Buenos Aires, February 12 (RHC)-- Argentinian President Javier Milei dissolved this Tuesday the Secretariat of Territorial Development, Habitat and Housing, through Decree 70/2025.  With this measure, the management of programs linked to housing, such as the Casa Propia plan, will be transferred to the Secretariat of Public Works.

Despite the fact that there are 30 thousand finished homes that have not yet been delivered, and another 133 thousand under construction, the Argentine Government announced that the works will not be completed nor will the homes be delivered.

Milei's main justification is that housing policy should be managed mainly by local governments and the private sector.  In this sense, the decree states that "housing policy should be managed mainly by the provinces, municipalities and the private sector, thus reducing the intervention of the National State in this matter."

The change comes in a context of disintegration of the main trust funds of the sector, such as Procrear and the Fondo de Integración Socio Urbana (FISU), which were dissolved or are in the process of dissolution.

The Secretariat of Public Works, now in charge of coordinating the projects, must carry out a survey of available land, and sign agreements with provincial and private governments to close and transfer the housing initiatives.  Despite this, the unions pointed out that the decision could lead to the dismissal of around 500 employees.

The measure is part of Milei's policy of reducing the role of the State in financing housing, a task that he believes should be assumed by private and public banks through personal loans. This conception has generated concern, especially given that they go beyond the capacity of the municipalities and province, as in the case of the relocation of neighborhoods in the Matanza-Riachuelo Basin, which was paralyzed by the Supreme Court last year.

This cut in federal funds, especially in the province of Buenos Aires, which has stopped receiving more than 220 billion pesos, occurs in the midst of a growing housing crisis, in which the increase in precarious settlements is evident and the lack of access to credit and rents becomes increasingly unsustainable for the vulnerable population.

In the first year of Milei's administration, more than 100,000 public works were paralyzed and more than 1,800 agreements were suspended, which affected more than 170,000 direct jobs and 400,000 indirect jobs in the construction sector.