La Casa de Beneficencia y Maternidad de La Habana, (Spanish: The House of Charity and Maternity of Havana) was for 270 years Havana's repository of Havana's unwanted children. The House of Charity started during a time when Cuba was experiencing extreme poverty, unemployment, and corruption in the government. Corrupt leaders were plundering the public treasury and little attention was given to social assistance, health, education, or the protection of the poor: "los desamparados".