Expats living in Costa Rica will, at some point in their lives, hear about an urban horror story about the neighborhoods that make up the populous Hatillo district of San Jose. The story will often be accompanied by a piece of unsolicited advice about how it’s not a safe place for a foreigner to venture into, despite the fact the 2000 census determined that 6.5 percent of the population in Hatillo was not born in Costa Rica. The district is often mentioned in the evening television news, or in the police blotter of metro sections of national newspapers.

Mentions of Hatillo include reports of gunfire disrupting the quiet of night, abject poverty, street gangs roaming the communities and terrorizing the residents, and dreadful avenues ending in cul de sacs where not even the special units of Fuerza Publica or the brave volunteer first responders of the Red Cross will step into. Hatillo is home to more than 50,000 people, how can they all live in such conditions?

It turns out that many of the ominous reports mentioned above come from a combination of embellishment and unfamiliarity with the district. Like in many heavily populated low-income urban neighborhoods around the world, the crime rate is higher in Hatillo than inside the gated communities that many North American and European expatriates tend to favor in Costa Rica. If crime runs rampant in Hatillo, why did Sykes -a successful company with significant foreign capital investment- choose to spend $2 million to build a state-of-the-art call center that can accommodate 700 agents right in the middle of Hatillo earlier this year? Why does Fuerza Publica operate a busy recruiting center there?

The Costa Rica Star spoke to a couple of Hatillo residents who have heard the same horror stories described above, but their angle on crime and the overall living situation is different. First, a background on the district:

The Little Herds

Hatillo was once known as Los Hatillos, in plural form. The name comes from the Spanish word for little herd, which is exactly what the mostly flat grasslands were filled with back in the 18^th century. Costa Rica is hardly the only Latin American country with a community named Hatillo. Other Iberian and Latin American communities share the same name and, by sheer coincidence, crime problems. Shortly after the army was abolished in Costa Rica, the capital city of San Jose began to experience growing pains and thus an executive decision to urbanize the grasslands located just southwest of downtown.

The late President Jose Figueres Ferrer, who was leader of the rebel invading force during the civil war, commissioned the National Institute of Housing and Urban Affairs (INVU in Spanish) to build social housing to accommodate the growing number of Ticos who migrated from the country into the city. Not everyone who left fertile farmland behind was ready to assimilate an urban lifestyle. In 1956, the first Hatillo was inaugurated and opened to those who came to San Jose, found it far more challenging than expected, and ended up in clear need of housing.

San Jose and Hatillo grew in tandem over the next few decades. When the oil crisis of the 1970s precipitated the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, Hatillo saw its population suddenly skyrocket, and the INVU could hardly keep up with demand for socialized housing solutions, which eventually grew into neighborhoods numbered from 1 to 8. Squatter communities have always been a fixture of Hatillo thanks to agrarian laws in Costa Rica that tend to favor irregular dwelling situations. Squatters hope that the government and INVU will take notice of their plight and build them a home; alas, tight budget restrictions do not allow for such magnanimous gestures so often.

Boulevards of Broken Dreams

The residential architectural styles of Hatillo are decidedly diverse. While at one point homes in Hatillo 1 enjoyed generous living space, by the late 1980s the style became cramped and vertical to accommodate a greater number of residents. Homes in Hatillo average 4.1 people per residence, unless they are part of the one percent of homes located in squatter camps, in which situation the living arrangements climb to 5.4 people -according to statistics compiled by the Municipality of San Jose.

In the past, the INVU style of neighborhood planning and development did not see a great need for vehicular traffic, and thus the rows of concrete single-family residences were arranged into alamedas -small pedestrian boulevards for walking and where children can play without venturing too far from their homes. To the dismay of some families these boulevard arrangements prevent the entrance of police cars and thus are favored by street-level drug dealers who operate retail operations on these alamedas.

Fast-forward to 2007, and upward mobility suddenly became manifest in Hatillo. Many residents demanded that the iconic alamedas be transformed into streets so that they could park their new cars. This created a small industry of impromptu guards and watchmen who were paid to watch cars parked blocks away from the alamedas. The charismatic Mayor of San Jose Johnny Araya came up with a democratic plan: if 75 percent of residents in each alameda agrees to turn the boulevard into a street, and the neighbors are willing to come up with a significant portion of the labor and materials, then the city would grant permits and chip in with supervision. Not all residents agreed, of course, and as a result some alamedas were transformed into green zones on the city’s dime.

Not all households in Hatillo have enjoyed enough upward mobility to petition the city for a place to park their new cars. According to official statistics, 6 percent of homes in Hatillo have fallen into disrepair, 7.1 percent of the population in Hatillo does not have access to adequate housing, and 9.4 percent have not completed the compulsory education scheme. These are squatters, many of them foreigners, and unfortunately they are the most likely to either perpetrate, or become victims of, violent crime.

Crime and Punishment

The urban legend of certain places in Hatillo being too dangerous for Fuerza Publica to enter is debunked on a regular basis by Diario Extra -a newspaper with journalistic roots tinged in yellow, where readers are likely to encounter elaborate prose like “the deafening roar of gunfire kept neighbors of Hatillo 5 and 6 up all night”, when the police report actually reads that two witnesses reported hearing between two and three gunshots and went back to bed.

There have been quite a few incidents of gunplay in Hatillo this year, and most are dutifully reported on by Diario Extra -after Fuerza Publica has handled the situation. Taking a look at some of the headlines this year, one can see that gun possession, liquor and drug dealing are at the heart of crime in Hatillo:

• In February, a man was stabbed to death during a bar fight in Hatillo 2
• The body of a bank employee seemingly executed by a single gunshot was found in Hatillo 2, also in February.
• Anti-narcotics officers raided the home of two suspected street-level drug dealers in Hatillo 5 and confiscated a small cache of handguns in February.
• In April, a 19-year old man was shot in cold blood in Hatillo 3, apparently by members of a street gang.
• In May, two carjackers fleeing from Fuerza Publica opened fire on the officers before approaching the vicinity of Hatillo. The agents returned fire, disabling the vehicle and wounding the suspects before apprehending them.
• In June, gunmen dressed as high school students conducted a drive-by shooting against a man in Hatillo 8; police knew that the victim was a mid-level drug dealer.
• Also in June, three gunmen boarded a private school bus carrying 20 students and relieved the passengers of their valuable belongings.

For the reasons above, Fuerza Publica maintains a strong presence in Hatillo, where most of the crimes are a sad combination of drug dealing and illegal gun possession.

Residents of Hatillo Share Their Stories

Jose Carlos was born and raised in Hatillo 3. He works as a porteador –a taxi driver who belongs to an business organization that does not operate like the red taxis seen all over Costa Rica. He is in his late 30s and has two young children. When asked about his knowledge of crime in the area he explains that he personally knows about two break-ins in the alameda he lives in, each occurring years apart. He has also heard about all the crime in the area, which prompted him to become a taxi driver. He explains that many people are afraid to walk through some of the worst parts of town, and thus business is booming for him: “I try to walk everywhere in Hatillo, at least in the daytime because I work at night; I’m always sitting down and driving, it’s making me fat.”

Jose Carlos says that in all the time he has lived in Hatillo, he has heard gunfire twice -once during New Year’s Eve. He contemplated moving his family at some point, but he has a solid book of business in the neighborhood and is close to paying off the house he lives in: a four-bedroom two-story concrete home with garage, balcony and a small patio that is valued at $50,000. He also owns a small piece of land in San Ramon, which he is getting offers on, particularly from prospective American buyers. If he sells that land before the end of the year, he explained, he will be able to retire before the age of 40 and see his children grow up in Hatillo.

Oscar is 44 years old and grew up in Hatillo 5. He has one son aged 18 and lives with two stepchildren aged 12 and 16. He speaks fluent English, which he learned in private academies during high school, and works as a bodyguard. He moved to Moravia five years ago when his in-laws gave his wife a small home. “I still visit the old neighborhood”, he explained, ” but it has become dangerous because of the people who have moved in, and the guns.” Oscar carries a handgun as part of his job, a Smith & Wesson Sigma 9mm. He explains that Hatillo 5 was once home to many civil servants who were offered comfortable home loans in exchange for government service. Some areas of Hatillo are called “Barrio de los Profesores” (teacher’s neighborhood) due to the historical number of schoolteachers who lived there.

Oscar believes that Hatillo has always been a bedroom community and transient in nature. The government workers who first moved to Hatillo to be close to the Ministry offices eventually obtained tenure and very handsome salaries in the range of millions of colones per month, thanks to the non-stop raises that are a staple of government work in Costa Rica. Many of these original Hatillo residents found a new, lucrative source of income as slumlords, catering to immigrants and people moving from the countryside who see the convenience of living in a suburb that’s only about a 20 minute bus ride from downtown San Jose.

Like Jose Carlos, Oscar remembers hearing gunfire in Hatillo twice in his lifetime. “One time it was my neighbor, who worked as a street sweeper and found a gun in a trash can. He brought it home and messed with it, accidentally shooting himself in the thigh. He received workers’ compensation for many years -I guess the Municipality forgot about him, yet he kept working as fruit peddler. He now owns four homes in Hatillo.” Oscar thinks the entire Hatillo district is filled with contrasts: “you have very nice alamedas, but then there are people squatting in Las Gavetas, for example, and it’s like they are stuck there. They think that that government will one day give them a nice home for free, and they are probably right, but what are they doing in the meantime? Probably dealing drugs and shooting each other. I left so that I don’t have to be close to those people.”