“Transition to what?”
part 3 of 3
published August 23, 2011
Who is in charge?
One of the biggest challenges to the reconstruction efforts, especially the reconstruction of lodging, has been the lack of leadership.
In fact, Haiti has a social housing agency: the Entreprise Publique de Promotion de Logements Sociaux (EPPLS - Public Agency for the Promotion of Social Housing). Prior to the earthquake it was involved in constructing and overseeing some housing projects, but most have escaped the agency’s control. Residents mostly don’t pay rents to the state and in many cases, EPPLS doesn’t even know who occupies the apartments.
Since January 12, EPPLS has been “very sought after,” Director Elonge Othélot told Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW), although he admitted that its budget has not significantly increased. But, he noted, over the past 17 months he has been to many meetings with national and international organizations and agencies.
“There is an idea to turn EPPLS into a serious institution,” Othélot said.
Idea or not, 17 months after the earthquake, one thing is clear. The EPPLS parking lot is full of rotting vehicles and it has yet to construct or even repair a single home.
Yard of EPPLS, full of rusting vehicles.
All actors recognize the leadership vacuum problem. A PowerPoint prepared by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) housing team eight months ago didn’t beat around the bush.
The presentation, obtained by HGW, listed as major challenges :
• Multiplicity of non-governmental actors in the reconstruction
• Multiplicity of public organisms with part of the power; no agency overseeing the whole; absence of global policy.
Interviewed even earlier, in October, 2010, the then-coordinator of the Shelter Cluster was already publicly highlighting the lack of leadership problem, calling for “all levels of the government to get together and speak with one voice.” [See part 1 of What is the Plan for Haiti's Homeless?] (The United Nations mechanism used after disasters, the "Cluster system," can only make suggestions. The Clusters lack the power to make decisions. That must come from the government. See The Cluster System in Haiti)
That was almost a year ago.
This month, almost the same observation.
Priscilla Phelps, Senior Housing and Neighborhoods Advisor for the CIRH, told HGW that a stronger government presence might have assured a better use of some of the T-Shelter funds.
“In the absence of a policy dialog about the pros and cons of different uses of the humanitarian funds for shelter, and of any specific requirements, the international organizations chose the solutions most practical for individual organizations to implement,” she said, adding: “It is hard to fault them for these decisions.”
More recently, a UN mission to Haiti “deplored” the general lack of coordination for development assistance.
According to Le Nouvelliste, following a visit earlier this summer, the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), noted that “[the] coordination of international aid is not sufficient. This leads to duplications and reduces the efficiency of the interventions,” adding that “the dispersion of activities is often lamented.”
Beyond the transition
To focus solely on the 116,000 T-Shelters would be to give a skewed picture of the reconstruction. In fact, several large-scale housing construction and reconstruction projects have been approved and are already in the works.
For example, 17,000 homes will be repaired or built from the ground up as part of a project that will transform the Delmas 32 neighborhood in the capital.
All told, the big projects approved by the CIRH, funded by the World Bank, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), various bilateral donors, and the Haitian government, total $254.5 million and would fix or build 41,759 homes will be repaired or built from scratch. [See chart in part 2]
But a closer look at the numbers reveals :
• The amount spent on T-Shelters – likely between US$200 million and US$300 million – is about the same what is currently available for the major housing construction and reconstruction projects. Who audits these budgets to see where the money goes, anyway? HGW asked five agencies for figures, but only heard back from one.
• A total of 68,025 homes will be repaired or built by the humanitarian agencies and the big, CIRH-approved projects. That’s an impressive figure. But it is less than half the 171,584 homes were damaged or destroyed on Jan. 12, 2010 (according to the IHRC.) Even if one generously estimates that one-third of the T-Shelters (38,280) can be made into permanent homes, that still means that only 106,305 homes are to be repaired or built. What about the other 65,279 dwellings?
• Whether or not they were necessarily well-conceived, the René Préval government’s two big social housing projects in the capital – Fort National and « La Piste », which were slated to serve 8,000 families – have been halted, at least for the moment. (A smaller project for La Piste is reportedly going forward.)
• At least 5,400, and perhaps more, of the new homes will be constructed near the new North Industrial Park, a huge assembly factory park which was already in the planning phases prior to the earthquake. While it’s not impossible that earthquake victims will inhabit those homes, it seems unlikely.
• None the large projects is slated for the Palms region.
• Finally, most of the construction and repairs will be for home- or landowners, not renters.
Indeed, the government-approved “"Neighborhood Return and Housing Reconstruction Framework” notes that "[r]eturn and reconstruction will not change the tenancy status of earthquake affected households: the goal is to restore owners and renters to an equivalent status as before the earthquake, but in safer conditions."
Among the solutions being discussed for former renters are grants, although a final consensus, number and strategy have yet to emerge.
In the meantime, the rental stock has declined considerably at the same time as rents have risen. According to the Institut Haïtien de Statistique et d’Informatique (IHSI), prices for the combined category “Housing rental, energy and water” are up over 16 percent since the earthquake.
Today, 17 months after the earth shook, the over one-half a million people living in mostly squalid camps can’t even count on the tiny shelter they have. Landowners and city officials continue to carry out expulsions, which are illegal according to international law.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees camps, 58,993 people at 93 sites were evicted or “partially evicted” by landowners between June 2010 and May 31, 2011. As of May 31, 2011, IOM counted 133,484 “threatened with eviction."
Source: IOM
The new government, which says it opposes the evictions, but which has so far not intervened to halt them, appears to be taking a more determined approach to the housing and resettlement issue, according to Phelps.
"The Martelly government is defining a clear strategy for housing and neighborhood reconstruction, and is already advancing with its implementation," she told HGW.
Indeed, Martelly recently organized a “Reconstruction Week.” Among other activities, he unveiled plans to rebuild ministries, announced a new fixed-rate mortgage program called "Kay Pa M" (My House) and inaugurated a “housing exposition” of model homes. He also inaugurated "400 in 100," a project of the government Fonds d'Assistance Économique et Social (FAES - Fund for Economic and Social Assistance) agency.
Using a $30 million BID grant, FAES promised to build 400 new homes for earthquake victims in Zoranje, north of the capital. The homes are part of a project which will construct 2,000 homes, at least 400 for North Industrial Park workers.
The Building Back Better Communities housing exposition – with 64 model anti-earthquake homes chosen out of some 300 competitors during a one-year series of contests and conferences – cost another US$2 million. The resulting model homes mostly sell for between $10,000 and $20,000. With most Haitians learning less than US$2 a day, and un- and under-employment pegged at about 65 percent (65%), chances are the vast majority won’t be able to buy a home, let alone the land on which to put it.
One of the model homes on display.
Kay Pa M, the new mortgage program is equally restrictive. Aimed at people who have had a full-time, private or public-sector job for at least three years, have “a regular and sufficient professional revenue, a valid property title” and “a construction permit,” like the expo houses, the program is clearly meant for a specific public.
It certainly will be useful to the country’s small middle classes, but it leaves Haiti’s homeless out in the sun, the rain, and the cholera.
If there were any doubt about what the Martelly-led reconstruction will look like, that was erased the during Reconstruction Week when the president announced “It is understood that there will be no gifts of housing.”
Phelps and the CIRH housing team don’t necessarily disagree with this approach.
In a presentation called “Building the Bridge While We Walk On It” and prepared last April, they suggested multiple strategies to get people out of camps and into transitional settlements, rapid repairs and construction of rental units, and “a unified financial assistance strategy for households,” but didn’t mention free permanent homes for previous renters.
Phelps did say, in an interview with HGW, that she hopes there will funding and mechanisms enabling more participation from affected communities, since “People are almost always better at solving their own problems than outsiders."
And, she added, “a critical need is still for resources to reinforce the institutions of the government of Haiti.”
Lawyer Patrice Florvilus, who heads the Office of Oppressed People Defenders and which assists eviction victims, agrees with the crucial role the state must play.
“If the situation is the way it is today, if the NGOs are wasting money, the first instance responsible is the Haitian state. Because it is the one in charge of controlling all the institutions functioning in the country,” he told HGW.
Since January 12, Florvilus added, “both the NGOs and the state have failed. In fact, their failures call into question the structure of our state.”
But Flovilus does not think the current government, or the current state, is up to addressing the structural reasons behind the huge death toll, the land issue, and the vast inequalities in Haiti.
According to Florvilus, land expert Bernard Ethéard [see part 1] and others, most “private” property is actually state land that was handed out by various regimes to its friends.
Florvilus noted that:
“Only 5% of the population has legal land titles. And when the so-called landowners want to do an eviction and you ask them to go court, they won’t go. Because they don’t really have titles!
I heard someone say… ‘The people in the camps didn’t have homes before the earthquake anyway.’ Yes, it’s true. They didn’t have homes! Now is the time for us to question the structure of our society.
Why does one category of people have homes and another does not.”
End of part 3
Go to "Being Broke is Nothing"
Return to the Introduction and watch the video
