What is the (re-) housing plan?
An article from AlterPresse, one of the Haiti Grassroots Watch partners, written with the participation of Haiti Grassroots Watch
Port-au-Prince, January 12, 2011 – Finally, one year after the violent earthquake, the re-housing plan has taken shape, and authorities are starting to take action.
The Neighborhood Return and Housing Reconstruction Framework, version 3, obtained by Haiti Grassroots Watch and AlterPresse, lays it all out.
Although the Framework so far still lacks official approval, it is – de facto – the plan being followed by the major players, according to Priscilla Phelps, Senior Advisor for Housing and Neighborhoods for the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC).
[Note – The document is not too different from the draft obtained by Haiti Grassroots Watch last October. See Dossier 1 for a complete discussion.]
“The document is intended to signal what the approach is going to be,” according to Phelps, one of the authors of Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing After Natural Disasters, written for the World Bank.
The 30-page Framework outlines four “pillars” of action:
1 - Return to Safe Homes in Safe Neighborhoods
2 - Relocation from Unsafe Neighborhoods and Unsafe Sites
3 - Support Outside of the Earthquake-affected Region
4 - Closure of Temporary Camps
Cover of the Neighborhood Return and Housing Reconstruction Framework,
which, according to Phelps, has been “widely commented on” by the Interministerial Council that is tasked with overseeing the housing question. The members of
the council are the ministers of Public Works, Social Affairs, Planning, Finance
and Interior.
According to Phelps and the directors of the “Shelter Cluster” which groups together the 200 non-governmental organizations (NGOs)* and agencies working on the shelter issue, the plan is good, it will assure Port-au-Prince has neighborhoods which are better planned and offer more services to their residents, and – if it is financed – it is workable.
But there is one question that is not addressed in the plan: the renters. The 168,810 non-property-owning families that were living in the camps as of last fall, according to a census conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
“With a few exceptions, the reconstruction is not going to make people homeowners who were not homeowners,” Phelps clarified.
The only solution for renters, therefore, will be… to rent.
And with 93,000 houses in need of repair, and another 90,000 needing to be rebuilt, the obstacles between a family living in a tent, and the possibility they can move into an affordable rental home, seem more immense than the 10 million cubic meters of rubble estimated to be suffocating the capital.
IOM Announces Haitians Finding Own “Solutions”
After the earthquake, some 1.3 million people were living in about 1,300 spontaneous camps. A recent census by the IOM announced that today there are only 810,000 people in about 1,150 camps.
According to the IOM, many Haitians have “found their own solutions” by moving to the provinces, finding money to repair their homes or rent a place, or they’ve moved in with relatives or friends. But there have also been many forced evictions from camps – up to 29 percent of the camps have been closed by force, and it is possible that the people who were in the camps have just moved their tents to other neighborhoods, according to Phelps as well as many human rights organizations.
Eight months from the end of its 18-month mandate, the IHRC displays a willingness to work extra hard that betrays the fact that very little has been done on the housing issue so far.
Parallel to the Framework document, the IHRC has also put out a Strategic Plan for the rest of its term in which is promises to reduce the number of camp-dwellers by 400,000 people. [Download that document here.]
Distributed to Commission members last December, the Strategic Plan foresees the return of property owners to their neighborhoods and the construction of new neighborhoods. It also announces the destruction of 27,000 “red” homes and the reparation of 24,000 “yellow” homes. Some 5,500 permanent or “transitional shelters” or “T-Shelters” will be built on new sites and 32,000 T-Shelters will also be built.
The Commission notes that it needs $350 million to reach these objectives, which only cover part of Haiti’s lodging needs – those that it deems possible to take care of during the year 2011. According to the Strategic Plan, $174 million has been committed by donors for lodging so far, but a large part of this is for T-Shelters.
Frustration
Jean-Christophe Adrian, the director of UN-HABITAT which manages the Shelter Cluster, doesn’t hide his frustration with the T-Shelters issue. Adrian – and many others, including Phelps – believe that the housing problem can only be solved via the reparation and reconstruction of permanent housing.
Nonetheless, he notes, “it took the NGOs one year to begin repairing homes.”
La zone de Turgeau. Photo: Haïti Demain, CIAT
While it’s true that some homeowners have repaired their homes using their own means, that is not possible for the very poor. To date, only 2,074 homes have been repaired with the assistance of the 200 Shelter Cluster NGOs.
The status of the refugees (property-owner or renter), the rubble, and the Haiti’s overall land ownership problem are the main challenges that have slowed the re-housing process, according to Adrian.
“The major obstacle that has been identified, and that everyone is facing, is the land ownership problem, because [the NGOs] won’t give a T-Shelter to someone who does not own land or have the agreement of a landowner,” Adrian explained.
Towards Permanent Camps and Permanent “Transitional Shelters”?
At the beginning, the Shelter Cluster and the NGOs had the idea of re-housing everyone in T-Shelters before the reconstruction of permanent housing. The 200 NGOs working on the housing issue quickly gathered $100 million in donations necessary to construct the little houses that are meant to last three years. The plan was to build 135,000 T-Shelters over 18 months.
However, today, one year after the catastrophe, only 31,600 have been built.
According to Valentina Evangelisti, Shelter Cluster coordinator for UN-HABITAT, the delay is due to the lack of land and the slow rubble removal.
Adrian told AlterPresse and Ayiti Kale Je that he thinks T-Shelters should be build right in the camps, even if they are on private property, because “people… are not going to move from where they are for at least one year, two years or three years.”
The NGOs should consider giving people T-Shelters “even if they are [living] somewhere they shouldn’t be living.”
One of the many versions of T-Shelters. Photo: CHF International
In the meantime, work will soon begin on projects in the Ravine Pentad (Guinea Hen Ravine) and Delmas 32 neighborhood. These neighborhoods will be re-planned, with better access, services, and houses repaired or rebuilt thanks to financing from the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors.
But, Adrian notes, “the idea is that we are helping people who were owners of their home.”
“The reconstruction benefits property-owners and recognizes that there will be people… who won’t have any other choice but to stay in the camps” where we can try to “give them better shelter conditions if we can take a more flexible approach to the land-ownership issue,” Evangelisti noted.
But how much time will it take to get to these “better conditions?” The NGOs have $100 million for “transitional shelters”… but the beneficiaries are without shelter. To whom should the NGOs be accountable, the donors or the would-be beneficiaries? What is or should be the role of the state, which seems more intent on focusing on its plan for 4,000 units in the Fort National neighborhood?
And, after a “transitional” life in a “transitional” camp, will it be possible for the former renters – somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 people – to save up one year’s rent so they can move into something permanent?
* Haiti Grassroots Watch considers the term "non-governmental organization" or "NGO" a bit of a misnomer because many "NGOs" receive a great deal, and sometimes all, of their funding from governments.
See also Fort National - Stuck between rubble… and doubt
Return to the introduction page for January 12 Dossier with texts and video
