Tens of thousands still living in tents 5 years after Haiti earthquake
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article6005817.html
“The needs are so immense,” said Odnell David, a Haitian government housing division chief with the Unit for Housing Construction and Public Buildings. “For you to address the housing problem in Haiti, you also have to address all of the other problems in Haiti — employment, investments, education. All have to run parallel.”
Rather than build houses, David said, the government has decided it’s better to create the environment to motivate people to construct their own homes. It’s a philosophy that the government is also pushing with foreign donors, who like the government, have struggled to make good on promises to build tens of thousands of new homes to get Haitians out of the tents.
“A lot of minor interventions are still being done in Port-au-Prince, where you will see that they are still building houses to give to people,” said David, noting that while such ventures are appreciated, they would not build Haiti’s struggling economy.
“What we are saying is you need the government to invest, the people to invest and the private sector to invest to be certain you will have durable development,” he said. “If you don’t have this combination, we will always remain in the same situation.”
New Program Launched to Make Home Mortgages Available to Haitians
http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/new-program-launched-to-make-home-mortgages-available-to-haitians
MARCH 24, 2011
The
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has announced the launch of a $47 million program to make home mortgages more widely available in Haiti.
Jointly sponsored by the
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Haiti Reconstruction Fund, the program will provide home mortgages and home-repair loans to low-income Haitians and small businesses affected by last year's earthquake. The Development Innovations Group will manage the program, pending approval by OPIC's board of directors in June after implementation details are finalized.
The program was approved last week by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, a group formed in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake to review and approve projects funded by bilateral and multilateral donors, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Funded by Haiti Reconstruction Fund ($10 million), the
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund ($3 million), and OPIC ($34 million in debt funding), the program is modeled after similar efforts that have proved successful in other parts of the developing world.
"What Haiti needs today are smart investments that will create economic opportunities and lay the groundwork for long-term, sustainable growth," said
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund CEO Gary Edson. "By providing funding for programs such as this, we're making it possible for ordinary Haitians to own their own home as well as their own future success and prosperity."
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