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13 January 2011
By Bill
Quigley
One year
after the January 12 2010 earthquake, more than a
million people remain homeless in Haiti. Homemade
shelters and tents are everywhere in Port au Prince.
People are living under plastic tarps or sheets in
concrete parks, up to the edge of major streets, in
the side streets, behind buildings, in between
buildings, on the sides of hills, literally
everywhere.
UNICEF
estimates that more than 1 million people – 380,000 of
them children – still live in displacement camps.
"The
recovery process" as UNICEF says, "is just
beginning."
One of the
critical questions is how many people remain without
adequate housing. While there are fewer big camps of
homeless and displaced people, there has been
extremely little rebuilding. The UN reported that
97,000 tents have been provided since the quake.
Tents are an improvement over living under a sheet but
they are not homes. Many families have lived many
places in the last year circulating from rough
shelters to tents to camps to other camps to living
alongside other families.
It is
important to understand that families may leave the
huge unsupervised camps and still be homeless
someplace else – like a tent in another part of the
city or country. Moving from one type of
homelessness to another cannot be allowed to be
declared progress against homelessness and
displacement.
The key
human rights goal is housing, not moving out of the
displacement camps.
One
illustration of the housing challenge facing the
Haitian people can be found in a recent report from
the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The IOM December report announced a reduction in the
number of persons remaining in displacement camps.
The IOM then wrongly concluded that the number of
people displaced and homeless was reduced accordingly.
Why is this conclusion wrong? Because the IOM
report does not even try to track where displaced
persons go after they leave a particular camp. They
equate homeless families moving out of displacement
camps as families finding housing.
These types
of erroneous conclusions are not only misleading but
threaten to hinder badly needed relief efforts one
year after Haiti's devastating earthquake.
Careful
consideration of the IOM report provides an
opportunity to examine some of the many important
housing challenges still facing Haitians.
IOM
Assertion: "We finally start to see light at the end
of the tunnel for the earthquake-affected
population…these are hopeful signs that many victims
of the quake are getting on with their lives." IOM
reported there has been a 31% decrease in the number
of internally displaced people living on IDP sites in
Haiti since July.
Fact:
Getting on with their lives? Of an estimated 1,268
displacement camps, at least 29% have been forcibly
closed – meaning tens of thousands of people have been
evicted, often through violent means. Many
who are forcibly evicted from one site move on to set
up camp for their families in another location, which
is often more dangerous. This is not getting on with
life; this is searching for less dangerous places for
the family tent.
IOM
Assertion: People with houses labeled red
(uninhabitable or extremely dangerous) or yellow (in
need of repair) have "chosen to return to the place of
origin or nearby to establish a shelter."
Fact: As
of December 16, 2010, only 2,074 of the estimated
180,000 destroyed houses had been repaired and a small
percentage of rubble had been cleared. Decisions by
desperate homeowners to move back into still destroyed
homes is hardly progress.
It is also
not even possible for large numbers of people who were
renters to return to their destroyed homes. The
destruction of more than 180,000 private residences
coupled with influx of international aid workers has
made Haiti's rental market soar. An estimated 80% of
those rendered homeless by the earthquake were renters
or occupiers of homes without any formal land title.
Current rents are unreachable by the majority of
displaced Haitians, many of whom who lost their means
of livelihood during the earthquake. The IOM admits
"The lack of land tenure and the destruction of many
houses in already congested slums left many of those
displaced with few options but to remain in
shelters."
IOM
Assertion: "Some households rendered homeless after
the earthquake left congested Port au Prince
all-together going home to the regions. Others sent
their children to the countryside for a better life."
Fact:
Rural Haiti before the earthquake was home to 52% of
the population, 88% of which was poor and 67% was
extremely poor. Rural residents had a per capita
income one third of the income of people living in
urban areas and extremely limited access to basic
services. Disaster response following the earthquake
has not tackled the extreme structural violence that
exists in rural areas, and Hurricane Tomas further
destroyed livelihoods of rural communities. People
moving from displacement camps in the city to living
in a tent in the countryside have not really moved out
of homelessness, they have just moved.
IOM
Assertion:
"Surviving
in poor living conditions during the long hurricane
season has persuaded many to seek alternative housing
solutions."
Fact:
Homeless people are always seeking "alternative
housing solutions." Camp conditions even before
Hurricane Tomas and the cholera outbreak revealed that
displaced Haitians were in camps because they had no
"alternative housing solutions." According to a study
conducted by CUNY Professor Mark Schuller before both
Hurricane Tomas and the outbreak of cholera, 40% of
displacement camps did not have access to water, and
30% did not have toilets of any kind. Only 10% of
families even had a tent, many of which were ripped
beyond repair during the hurricane season; the rest
were sleeping under tarps or even bed sheets. A study
conducted even earlier by the Institute of Justice &
Democracy in Haiti found that 78% of families lived
without enclosed shelter; 44% of families primarily
drank untreated water; 27% of families defecated in a
container, a plastic bag, or on open ground in the
camps; and 75% of families had someone go an entire
day without eating during one week and over 50% had
children who did not eat for an entire day.
Human
rights promise housing, not just forcing people away
from displacement camps. Haiti needs
practical
and sustainable solutions for re-housing along with
services and protections for the people still
homeless.
One year
later, it is critically important for the
international community to assist Haitians to secure
real housing. The million homeless Haitians and the
hundreds of thousands who have moved out of the large
homeless camps into other areas are our sisters and
brothers and still need our solidarity and help.
By Bill Quigley and Jeena Shah. Bill is Legal
Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a
law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a
long-time Haiti advocate. Jeena Shah is a lawyer
serving in Port au Prince as a Lawyers' Earthquake
Response Network Fellow with the Bureau des Avocats
Internationaux and the Institute for Justice and
Democracy in Haiti. Contact Bill at
quigley77@gmail.com and Jeena at
Jeena@ijdh.org |
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