When COVID-19 reached Buenos Aires on 19 March 2020, the City Housing Institute (IVC), in collaboration with local grassroots organizations, built on prior upgrading of community infrastructure and strengthened resilience in the Villa 20 neighbourhood through a set of interventions to help meet the community’s food, health, and social and economic needs.
The result has been a lower number of confirmed cases and deaths, and high level of community willingness to participate in social distancing, food distributions, and testing. Collaboration between local government and grassroots organizations – to ensure a strong and unified COVID-19 response Villa 20 is an informal urban settlement in southern Buenos Aires, and is home to 30 000 people.