Urban context of the community.
In the community of La Piedra, there are currently 1,170 inhabited houses, of which 871 houses are owned, equivalent to 74% of the total; 289 houses are occupied by families living in conditions of borrowed housing, equivalent to 24%; and 13 houses are occupied in rented conditions, equivalent to 1% of the total housing.
 

Characteristics of the dwellings Houses. 
1) Walls: 51% of the houses have recycled metal zinc walls, 26% have recycled wood walls, and 21% have block or cement walls.
2)  Roofs: 80% of the houses have metal zinc roofs, 15% cement roofs and 5% asbestos and other recycled materials roofs.  
3) Floors:  70% of the houses have a cement floor and 30% a dirt floor.
 

Sanitary Service:
Of the 1,170 inhabited houses, only 15% have a toilet inside, 74% of the houses have latrines outside the houses, which is equivalent to 865 houses, and the remaining 11%, equivalent to 129 inhabited houses, perform their physiological needs in the open air in the middle of the trees, which causes environmental pollution, thereby encourages diarrhea outbreaks and vomiting.
 

Drinking water services:
30% of the houses receive their water outside their home, which means they have to travel a short distance to obtain it, 20% of the houses (160 houses) receive their drinking water through pipes, and the remaining 50% of the houses do not receive drinking water, so they have to travel more than 500 meters to acquire water or buy it from the water trucks or in expensive 5-gallon bottles from small stores.
 

Type of cooking fuel:
25% (200 households) use liquefied petroleum gas to cook their food, and the remaining 75% use charcoal or wood to cook their food.
 

Electrical service:
95% (700 homes) have very low voltage electricity service, and 5% do not receive any electricity. It is worth noting that those with electrical service only receive an average of 5 hours of electricity during the day and 3 hours at night.
 

Communication channel:
The streets are made of dirt and have very bad conditions for vehicular traffic and for the residents, in which a lot of dust is produced by the passage of vehicles, which contributes to people getting sick. There is no established urban transport in an organized way, and the only means of transport are moto-conchos (motorcycle taxies). Regarding communication, there is no telephone service, Internet, or cable TV service.
 

Income level:
60% of the families receive an income of less than US$2.00 per day, equivalent to RD$106.38 Dominican pesos. This low income is due to the few employment opportunities in the area. For the remaining percentage, one out of every three people receives an income of less than US$1/day, equivalent to RD$53.19 Dominican pesos. 15% live from raising animals (mainly chickens). Agricultural work, such as planting yuca and other vegetables, is very scarce, equivalent to 225 people of the 1,500 adults over 35 years, and 11 of the 1,500 adults, are women who represent 5%, and there are 30% who are engaged in casual/occasional work (chiripeo), and motorcycle taxies, equivalent to 1,500 people.

The conclusion is that the residents of this community of la Piedra and those around it live in extreme poverty.