Mario Navarro

Full-time 2004-2005

Photo by Doug Cogger

Mario Navarro is the Housing Policy Director in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Chile. During his three years as Director, he has dramatically revised the housing policy of Chile, bringing the private banking community into the process, getting the federal bureaucracy out of the construction business, and more than doubling the percentage of housing subsidies directed toward the poorest citizens of the nation. In addition to developing a process through which existing policies could be studied and compared with other alternatives and guiding the new proposals through the legislative process, Mario was responsible for mobilizing federal agencies, the banking industry and the nation’s private contractors to successfully implement the new policies. As a Loeb Fellow, Mario plans to study housing policy in the US and Brazil to further refine Chile’s strategies.