Ms. Carmona lost her first home in a deadly mudslide in 1999 and spent five years bouncing between government-run shelters. In 2004, she received a thrilling call from the government: She would attend a meeting at Mr. Chávez’s presidential mansion, La Casona, where he would personally award her a new home.

She moved into her two-bedroom home with nine members of her family. But problems soon emerged. Ms. Carmona realized there were no places to buy groceries, few schools and no public spaces for residents. These days, there is water for only four hours once a week.

Mr. Chávez’s government had promised her and others the titles to their homes. But Ms. Carmona received only a laminated piece of paper saying she was allowed to live there. If she leaves, it is unclear if she will be able to find anywhere else to live.

“It’s like jail here,” she said.

Franco Micucci, an architect who worked on Ciudad Miranda, says its social problems are not unique and will be as much a challenge to Venezuela’s new leaders as they were to Mr. Chávez’s movement. He says that he and colleagues originally drew up plans for public spaces and services like schools and grocery stores for residents at Ciudad Miranda. But the government built only the homes.

“I’m not surprised residents want to leave that place,” he said. “Me and many architects were optimistic,” but in the end “Ciudad Miranda is like ‘Ciudad de Dios,’” he added, using the Spanish name for “City of God,” a Brazilian film about the drug-ridden slums of Rio de Janeiro.