Displaced Peoples' Camps & the Urgency of Housing

"The quantity of people who are homeless in Port-au-Prince today is not acceptable. We need the support of other governments, like the US, to demand that the Haitian Government create a social housing plan. We are looking for allies to help our advocacy. We are asking simply for quality homes where people can live." - Jackson Doliscar of the grassroots group Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA).

by Deepa Panchang
June 29, 2012

“Where you stand,” goes an old Haitian proverb, “depends on where you sit.” This article, the second in a series, will examine aid workers’ stereotypes and prejudices about residents of displacement camps in post-earthquake Haiti, stemming from acute disconnect between NGOs and the people they are there to work with. We explore how these misperceptions have perpetuated deliberate decisions to deny water and sanitation services to desperate survivors.

URGENT ACTION: HAITIAN FAMILIES AGAIN FACING FORCED EVICTION
Update from Amnesty International on the families in Grace Village
June 15, 2012

Hundreds of Haitian families are facing forcible eviction from a refugee camp where they have been living since the January 2010 earthquake. Representatives of the landowner, and local police officers, have been threatening and harassing them.

By Deepa Panchang
May 31, 2012

“Cholera is something they sent,” says graffiti on Port-au-Prince walls, “to finish killing off the rest of us.”

Scientists have shown that the cholera pathogen came to Haiti with foreign UN troops who carried the bacteria in their bodies, and whose military base was dumping its sewage into a nearby river. The imported disease has claimed more than 7,000 lives and continues to ravage communities across Haiti. Despite billions in post-earthquake aid dollars and hundreds of humanitarian NGOs, the country still faces a dearth of water and sanitation services, further fueling the epidemic. Nearly half a million internally displaced people (IDPs) still live since the 2010 earthquake in makeshift camps under tarps, torn tents, and pieces of old fabric and cardboard, an ideal environment for cholera. The situation raises serious questions about the humanitarian mechanism and its priorities. Why do so many people still lack the most basic of services? What factors are guiding humanitarian agencies’ decisions to provide or withhold them?

Human rights defenders in Haiti are concerned with a recent upsurge in violence against displaced people. One camp was arsoned over the weekend and others face imminent, illegal eviction. Over the course of the past week, Amnesty International, who has been working closely with the Haitian right to housing movement, has released two urgent action alerts regarding camp evictions. Take a moment to read and respond to the alert below. 

Human rights defenders in Haiti are concerned with a recent upsurge in violence against displaced people. One camp was arsoned over the weekend and others face imminent, illegal eviction. Over the course of the past week, Amnesty International, who has been working closely with the Haitian right to housing movement, has released two urgent action alerts regarding camp evictions. Take a moment to read and respond to the alert below. 

URGENT ACTION: FAMILIES AT RISK OF FORCED EVICTION IN HAITI
Alert from Amnesty International

Hundreds of families living in a camp for internally displaced people in Carrefour, in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, are being harassed and intimidated and are at imminent risk of forced eviction.

By Alexis Erkert
March 28, 2012

When police and the landowner commanded Michelène Pierre to vacate her tent on a Sunday afternoon so that they could light it on fire, she responded: “If you want to light me on fire along with this entire camp, go ahead. I’m not leaving.” The police bypassed her tent, but continued to threaten other residents of Camp Kozbami, setting flame to six tents.

Camp Kozbami is the fifth camp to be arsoned in two months. As landowners and the government push to close camps inhabited by those displaced by the earthquake that rocked Haiti 26 months ago, a reported 94,632 individuals are facing forced eviction.

March 6, 2012

The images of devastation in Alabama and surrounding states as a result of last week’s tornadoes have sincerely touched Haitians that are still recovering from the effects of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The following message of solidarity from the Haitian housing coalition, FRAKKA, goes out to all those who have been affected by the storms in the US: