Public housing in Puerto Rico

Public housing in Puerto Rico is a subsidized system of housing units, mostly consisting of housing projects (Residenciales, Barriadas, or Caserios Publicos, in Spanish), which are provided for low-income families in Puerto Rico. The system is mainly financed with programs from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). There are 322 public housing developments in Puerto Rico.

Neighborhoods in Puerto Rico are often divided into three types: barrio, urbanización (urbanization) and residencial público (public housing). An urbanización is a type of housing where land is developed into lots, often by a private developer, and where single-family homes are built. More recently, non single-family units, such as condominiums and townhouses are being built which also fall into this category. (In Puerto Rico, a condominiun is a housing unit located in a high-rise building. It is popularly called an "apartamento", or, alternatively, "apartamiento" (English: apartment), whether or not its resident owns the unit or lives it as a renter.) Public housing, on the other hand, are housing units built with government funding. These have traditionally consisted multi-family dwellings in housing complexes called a Barriada or a Caserío Publico (and more recently a Residencial), and where all exterior grounds consist of shared areas. Increasingly, however, public housing developments are being built that consist of other than the traditional multi-family dwellings with all exterior grounds consisting of shared outside area, for example, public housing may consist of single family garden apartments units. Finally, a home that is located in neither an urbanizacion nor of a public housing development is said to be located in (and to be a part of) a barrio. In Puerto Rico, a "barrio" also has a second and very different meaning official meaning: the geographical area into which a municipios is divided for official administrative purposes. In this sense, urbanizaciones as well as public housing developments (as well as one or several "barrios" in the popular sense) may be located in one of these 901 official geographic areas.

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