More than a year after it was approved, a Puerto Rico law ordering a temporary shelter program for residents of Vieques and Culebra in three towns of the main island (Ceiba, Fajardo and Luquillo) has not been implemented for lack of a regulation and funding. The regulation is still at the draft stage, and the 2025 law has no money assigned to carry it out.
These are the main findings of a Puerto Rico Senate investigation into Law 105-2025, which leaves it to the Housing Department and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (CTPR) to set up the shelters. The law’s three authors, Carlos "Johnny" Méndez, Omayra Martínez and José Aponte Hernández, identified no funding sources. The statute calls for identifying at least three homes or reaching collaborative agreements with lodging businesses in the three towns.
Housing and the CTPR had 120 days to prepare the regulation and have missed that deadline, according to the Senate Housing and Social Welfare Committee. The law’s statement of motives, signed by the governor in August 2025, says residents of the islands have at times had to sleep one or several days at the ferry terminal because most lack the means to pay for lodging.
Housing Secretary Luis Augusto Martínez Román favors agreements with hotels but says the department needs money and administrative resources, including costs of evaluating and selecting providers. The CTPR said it must define administrative aspects, eligibility criteria, how to apply, length of stays and reservation mechanisms, and that it has no budget allocation for the program.