During the last decades, public housing policy in Chile has undergone a number of changes to tackle the problem of informal settlements in Chile, including eradication through the relocation of families living in informal habitats. However, a new strategy is used for 1997 onwards: regularisation. This document explores the urbanisation experience of the largest camp in the country, which is currently in the process: the Manuel Bustos camp. From an ethnographic perspective, with autoethnography hints, the aim is to investigate the perceptions of the camp’s inhabitants of that process, emphasising not only the technical aspects of the process, but also the tensions and positive aspects that have emerged as a result of the process. Therefore, the present investigation argues that this new strategy in practice maintains certain aspects of the previous public policy, which leads to tensions both in the State/Community relationship and in the links within the population. Despite this, positive aspects are promoted within the camp, as is the role of the social leadership.