Chile faces challenges in sustaining social solidarity beyond emergencies

Chile demonstrates a strong capacity for rapid mobilization during emergencies, such as severe winter storms. During this winter, the organization Hogar de Cristo provided services to 1,226 people through shelters and street routes, opening 90 additional spots to address the impact of heavy rains.

However, data from the ‘Social Cartography of Chile 2025: Rebuilding Links and Coexistence’ highlights deep-seated structural issues. Approximately 41.3% of analyzed communes face high structural vulnerability, while 14.1% experience high territorial insecurity. Despite Chile having over 475,000 civil society organizations—an increase of 83,000 since 2020—social trust remains low. Only 8% of people report they can almost always trust others, and 61% believe others would take advantage of them if given the chance.

The challenge remains to transform emergency-driven mobilization into consistent, everyday social cohesion and trust that exists outside of crisis periods.