Ascensos y Descensos en la Vivienda: Mirada desde Medellín.

This paper deals with the rise and fall of social housing in Colombia in the context of national and international urban policies and the processes Medellin underwent in the 90´s crisis: radicalization, drug traffic, the rising of armed groups as well as a huge citizen movement and participation. With the aim of contributing new elements to value some of the predominant conceptions in housing, the first part of the paper presents a conceptual consideration on access, complexity and habitat, introducing broad interpretations on housing. It also begins to deal with some of the policies which will be reviewed later on. The second part presents a general view of the second half of the 20th century delimiting the housing problem to the urban and economic national and international policies, this allows for the identification of inherited ideas in the conception of the problem and its political application as well as the identification of emerging tendencies in the 90´s which opened this century. Finally, a look at the present is taken valuing the conceptions and ideas which found the perspectives to the problem and a contribution is done in order to organize the discussion about coming challenges.