My wish is that everyone gets it. “Mi Pieza”: mediations in the access to a digital policy of housing improvement

Abstract

This article addresses the appropriation carried out by women beneficiaries of a housing improvement program promoted by the Argentinian Ministry of Social Development in 2021, which presents a novel implementation modality: it is entirely self-managed through a digital application. Based on qualitative fieldwork, the paper presents the experiences of a group of women living in a low-income neighborhood of Gran La Plata, seeking to account for the strategies, mediations and networks that must be deployed to guarantee their effective access to this housing policy. It shows how the social networks in the territory (networks between residents, friends and relatives) provide support to facilitate the registration and subsequent management of the program. These networks enable the circulation of information, of specific knowledge and of mutual aid, which make it possible to optimize the money received and to carry out other uses outside those provided by the policy.