the most significant rise, by 26%. We are talking about MINVU acting as a bank, which is not its role, allocating $2.2 trillion in interest-free loans for 2026, which is outrageous as it diminishes resources for solutions and demonstrates that private companies cannot operate without the state,» the leader adds.

For all these reasons, the Solidarity Movement «Vida Digna» demands that the government and Congress allocate approved housing resources specifically for that purpose and not to fill the gap left by banks, as has been the case due to the stringent credit access requirements imposed on both individuals and companies.

Public-Community Construction Company

In light of a situation where companies require upfront payments or loans to initiate projects, often delaying them, the movement suggests the need to establish a public-community construction company where planning, management, and execution involve the participation and influence of communities and their organizations, ensuring that its activities are not profit-oriented but rather focused on addressing population needs.

«Such a construction company would allow for a reallocation of resources that currently cover private profits, enabling more housing to be built at better quality while reducing family debt levels and creating direct jobs for families and communities,» Simón González adds.

Luna Maturana, spokesperson for Vida Digna and representative of the Guanaco Project in Huechuraba (808 families), announced that «we will mobilize on October 25th to send a strong message to SERVIU that we need to apply in November this year and not wait another 5 months. Our families have already met the required conditions, increasing savings by 40 UF to accommodate the rising land prices, and now we demand that the state fulfill its part by expediting the procedures to allow us to apply this year.»

Echoing this sentiment, Lorena Amigo, spokesperson for Vida Digna and representative of the Southern Zone Project (500 families), stated that «on October 25th, the assemblies of the Southern Zone project mobilize to demand that SERVIU fulfill the meeting commitment with the landowners we have identified for our major project for 500 families. It has already been two months since our meeting with SERVIU, where commitments were made, but to this day, we have received no responses to move forward. That is why we call for no further delays to this process.»

El Ciudadano