How and why was Urbe Apie created?

UA: UrbeApie was created in 2015, with the mission to revitalize disused and abandoned spaces for the social, cultural, and economic development of our community. We are located in in the Pueblo neighborhood of Caguas, in central Puerto Rico.  We seek to be a role model for other urban core communities and to date we have completed several projects:

• Boutique Comunitaria (Community Boutique)
• Galería Comunitaria (Community Art Gallery)
• EL Museo de la Higuera (The Fig Museum)
• Two community gardens, the Happy Garden and the Modest Garden
• El Reflejo (Theatre Space)  

Urbe Apie, our name is an invitation to walk the city, to meet each other. 'Urbe' from urban,  and 'a pie' means on foot, together it means let's walk, meet each other, and discover possibilities, we couldn’t see without this perspective.
‍

‍

How did you get involved in this work at UrbeApie?

UA: Before Urbe Apie there was Revive a Gautier an initiative run by the Revive the Urban Center of Caguas organization. It was made up of older people and merchants from the community who wanted to revitalize the urban core. We were some of the few young people in that group but we were interested in creating something else, that was more cultural, more directed at young people. We wanted to create spaces that attracted people to the traditional urban center and prevented people already living there from moving.

Along with Revive the Urban Center, we did a community census, which gave us three very important pieces of information:

1. The need to revitalize abandoned buildings,
2. The need to generate employment, and
3. The need to have different kinds of entertainment, leisure, and learning spaces

This gave us the motivation to begin Urbe Apie. If we want employment, if we want all the things we envisioned then we would have to get it done ourselves. Our approach was to occupy and reclaim disused places, rehabilitate, clean them, thus making unsafe spaces safe. The Community Boutique and Hermanos de la Calle were some of the first projects we did, but these projects took years of work.
 

How has Urbe Apie changed over the years?

UA: In 2017, Hurricane Maria hit the island and was disastrous for our country. The Community Boutique and Hermanos de la Calle were reborn with vigor to help support the community during this time. Along with other organizations, the Boutique began to distribute clothes, snacks, hygiene items, harm reduction kits, and to collect syringes from the floor. We also worked with other organizations to distribute food to 300 - 400 people in the urban core.
‍

As time passed, recovery for the country and residents remained difficult so we refocused to address two very important projects:

1. Working with homeless people, substance users, persons living with HIV or hepatitis C, and the elderly community.
2. The rescue of disused/abandoned places

By positioning Urbe Apie as a harm reduction organization we were able to make a huge impact on the community; providing residents with invaluable services. We gave workshops, and hosted different recreational activities (yoga, reiki) we also started urban agriculture. In fact, I believe that the huge success that the organization has had has been because of the call to volunteerism that comes from within the community to serve.
‍

The Community Gallery was one of the first projects that the organization achieved, making it accessible to go to an art gallery without having to pay lots of money to see an exhibition. The interesting thing is that the Gallery created an ecosystem of sculptors, artisans, artists, in the community even though the gallery itself is free of cost.

What Urbe Apie has achieved the unthinkable; we are currently sitting (having the interview) in the Happy Garden. Before we came int his land was a dump, there were mattresses, there was garbage, there were syringes on the floor, and the soil was totally contaminated with garbage. We changed that.

Can you give us some context on Caguas?

UA: Caguas is an urban city with about 137,000 inhabitants the traditional urban center now has about 3,600 inhabitants, but in 2010, we had about 11,000 inhabitants. So there was a huge population decline over the last 10 years. Caguas is the city that connected San Juan, in the north to Ponce, in the south via Highway One (PR-1). Caguas was like a baton pass [a stop over between two destinations]. We are also part of a Turabo Valley, which includes several other towns: and in the middle is Caguas.
‍

‍

‍How did economic crises impact the population of Caguas?

UA: Caguas became a centre for manufacturing in the 1960s. But today manufacturing jobs are gone and most people are employed in the service industry. There were several crises that impacted Caguas; before Hurricane Maria we had the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2008 and the bankruptcy of Puerto Rico in 2017. So as Puerto Rico is going through bankruptcy, the Fiscal Control Board arrives, which creates difficult economic conditions that lead to Puerto Ricans leaving the island en masse.

People do not abandon buildings because they want to, they abandon because suddenly there is no access to health, to education, and access to vital resources is impossible. And that's kind of what's happening in Puerto Rico. We have lost more than 300,000 people in the last 10 years. And not only in Puerto Rico, it is happening in a lot of parts of the world, right? These migratory waves are happening, not because people want to leave their homes but because economic phenomena occur.
‍

RESCUING BUILDINGS:

UA: Urbe Apie has rescued several buildings from abandonment: The Gallery, the Reflejo- theater, we also have the Boutique and Brothers and Sisters of the Street, Valle Garita and the Happy Garden (Vuelto Feliz). Right after the hurricane, people started searching for a place to grow food nearby because we already knew that we didn't have local food. We depended on imported food from the US that was available in the supermarket. So we needed to grow our own food locally in the urban center.

We found a small lot where we started cleaning, but soon after the owners gave us a letter saying that we shouldn't be doing it and that we have to pay a certain amount of money to use this space (that didn't have anything on it). We replied saying that they were the ones that needed to pay us because we already were restoring the lot.

After Hurricane Maria, all the supermarkets were basically empty. We were joining lines that took hours simply to buy water and gasoline. So, we started giving more importance to the food that we were producing in the area. And that's when other community residents started visiting us, bringing seeds, and plants and helping with their own hands. And yeah, we started growing pumpkin and beans, corn, sweet potato, and different things.

The other area is the building that we have right next to the garden. It has four floors and was fully abandoned and was full of trash. But people that were helping in the garden started using that area as a shelter because in the hurricane, we didn't have any electricity for six months after the hurricane. So a lot of people started appearing without a place to live. I think the point is that people started taking over the areas that were unused for their own survival and community benefit.

‍

What is the process of occupying land and the legal implications?

UA: It's important to mention that there are different ways of occupying land/buildings:

• Establishing an agreement with the owner of that building/ property
• Entering the site without any kind of agreement, as we say here – by force by breaking locks.

The Happy Garden and the Valle Garita building were occupied spaces where we broke locks, we got in and revitalized them for the benefit of the community. But the Community Boutique, the Gallery, the Cafe, and the Theater,  are spaces that we have a collaborative agreement with the owners of those buildings. We have to stress that all these spaces were in total disuse or totally abandoned.

‍This approach means that the owners of that building could technically evict us at any time. However, it usually takes a while for the police to arrive or for the property owners to realize that we are on the site. They only realize once we have revitalized the majority of the building/land. And by the time they find out, the space has already been transformed and we would have already invested money, and time in the space.

That investment we make enters us into a legal process. That is, the owner decides whether to take us to court to clarify the matter or to reach an agreement with us. For the police to remove us, there has to be aprocess already with the court or there has to be a displacement, etc. And when the owners find out to start that process, we have already completely rehabilitated the space.

To put it in context, there are a series of steps that we have to take to reclaim abandoned space (what other people would call an invasion):

Occupying Land with Urbe Apie:

1. Scouting: The first thing that is done is to evaluate and investigate the security of the place. Identify what are the problems that the space has brought to the community. What do the neighbors think about the site - does it look or feel unsafe, are there many robberies there, is the street completely dangerous? Is it truly abandoned, is there any lighting? This is the information you need when trying to understand abandoned spaces in the context of a community.
2.  Community Engagement: The second factor that helps us determine whether or not to occupy the space is hosting community meetings or plenaries. The plenaries are a series of convenings with community members and other community organizations to talk about the space we want to impact. We talk about insecurities, street violence, other issues, and how that abandoned space contributes to these problems. Normally the decision to occupy or not is made by a vote.
3. Manpower: After we have a few meetings, we try and identify volunteers who are willing to occupy the space, to clean it, to convert that space from an unsafe to a safe place. Community residents involved with the plenaries usually get involved because they want to feel safer, and to feel good in their own community. When people leave and abandon a building, the persons most impacted are those remaining in the community- plagued by decades of negative issues exacerbated by the abandoned space.
4. Planning & documentation: Next, we must meet again and communicate to the community what we are transforming the space into and how we are going to defend it. What is going to happen with the space from here on and how are we going to secure it as a community?  It is very important to present that before and after image of the space to rally community support. The before was what the place was; an abandoned and insecure space that the community determined was too much of a nuisance for residents to continue to live with. But with community action, we are able to identify a purpose for that space can provide for its residents.

All this has to be documented; document the days, document who was at those meetings, document the community, how we organize to do this, document all the communication with the municipality (asking for help that many times are not answered).
‍

‍
‍What has been the outcome of Urbe Apie’s actions?

UA: The outcome of rescuing abandoned spaces is a sense of belonging. This is what forces the municipality or the owners of these abandoned public nuisances, to end up ceding us the power. This has happened with the Huerto Feliz (Happy Garden), they ended up ceding us power because we made an unsafe place a safe place for the community, a place that now everyone can enjoy and that continues to improve. But this is a process, a public process, a process of organizing people and talking with the community/neighbors.

But it is important this process is very organized so that people even the government take us seriously. Then they will understand that the community rose up and that the community wants compelling changes because we want a better Caguas and a better Puerto Rico.

I believe that's why the police often will not get involved, because they have no reason to intervene within a community that organizes itself and makes itself safer. It is even safer for the police, because when the police pass these abandoned places on their bicycles, they felt unsafe and insecure too. And now everyone can see and feel the community benefits, including the government and higher authorities. The State owes Urbe Apie a lot of money, they owe us because this work should be done by the State, but it was done by the community in conjunction with the local organizations.
‍

MANAGING UTILITIES:

Urbe Apie has eight locations (buildings or lots) in different areas that have been occupied without the owners' permission, and in these cases, we either rely on solar energy that helps us, or we know very good people who install an underground system for us. Underground, underground, underground, underground. Hey, but I like that because it's a brand, “underground”. And for those properties where we have agreements, we have agreements for utilities with the owner.
‍

What are Urbe Apie’s future plans for Caguas?

UA: By 2030 we want to revitalize 50 affordable apartment units in the urban core of Caguas. We have created a Task Force to revitalize the city, which includes other local organizations like La Maraña, the Center for Habitat Reconstruction, Department of Food, Urban Planning Department, Legal Aid, and there's the Mennonite Central Committee. We are seeking support from the municipality and we meet with them because they manage resources like the Community Development Business Grant and Disaster Recovery (CDBGTR) which are federal funds from the US Department of Housing.

We have a plan to raise internal funds and are thinking about how do we establish a fundraising strategy. We estimate that to revitalize those 50 units we are going to need around $2-$3 million USD. Right now, one of the problems we are having is that because there is so much investment in Caguas, many of the properties we initially identified for that plan are being bought very quickly. So we have to look for new houses and new lots to complete that process. The longer we take, the more complicated it gets. We already have 8 apartments, out of those 50 but we still have 40+ to go.

‍Ownership status and property taxes

Urbe Apie owns the properties they have occupied and is exploring different models including land banks or land cooperatives. They also have different models for renting these properties out. For the residential apartments they charge very affordable rents or exchange accommodation for work/labor.

We pay taxes to the municipal tax collector’s office- CRIM. There are property tax exceptions for nonprofits that we will be eligible for once we purchase a property. So for example, in the Boutique, we pay a monthly contribution of $250 USD to the owner who pays CRIM.  But when we fully own the building we will stop paying the CRIM.

Are housing prices in Caguas going up because of the success of your revitalization efforts?

UA: Yes, and that's the problem with the work that artists do. Usually, before gentrification occurs when artists settle and start to improve living conditions it's easier to speculate and it's easier to raise prices. Right now all the buildings around the projects that Urbe Apie is doing are increasing in value because we have already set an example of how beautiful it can be and the rich love it.

To the poor who are told we can't have parks, trees, or nice places to be, but the rich love that nonsense. Across Puerto Rico this is happening; its happening on Loíza Street, in Rincón, in Caguas, and in San Juan where the prices have exploded. In fact, the walkway we are rehabilitating has added value to all those buildings that run along it. So it becomes a double-edged sword.
‍

But at least we can say there's a balance that wouldn't exist if we didn't exist. Because we've been able to revitalize abandoned buildings that were destined to disappear and become other things, like multi-story business buildings and stuff like that. So without a doubt, the fact that the community has physical spaces for meeting, for power, what we call power spaces, has helped balance or level the equation. That didn't exist before.
‍

Thank you so much for chatting with us! Lets take a group picture?

UA: Sure we would love to.