Vikram
Gandhi, VICE on HBO correspondent traveled to Haiti to
see just what happened with the $10 billion in aid
pledged after the earthquake that occurred more than
five years ago. The episode aired at 11 PM EST on Apr.
24.
In a
sneak peek, Gandhi
goes to the site of a
housing expo held in
2011. Organized by the Interim Haiti Reconstruction
Commission led by Bill Clinton, the expo was meant to
showcase model homes that could be built across the
country. With more than a million made homeless, and
hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed,
providing new housing was seen
as key to “building back better.”
“If we do this housing properly, it will lead to
whole new industries being started in Haiti, creating
thousands and thousands of new jobs and permanent
housing,” Clinton stated after the earthquake.
But, as Gandhi shows, the expo never had the
intended impact. Instead, the homes were abandoned and
left to decay. Now, years later, the model houses have
been occupied by residents, creating a new community in
the rubble of the international community’s broken
promises.
Gandhi speaks with CEPR Research Associate Jake
Johnston, who explains how the U.S.’ premier aid agency,
USAID, had
an ambitious plan to
build some 15,000 houses. But while costs nearly doubled
to over $90 million, currently only 2,600 are planned
and only 900 have been built thus far. USAID is no
longer involved in new housing construction.
Seven hundred and fifty of the 900 houses were
built far from the earthquake, in Caracol, the site of
the international community’s flagship reconstruction
project, the Caracol Industrial Park. Since the filming
of the VICE investigation,
more information has to come to
light about the houses in Caracol. While
residents are being asked to pay rent and eventually
take ownership of the houses, internal assessments
conducted by the Army Corp of Engineers and USAID
revealed that the houses were
poorly constructed,
with substandard concrete, roofs that are not properly
attached and broken sanitation system that causes sewage
to flood the area during rains. Both USAID contractors
involved
have been suspended
from receiving further contracts while a legal
investigation is being conducted.
With only around 9,000 new homes built by
international donors and NGOs since the earthquake,
hundreds of thousands of residents have taken to the
outskirts of Port-au-Prince, to an area known as Canaan,
without government services or infrastructure of any
kind. While little has been done to address the
burgeoning crisis, from the hills of Canaan, one can see
a new $18 million sports complex built by the Olympic
Committee.
Johnston tells Gandhi that while billions were
spent, much of the funds went to the short-term
emergency response, which left little lasting impact.
Meanwhile, Haitian organizations were largely bypassed
in favor of beltway firms. “The big question that’s been
on everyone’s mind is where did the money go? And I
think that’s when we enter this sort of
‘black box’,”
Johnston says in the episode. “For every dollar that
USAID spends, less than a penny actually goes directly
to any Haitian organizations,” he added.
Yesterday, the
Chronicle of Philanthropy published
an interview with
Gandhi. "Do we understand what aid is, for real? And is
there really a system of accountability that is out
there?" Mr. Gandhi told
The Chronicle.
"I think the answer is no, after being in Haiti and
seeing how money was spent there." |