ARTICLE - REHOUSING IS NO EASY TASK

REHOUSING HAITI'S EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS IS NO EASY TASK
(Guardian.co.uk) - By Prospery Raymond

Land for housebuilding is in short supply, ownership is often contested, and there's a policy to help people move away from Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince

I get disheartened sometimes when I drive around Port-au-Prince. It is almost a year and a half since the earthquake and there are still an estimated 600,000 people living under canvas. With the hurricane season starting again, people without permanent shelter in the capital are particularly vulnerable.

To outsiders, this looks like yet more evidence of the "failure" of the humanitarian effort since the earthquake. Yet, like so many intractable problems, the factors slowing down the building of permanent homes are a lot more complicated – and it is not something that NGOs can address on their own.

The vast majority of people living in the capital were renting their accommodation. Very few of the people who owned the properties they were living in had insurance against earthquake damage. Even fewer had properly registered land titles proving their ownership of the land. And finally, the crowded nature of the city and lack of infrastructure has made it very difficult to clear the rubble.

So, while some money was available from donations to build new homes for the homeless, suitable land to build on has been in very short supply. There is no point in building on land where the ownership is contested. The people rehoused would be at risk of being evicted in the future.

This was a problem even before the earthquake. Land registry is not computerised, and records are often lost or lodged incorrectly. A colleague of mine in the field office fell foul of this several years ago when he tried to buy a plot of land for a house. He paid 50% of the purchase price, but when he went to the notary to sign the deeds, he found that it was jointly owned by five siblings and two of them did not want to sell. So far he has only received 10% of his money back. The person he paid it to had already spent it by the time he reached the notary. Unfortunately, this is a familiar story in Haiti and makes people reluctant to enter into property transactions.

Apart from providing some funding and housebuilding expertise, there is little that NGOs can do to tackle these underlying problems. They do not – and should not – have the authority of the Haitian state.

Another major factor that has slowed rebuilding is the fact that people also need access to employment. There is no point building lots of houses on derelict land far away from any earning possibilities.

A completed house in Anse-a-Pitres. Photograph: Kate Ferguson/Christian Aid Christian Aid has concentrated its rebuilding efforts in the countryside in line with the Haitian government's policy of decentralisation. Many people moved to the capital from the country over the last few decades as it became more and more difficult to earn a living off the land.

By providing new homes and livestock to families who want to make a new start in the country, we are trying to reverse the trend that led to the capital being overcrowded and dangerous.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, many of the NGOs and others who arrived to help had no previous experience of working in Haiti. They had no way of influencing the government, or contacts with communities outside the city, so the easiest way to help was by providing emergency relief in the capital. Rebuilding homes takes time and connections.

Even more disgracefully, some NGOs were reluctant to build in remote areas where journalists and donors are unlikely to venture. If you cannot demonstrate your good work, does it have any value? It is a question some institutions ask themselves.

A policy to help people move back to the country and to other cities may not look as good in the short term. But it is the only way that people will have a real chance of building new lives for themselves.