The governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, has presented a series of improvements to the State Housing Plan in collaboration with the General Director of the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (INFONAVIT) in order to make sure that people in the region have the right to appropriate housing. Among these improvements there is the recovery of abandoned housing to use them for people who need it, as well as the implementation of two specialized courts to facilitate housing trials.

In the 76th edition of “Wednesday Morning Press Conference with Marina del Pilar” held in the city of Tijuana, the state governor said that, as a true government of the Fourth Transformation, her administration has promoted the creation of social housing to offer a proper home for Baja Californians who, for decades, have expressed this need in past administrations.

For his part, president magistrate of the Judicial Branch of Baja California, Alejandro Isaac Fragozo López, explained that the housing courts will have the intention of firstly speeding up the resolution of cases to benefit parties, which will reduce the cost of the legal process, providing prompt and speedy access to justice.

Fragozo López stated that, alongside a leasing court, there is a goal to transform a housing court and open a new one, which will make it so that there’s two in Tijuana and one in Mexicali.

“With this end goal, we paid special attention in developing a state housing plan, the first one in all of Mexico that acts from the state which joins efforts not only to address this serious housing problem, but also the insecurity problem,” he highlighted.

As such, Marina del Pilar stated that her administration has joined efforts to recover spaces that have been abandoned by bad administrations and that were thought lost in order to offer Baja Californian families proper and affordable housing, under the conviction that rights are not merchandise that needs to be traded.

In addition, she said that rescuing abandoned houses in Baja California will also help to reduce the perception of crime that they create and that usually manifests itself with less police patrolling which increases the risk of crimes.

Marina del Pilar pointed out that several studies indicate that maintaining abandoned houses increases the costs of trash collection. They also increase theft by 30%, graffiti by 41%, and it decreases the flow of public transportation which creates social problems that, with actions, are being resolved.

“Our goal is that benefited families know that they have the support of their government and that they can give the best of themselves in the communities where they live. Know that in Baja California we know how to take care of each other,” she said.

She then welcomed the managing director of INFONAVIT, Carlos Martínez Velázquez, who she described as a hardworking official that is bringing hope back to hundreds of thousands of families across the country and who has also become a great ally and friend of the Baja Californian people by guaranteeing access to housing for workers.

In his speech, Martínez Velázquez explained his commitment with the institute of recovering 12,000 abandoned houses in the state and make them part of urban life again, in order to improve families’ access to a home.

“We reiterate our commitment with the government of Baja California: we have recovered 3,700 abandoned houses, which means a 30% higher progress of the actions that were agreed upon,” he said.

He also added that, as part of the State Housing Plan, INFONAVIT will continue to promote housing access for Baja Californian families and will follow up to what was addressed in 2022, when a record investment was registered of almost $10 billion pesos regarding credit grants.