African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
55 p., Following immediate relief efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Congress provided 1.14 billion dollars for reconstruction in the Supplemental Appropriations Act. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated about 268 million dollars and other funding to construct a power plant and port to support the Caracol Industrial Park (CIP) in northern Haiti and permanent housing in several locations. This report examines USAID's (1) funding obligations and disbursements and State's reports to Congress on funding and progress; (2) USAID's progress in two CIP-related activities -- a power plant and port; and (3) USAID's progress in constructing permanent housing.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
41 p., Three years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, tens of thousands of people are still living in insecure and inadequate shelters. This report shows how Haiti's post-quake reconstruction is failing to protect and fulfill the right to adequate housing. Amnesty International has documented a pattern of forced evictions of internally displaced families, involving mass removals without notice. Forced evictions violate the rights of internally displaced people at all stages: threats prior to the eviction, violence during the eviction, and homelessness following the eviction.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
22 p., Discusses how a year and a half after a deadly earthquake devastated its capital, 650,000 victims still wait for permanent housing in more than 1,000 unstable emergency camps across Haiti as a new hurricane season arrives. If reconstruction is to right the many imbalances that have made Haiti poor and prone to disasters, violence and conflict, it is paramount that the Martelly government set out a resettlement policy rapidly that engages the victims and is less about closing the camps, more about building stable, less violent communities and not only in the capital. The pilot plan for closing six camps and resettling their residents his administration has put forward is an important first step that deserves support, but the most vulnerable camps should be added to it quickly.
Considers the potential contribution of traditional construction techniques and materials to rebuilding in Port-au-Prince and other areas in Haiti that were devastated by the 2010 earthquake. Based on different examples of housing that collapsed or was damaged by the earthquake, it shows how traditional construction systems often demonstrated better resilience to earthquakes than buildings constructed with modern materials.
37 p., Discusses the evolution of housing conditions in urban areas of Latin America and the Caribbean from 1995 to 2006 based on data from household surveys done in 18 countries that comprise 95 percent of the urban population of the region. The results indicate that, on average, the proportion of urban households facing housing shortages is declining. This decline holds for households of all income levels, particularly those in the lower quintiles of the income distribution structure. The estimates made in this study indicate that in 2006 lack of infrastructure affected almost 19 million households.
Part of a special journal issue dedicated to strategies for societal renewal in Haiti., It's not the earthquake that kills people, it's the collapse of buildings that were poorly designed and built. This case narrative describes a building model that will work for Haiti and why it is critical to use a homeowner-driven model rather than a donor-driven one.
The long-term prosperity and peace in Haiti depend on pursuing policies that have realistic prospects for implementation and are mutually coherent. Priorities include reforming the civil service and justice systems, streamlining regulations for business, reconstructing housing and infrastructure, improving schools and health care, and ensuring donor cooperation.
Recent research has shown blacks are not all equally disadvantaged when compared with whites. In some cases blacks surpass whites in terms of median income, especially foreign-born blacks. Yet, blacks fare worse when compared with whites on indicators of asset ownership. Despite that, some black ethnic groups including those with roots in the Caribbean or from Africa have been shown to have higher rates of home ownership and higher housing values than African-Americans.
Landslides pose a serious physical and environmental threat to vulnerable communities living in areas of unplanned housing on steep slopes in the Caribbean. Some of these communities have, in the past, had to be relocated, at costs of millions of dollars, because of major slides triggered by tropical storm rainfall. Even so, evidence shows that: (1) risk reduction is a marginal activity; (2) there has been minimal uptake of hazard maps and vulnerability assessments and (3) there is little on-the-ground delivery of construction for risk reduction. This article directly addresses these issues by developing a low-cost approach to the identification of the potential pore pressure changes that trigger such slides.
