$500 million on a temporary solution

Our Chief Operations Officer took this photo in Haiti today. “T-shelters” or “transitional shelters” are a popular solution in post-disaster situations. They’re built to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, to keep residents from being displaced again. They are expensive and subtract funds which could be used for retrofitting damaged homes or rebuilding homes. A family is living in this t-shelter, which is three years old now and clearly deteriorating.

By some estimates, the [2010 earthquake in Haiti] killed 200,000 people and made 1.3 million homeless overnight by destroying or damaging 172,000 homes or apartments. But the new projects do not necessarily house earthquake victims, over 200,000 of whom still live in tents or in the three large new slums.

In total, the new projects, with homes for at least 3,588 families, cost 88 million dollars. (In contrast, international donors and private agencies spent more than five times that amount – about 500 million dollars – on “temporary shelters” or T-shelters.)

http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/01/questions-linger-haiti-housing-projects/