By Ginger Thompson
                   Tribune Staff Writer

                   HAVANA -- Caridad Santana de Lao prays for another hurricane.

                   The last one, Hurricane Lili, blew the roof off her elegant four-bedroom
                   apartment in the city's colonial Old Havana district in 1996. For the next two
                   years, de Lao's family lived in filth in a cramped shelter in an abandoned high
                   school.

                   They were jammed into a space the size of half a classroom, sharing three
                   bathrooms, one on each floor, with some 500 other hurricane victims. She
                   endured the degradation by looking forward to the day she would walk into a
                   new house promised by the government.

                   That day came two months ago, and it broke de Lao's heart. Her new home
                   is one room, the size of a two-car garage, with concrete floors. There is a
                   sink on one side and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet, but no seat, on
                   the other.

                   The flies buzz through her house by the hundreds, courtesy of a former trash
                   dump across the highway. She is stuck with them, she said, and she is stuck
                   with her new house, unless God answers her prayers.

                   "Every time I hear that a storm is coming, I pray that it will blow this house
                   down," de Lao moaned. "The government promised me a house, and instead
                   they have sent us out here to live like dogs."

                   A critical housing shortage has left tens of thousands of people such as de
                   Lao stranded in shelters and slums across Havana.

                   The city is home to 2.2 million people who live in 540,000 dwellings. Housing
                   officials estimate that more than 50 percent of the dwellings are in average to
                   poor condition.

                   There are more than 20,000 people living in shelters and close to 100,000
                   living in housing that is considered unsafe.

                   Throughout the city, it is not uncommon for several generations of one family
                   to live together in a single house or apartment.

                   Cubans acknowledge that they have become masters at creating space where
                   there was none. They build lofts--called barbacoas--to make two bedrooms
                   out of one. They enclose balconies or patios. They cut hallways short, turning
                   part into a bedroom, and they build shacks of wood or tin on their roofs.

                   "Housing is probably the most critical problem in Havana," said Salvador
                   Gomila, vice president of the Cuba's National Housing Institute. "But I don't
                   have to tell you that. You can just drive down any street and see it."

                   The housing crisis got worse after the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union,
                   Cuba's primary benefactor. The nation's economy was pushed to the brink of
                   failure. Petroleum imports dropped by more than 50 percent, crippling
                   construction and other types of industrial production.

                   In an interview, Gomila said that the construction of new housing in Havana
                   dropped from about 10,000 units a year in 1988 to less than 3,000 last year.
                   This year, the goal is to build 7,000 units in Havana, but officials admit that
                   they would be lucky to meet half that goal.

                   So far this year, only 1,300 new units have been built. Almost half are
                   one-room units like those at El Comodoro, the complex where de Lao lives.

                   Gomila acknowledged that the units are made from "low-cost"
                   materials--cement made from soil, pasteboard and tin--and that they are too
                   small for most Cuban families. But right now, he said, the government does
                   not have the money or materials to build better, bigger houses.

                   "Those units are not the best solution, but they are the only solution we have,"
                   Gomila said. "It may be many years before we are going to be able to build
                   enough houses for all those in need.

                   "Part of the problem in Cuba is that having a house does not depend on
                   economic status. Every Cuban has the right to a house, whether they are rich
                   or poor. It is a tremendous burden for the government."

                   After he seized control of the government in 1959 and declared Cuba a
                   communist country, President Fidel Castro promised to provide housing for
                   all who work. To start, he seized control of all Cuban property and granted
                   people ownership of the houses where they lived, requiring them to pay rent
                   to the government according to their income and the size of the dwelling.

                   Chaos erupted in the late 1960s as thousands of Cubans fled the island and
                   neighbors began fighting over abandoned houses. The government created
                   the National Housing Institute to distribute the properties and to collect rent.

                   Most new-housing construction began in the 1970s. The Cuban Housing
                   Institute provided money and materials to managers of large manufacturing
                   plants, farms or government agencies so that workers could organize
                   construction teams -- known as micro brigades -- to build their own housing.

                   Gomila said that since 1959, the Cuban population has grown by 58 percent
                   and that the country's housing stock has grown by 80 percent. "There has
                   been a real effort to keep up with the population," he said.

                   However, Gomila added, most of that construction occurred in rural areas
                   because that is where the housing need was greatest -- only 30 percent of
                   houses in the countryside in the early 1960s were considered suitable for
                   habitation -- and because it allowed the government to prevent mass
                   migrations into Havana.

                   Today, however, the migration patterns have shifted.

                   Petroleum-starved factories and farms in rural communities are closing or
                   cutting back, while opportunities for work in Havana increase. Tourism is
                   booming -- generating more than $1 billion a year -- and dozens of foreign
                   companies are opening stores and offices.

                   About 25,000 people moved into Havana in 1996, double the normal
                   amount.

                   Last year, the government began requiring new arrivals to get permission to
                   stay.

                   The migrants, who mostly come from Havana's five eastern provinces, must
                   show that they have a job and a place to live.

                   Tourism has fueled construction projects all over the capital, but very little is
                   aimed at easing the housing crisis. Last year, for example, construction crews
                   finished more than 1,500 hotel rooms. Along the shores east of Havana,
                   dozens of abandoned vacation homes--used in the early years of the Castro
                   government as a summer camp for children--are being fixed up for tourists
                   and visiting businessmen. And in the capital's historic center, 25 renovation
                   projects will be finished by the end of the year.

                   But the sight of all the cranes and bulldozers has not meant progress for
                   everyone.

                   A year ago, Noelvis Mederas lost her home to the government's effort to
                   attract foreigners. It was a two-bedroom apartment at 310 Avenida Prado, a
                   tree-lined, four-lane boulevard in historic Old Havana that stretches from the
                   ocean to the domed capitol building. Officials told her that the building was
                   too unstable to be occupied, so they moved her, her husband and their two
                   small children into a shelter at the old Allende High School.

                   Mederas, 28, with wavy hair that hangs to her shoulders and big hazel eyes,
                   pleaded with government officials to let her keep her home. She had inherited
                   the apartment from her parents and had lived in Old Havana, a community of
                   cobblestone streets and Spanish colonial churches, all her life.

                   She wrote letters to government officials, including the president of her
                   neighborhood committee, the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party
                   and the director of the Office of the Historian, which this year will spend $39
                   million to restore Old Havana.

                   In a letter dated April 28, an official in the Office of the Historian responded
                   to Mederas' petitions. The official explained that there was no way Mederas
                   could return to her home at 310 Prado because it wasn't hers anymore.

                   The official explained that the building had been turned over to a real estate
                   company, Fenix, and that the company planned to restore 310 Prado for
                   offices and apartments for tourists. However, the letter said, the government
                   planned to build 300 houses for Mederas and others who were moved out of
                   Old Havana.

                   Mederas is still waiting.

                   Meanwhile, she and her family are living in a shelter. The government has
                   offered them a one-room unit in El Comodoro, but Mederas said the rooms
                   are like coffins.

                   El Comodoro is in the middle of nowhere. It sits isolated in an open field on
                   the western edge of the city. There's no place for her children to play. There's
                   no market to get food. Her husband will have to walk miles to get to a bus
                   stop and go to work.

                   Rafael Rojas Hurtado, a director in the Office of the Historian, defended the
                   agency's work. Old Havana has been overcrowded for decades, he said, and
                   the majority of people live without reliable plumbing, electricity and water.
                   People are being moved out of the community for their safety and to improve
                   living conditions.

                   However, he said that most people who are forced out are being moved to
                   apartments or houses that are as big or bigger than their original home.

                   What happened to Mederas is rare, he said. But, he said, it is a "necessary
                   evil." Properties on major streets such as the one at 310 Prado, he said, are
                   being turned into "cash cows."

                   "You have to look long term," he said. "If these things are not done now and
                   if we do not earn money now, how are we going to be able to finish all our
                   renovations? Ultimately, the renovations are good not only for the Cuban
                   government. They are good for everyone."

                   That good is lost on the people living in Allende High School. Many of them
                   were evacuated two years ago from houses in Old Havana. They gathered in
                   an angry mob, shouting about how sick they were of living in squalor.

                   Although he is bony and wrinkled, Benedicto Valdes' voice rose above the
                   others.

                   "If a tourist wants a house, it will be built in a day," said Valdes, 68. "But for a
                   Cuban, there's nothing."

                   Valdes escorted a visitor to the room he shares with his family. It's one of the
                   school's old storage closets, about 15 square yards. He has a rusted
                   refrigerator on one wall, filled only with Coke bottles of water. There was a
                   small table with pots and dishes.

                   Five people live in the room, Valdes said. When asked where everyone
                   sleeps at night, he held his hands to his sides and looked at the cement floor,
                   "Here! Can you believe that?"

                   Valdes said he had worked as a mechanic for the government since 1960.
                   His years of service have not meant much, he said.

                   "We are revolutionaries. We supported the government," he scowled, "but
                   we don't even have the right to a house or a good pair of shoes. I am starting
                   to lose my enthusiasm."