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Two recently published reports on housing
and shelter in Haiti paint a disturbing picture.
A 13-page,
report by UN Habitat, published (in French) in
January 2012, says housing policy for Haitians is in a state of
"laissez-faire" (free for all). There are no strategic
guidelines or official policy in place on the part of the
Haitian government and its international allies. "There is no
coordinated program that would ensure consistency or harmony of
operations in the repair and reconstruction of houses following
the 2010 earthquake," the report says.
According to the report, there
have been 25,470 houses repaired and 15,225 new houses built in
the earthquake zone in 2010 and 2011. Unknown additional repairs
and new construction have been conducted by homeowners without
professional advice or assistance. More than 175,000 dwellings
in Port-au-Prince were severely damaged or damaged beyond repair
on Jan. 12, 2010.
A plan for Port au Prince?
A comprehensive and far-reaching report on
housing, also in French, was
published by Solidarités International in
January 2012. It looks at the history of housing in
Port-au-Prince and the actions taken since the earthquake. It is
76 pages long.
Eighty per cent of the city's
population lives in informal conditions. (p 62) The report notes
several grave consequences of the absence of urban planning and
coordination since the earthquake. One is the spread of
shantytowns in the capital region. The other is the
"impossibility" of relocating the people living in survivor
camps.
Based on the current political
conditions in Haiti, including the failure to replace the rental
housing stock lost to the earthquake, "it is certain that a
portion of the camps will not disappear."
The report is sharply critical
of the funds that have been spent on temporary shelter. The
money and effort used in such temporary measures (up to $6,000
US for shelters often imported from abroad) would be more useful
if used to build permanent housing. (p 28)
The report says the
classification of dwellings according to damage has not been
used to its full potential, including the fact that many
homeowners are unaware of the significance of the yellow
(seriously damaged) and red (must be demolished) color codes
with which their homes are marked. The coding of buildings
according to damage was one of the important post-earthquake
tasks provided by international funding and expertise.
The section of the report on
neighborhood planning and house construction for Port-au-Prince,
beginning on page 44, looks at a number of examples, good and
bad, to date. Some of the claimed successes – for example, the
training and mentoring programs of Build Change – are
established fact; other claims might be contested. The report
says that small-scale projects by Haitian and international NGOs
can be successful in local communities but do little for the
repair and re-development of the center of the city, large
districts, and the overall infrastructure of the city.
Looking at the overall planning
picture for Port-au-Prince, the report laments the fact that
international organizations are proceeding on projects "with
little coordination or exchange of views and experiences." (p
49)
Beginning on page 59, the
report looks at the performance, or lack thereof, to date of
the Haitian government. The weakness of the Haitian state, it
says, "is sadly illustrated by its absence from the urban
landscape." It notes, in passing, there are competing projects
for the re-development of the downtown, though does not mention
that all of them remain a pipe dream (see
Haiti Grassroots Watch story from nearly one year ago on the
non-reconstruction of downtown Port au Prince). "Different
projects for the center of the city, run into, as always, the
lack of means and political will on the part of the Haitian
state,” the report concludes.
The report looks in detail at
the much-publicized '16-6' resettlement project of the Haitian
and international governments. Announced in the summer of 2011,
this project aims to resettle people from six camps into 16
targeted neighborhoods). (p 63-65) Noting that the program is
entirely directed by international NGOs, it politely declines to
offer an assessment, noting that the program has been "highly
publicized in media" and has absorbed a large part of the
funding available for building new housing. As of the report's
publication, '16-6' had reached four camps and eight targeted
communities.
A recent delegation of the
Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) visited the residents of one
of the targets of ‘16-6', the large camp in Port-au-Prince's
historic square, Champ de Mars. That relocation is being
financed by the Canadian government. The
delegation's report says the relocation of Champ de Mars is
a clearance program, not one to build housing.
Of note throughout the
Solidarités International report is its focus on the role of
NGOs in assisting individual homeowners to build housing. There
is an unstated assumption that this is how entire neighborhoods
will be rebuilt or built anew. The report indicates nowhere the
need for a Haitian ministry of housing with a robust plan of
public housing works. Only a small minority of Port-au-Prince
residents own their homes.
(Originally published on rabble.ca) |
