Temporary Housing in Haiti

Rebuilding effort in Haiti turns away from tents, By Damien Cave, February 3, 2010, New York Times: “Shifting tactics in the race to shelter an estimated one million Haitians displaced by the earthquake, aid groups on Wednesday began to de-emphasize tents in favor of do-it-yourself housing with tarpaulins at first, followed by lumber. Mark Turner, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said that a move toward ‘transitional shelters’ – built eventually with lumber and some steel – would give people sturdier structures and more flexibility. ‘Tents really have a shelf life of not much more than six months,’ Mr. Turner said. In contrast, he added: ‘You can stand up in a shelter that you build. You can start a business there.’ Officials from the migration agency said they were hoping to give people the means to create temporary housing, and the power to build where they wanted. They acknowledged that it could be five years before most people moved back into houses, which means that under the current best-case situation, Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, will soon be blanketed with hundreds of thousands of simple structures that designers describe as ‘garden sheds’ and others see as shanties…”