Between price increases and payments in dollars, Maura and her granddaughter carry their lives on their shoulders every few months in Matanzas.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, Cuba, September 23, 2025 — The boxes still hold clothes, and in one corner some kitchen utensils are piled up. Maura and her granddaughter’s life fits into suitcases and bags, always ready for the next move. Living from rental to rental means never completely unpacking, because all it takes is for the owner to raise the price, or decide to repossess their home, for the routine to once again become domestic exile. The rise of the dollar on the informal market has caused the price of other people’s housing to skyrocket.
In just six months, Maura has had to move twice. This Sunday, at age 64, the woman set out again to explore the neighborhoods of Matanzas in search of a space that meets their basic needs. “The only way to find something is like this, walking and asking around,” she says with resignation. She left her small house in the town of Carlos Rojas behind a long time ago. “There’s no future for my daughter there, and she’s studying at the university. My daughter, the one in the United States, is the one who pays the rent. But even with that help, we’ve had to look for something cheaper: we barely have enough for the basics.”
In March, it seemed like luck was on her side: she managed to rent a detached house in Peñas Altas for 15,000 pesos a month. However, just a month and a half later, the landlord showed up demanding a rent increase of $50, a little over 21,000 pesos at the current exchange rate. “The house barely had the basics, and the worst part was that he gave us ten days to come up with the payment. Otherwise, we’d have to leave. In the end, we had to pack everything up again. Today, a similar place, with one bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, small living room, and a few appliances, costs twice as much,” she laments.
“Between my girlfriend and I, we earn 12,000 pesos a month, and that’s barely enough to live on in La Marina.”
The situation isn’t unique. Yordan, who moved from Jovellanos to work for an MSME [micro, small, medium-sized enterprise], knows the rules of the game well. “Between my girlfriend and me, we earn 12,000 pesos a month, and that’s barely enough to live on in La Marina,” he says. His rental: a house with a zinc roof, was handed over empty. “We even had to bring the bed. Now the owner asks for two months’ advance, but if we find something before then, we’ll leave. It’s a mess,” he admits.
The couple has found, during their search, that prices are rising overnight. “A month ago, we saw a small house near the pediatric ward: they were asking 8,000 pesos, and now it’s going for 10,000. It only has one room, one bed, and an electric stove, but the power doesn’t go out there often. That makes it expensive,” Yordan explains. The water supply is another factor: “Where we are, we have to store it, because they turn it on every four or five days. If you want a rental with guaranteed running water, it doesn’t go for less than 20,000 pesos a month.”
Without contracts, tenants are at the mercy of their landlords. Most now demand payment in dollars, even though the average salary barely exceeds 6,000 pesos. “I work in Versalles and I can’t even dream of living there,” adds Yordan. “Small houses cost $100, and the best-equipped ones, $150. Besides, since it’s an illegal business, there are no signs: they get it through contacts, almost secretly.”
Some opt for a desperate solution: sharing a roof with almost strangers to share expenses.
At the same time, scams are proliferating. Sandra, a nursing student, knows this from experience. “They post rentals on social media. When you write to them, they tell you that to access a WhatsApp group with many listings, and you have to pay between 500 and 1,000 pesos. Then you realize it’s a trap: they post two or three houses a week, with fake phone numbers. I fell for it once, it was enough,” she says.
The young woman, a third-year student, is looking for a room near Faustino Pérez Hospital, fed up with the appalling conditions of the student residence. “The most I can pay is 10,000 pesos. But if I convert it, that’s barely $24. And with the peso falling every day, everything is more difficult.”
Some opt for a desperate solution: sharing a roof with near-strangers to share expenses. Sandra doesn’t rule out doing so with a school friend. “Anything,” she says, “rather than continuing in a bunk bed, eaten away by mosquitoes, unable to shower, and hungry.”
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