HAITI POST-EARTHQUAKE USAID/DART OVERVIEW OF SHELTER AND

UNCLAS PORT AU PRINCE 000100 AIDAC SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID ECON PGOV PINR PREL PREF HA SUBJECT: HAITI POST-EARTHQUAKE USAID/DART OVERVIEW OF SHELTER AND SETTLEMENTS STRATEGY REF: PORT A 96; PORT A 98 ¶1. Summary. As part of the relief and recovery response, USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) is advocating for a shelter and settlements sector strategy that features a range of interventions, including host family and community support, transitional shelter programs, planned settlements, and disaster risk reduction programming within and outside Port-au-Prince. On January 28, a USG delegation headed by U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth H. Merten met with President Rene Preval to highlight the need for a broader shelter approach to complement the use of tents in order to address the extensive shelter needs in the country. During the meeting, the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (USAID/DART) outlined the need for both a shelter and settlement focus looking at land issues, disaster risk reduction, and a regional focus, not limited to the capital, and the critical need for rubble and debris removal as a pre-cursor and concurrent activity to shelter interventions. The USAID/DART reports that President Preval was very receptive to the multiple track shelter strategy presented and acknowledged the need to supplement the call for tents with other shelter materials. End summary. -------------- -------------- Post-Earthquake Shelter and Settlements Situation -------------- -------------- ¶2. In the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake, the provision of shelter and settlements assistance has emerged as a priority need in the metropolitan Port-au-Prince and other affected areas, including Leogane. According to U.N. estimates, the earthquake affected 3 million people, with upper estimates suggesting that between 1.2 and 1.5 million require shelter and settlements assistance. Prior to the earthquake, approximately 70 percent of households were renters, suggesting significant need for shelter and settlements sector interventions. ¶3. The impact of the earthquake on Haiti's economic, social, cultural, and political hub - Port-au-Prince - and environs requires "thinking outside the tent" with regard to integrating humanitarian and development assistance in a rapid and effective manner. Further, the earthquake's impacts are also national in scope, thus humanitarian action will likely have national development implications, suggesting a need to merge humanitarian action with development thinking and resources to accelerate recovery. -------------- -------------- Best Practices in Shelter and Settlements Approaches -------------- -------------- ¶4. Humanitarian community approaches to shelter and settlements sector assistance in recent tsunami- and earthquake-affected regions of the world, which are relevant to the current situation in Haiti, have included preferences for: - Plastic sheeting over tents to permit flexible application of materials, enhanced protection from inclement weather, and adherence to minimally adequate humanitarian community guidelines; - Assistance provided on or near pre-event locations where safe, over creation of camps, to reduce displacement and dislocation - Earthquake-resistant transitional shelter, over pre-fabricated structures, to promote safer, more cost-effective shelter that generates beneficial economic impacts in disaster-affected economies; and - Pre-reconstruction activities, over the larger and longer-term reconstruction effort, to reduce the complexity of that effort for the Government of Haiti (GoH). -------------- Shelter and Settlements Strategy -------------- ¶5. As part of the Haiti emergency response, USAID/OFDA will provide adequate, habitable, safe, and secure shelter to the earthquake-affected population, in accordance with Sphere standards and USAID/OFDA humanitarian assistance guidelines. (Note: The Sphere Project was launched in 1997 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),U.N., non-governmental organizations (NGOs),and donors to develop a set of universal minimum standards for humanitarian assistance and thereby improve the quality of assistance provided to disaster-affected persons and to enhance the accountability of humanitarian agencies. End note.) ¶6. USAID/OFDA and its implementing partners will implement the shelter and settlements sector strategy in collaboration with the GoH and the international community. In particular, USAID/OFDA worked closely with the Shelter and Non-Food Items (NFI) Cluster's technical advisor to draft the cluster's shelter strategy. USAID/OFDA intends to support implementing partners in locations throughout the country where the earthquake-affected population is living, regardless of whether the location was directly affected by the earthquake. USAID/OFDA's strategy features reliance on salvaged materials, self-help capacity, and social and economic networks, and informs recovery efforts with knowledge of practical earthquake-resistant construction measures. The strategy will be linked to longer-term shelter recovery programs, livelihood generation efforts, and efforts to promote disaster risk reduction, including seismic, landslide, floods, and fire hazards. -------------- Shelter and Settlements Interventions -------------- ¶7. Based on initial assessments and preliminary information to date, USAID/OFDA will fund implementing partner programs that include some of the following components: assistance to host families and communities; transitional shelter assistance; transitional settlements assistance; debris removal, salvaging, and disposal; and disaster risk reduction activities. ¶8. Preliminary information indicates that more than 230,000 people have received GoH support to travel from Port-au-Prince to departmental cities and other outlying areas. Some are staying with host families, while others have moved into spontaneous settlements, perhaps as a sheltering solution while in transit to stay with family. Host families and communities need assistance in sheltering affected family and friends. Assistance to host families and communities may include provision of plastic sheeting to help expand or repair existing shelter structures; shelter repair or building materials; and provision of basic necessities for the migrants and host families alike to prevent tension between displaced and host families. ¶9. Transitional shelter assistance could include the provision of plastic sheeting, shelter repair kits, and additional material, as appropriate, for displaced households in Port-au-Prince, earthquake-affected communities in outlying areas, and perhaps even as hosting support. Plastic sheeting is preferred over tents and pre-fabricated structures because of its flexibility, relatively low cost, familiarity among the affected population, and potential to create minimally adequate covered living space. Safe, habitable, transitional shelter solutions can be created amidst, or near, damaged or destroyed structures on safe sites. This approach, commonly referred to as "shelter-in-place" or "one warm room", would allow people to stay in pre-event locations, if desired and deemed safe, and would be a critical means of "jump starting" the longer-term rebuilding process. Transitional shelter assistance would also reduce the need to create camps, lessening displacement and security concerns. ¶10. As of January 25, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Emergency Shelter and NFI Cluster members had identified 591 spontaneous displaced persons settlements, of which 345 sites with an estimated population of 692,000 individuals have been assessed. Transitional settlements assistance may include provision of longer-term shelter - as opposed to emergency shelter - for the displaced, and provision of essential services, such as water, sanitation, electricity, and basic education to help normalize people's lives. Creation of planned humanitarian settlements - more than a camp, but less than a complete community - on vacant and underutilized land in Port-au-Prince and other communities should be considered to provide shelter for families who have lost everything and who lived in locations where rebuilding is not possible. ¶11. Debris removal, salvaging, and disposal is a critical pre-cursor activity to implementing many shelter and settlements interventions, as it increases land supply available for sheltering activities and can reduce safety and environmental concerns. This can be achieved, in part, through a range of cash-for-work activities to clean and remove rubble. In addition, salvaging usable building materials, where possible and safe, will provide the displaced population with additional shelter materials to complement materials such as plastic sheeting, metal roofing sheets, and tools. ¶12. Shelter and settlements sector interventions will incorporate earthquake-resistant design, training in earthquake-resistant construction methods, and public information campaigns in how to "Build Back Better" in areas prone to seismic, flood, wind, and fire hazards, featuring structural and non-structural risk reduction initiatives. Previous experience elsewhere indicates that earthquake-resistant construction can be safer and more cost-effective than many conventional sheltering interventions and should be promoted as part of response activities in Haiti. -------------- Challenges -------------- ¶13. The challenges posed in responding to earthquake-generated shelter and settlements needs are many, including: - Land supply in Port-au-Prince and other areas has been effectively reduced, as the earthquake generated rubble fields of considerable size, which have rendered the land underneath unusable. The rubble fields need to be reduced and removed to facilitate shelter and settlements and other humanitarian activities. - Identifying available land, in particular relatively hazard-free land, that can be used for both humanitarian and development assistance purposes is a critical issue. Legal and urban planning issues will need to be identified and addressed to begin the process of reducing disaster risk in Port-au-Prince, thus contributing to reducing the number of people located in hazard-prone areas. - Bridging the gulf between humanitarian and development assistance communities that typically exists in post-disaster shelter responses is critical in reducing the prevalence of spontaneous reconstruction. USAID/OFDA will work with USAID/Haiti on how best to facilitate the transition from response to reconstruction. - Information on the pre-earthquake housing and land market structure is critical to better understand the affected populations' needs. Some of the information needed, for example, includes percentage of renters vs. owners, informal vs. formal shares, estimates of likely earthquake impacts, map and data inventories of vacant and underutilized land, and land tenure status. It is possible that rental share of the housing market was considerable pre-event - potentially as great as 70 percent - suggesting the need to provide longer-term shelter to renters, perhaps in new locations. -------------- -------------- President Preval Receptive to Broader Shelter Approach -------------- -------------- ¶14. On January 28, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth H. Merten, Unified Coordinator for Disaster Response in Haiti Ambassador Lewis Lucke, USAID/DART Leader Tim Callaghan, and USAID/DART Shelter and Settlements Advisor Charles Setchell met with President Rene Preval and some of his Cabinet members. The USAID/DART shelter and settlements advisor highlighted the need for a broader shelter approach to complement the use of tents in order to address the extensive shelter needs. The proposed approach includes host family support, transitional shelter programs, and planned settlements within and outside Port-au-Prince. In particular, USAID/DART staff emphasized the need to support ongoing self-recovery efforts of affected populations, who prefer to remain on or near their property with appropriate transitional shelter kits comprising plastic sheeting and framing materials. ¶15. In addition, the USAID/DART shelter and settlements advisor outlined the need for both a shelter and settlement focus looking at land issues, disaster risk reduction, and a regional focus, not limited to the capital, and the critical need for rubble and debris removal as a pre-cursor and concurrent activity to shelter interventions. USAID/DART staff highlighted that shelter programs featuring salvaged materials, local labor inputs, and local materials - to the extent possible - are capable of generating significant economic benefits to advance recovery. ¶16. According to the USAID/DART, President Preval was very receptive to the multiple track shelter strategy presented and acknowledged the need to supplement the call for tents with other shelter materials. The President requested a follow-up meeting on January 29 to discuss in further detail the composition of transitional shelter kits with plastic sheeting to provide a covered living space. The USAID/DART has requested that IOM, as the Shelter and NFI Cluster lead, prepare a presentation for the GoH on non-tent shelter interventions. MINIMIZE CONSIDERED MERTEN