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DE RUEHPU #0100/01 0290243
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O 290221Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0074
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0277
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA IMMEDIATE
INFO RHMFISS/HQ USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL IMMEDIATE
RHMFISS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEHDG/AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO IMMEDIATE
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE

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. 
 
 
 
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Post-Earthquake Shelter and Settlements Situation 
 
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¶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. 
 
 
 
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Best Practices in Shelter and Settlements Approaches 
 
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¶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). 
 
 
 
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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. 
 
 
 
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Shelter and Settlements Interventions 
 
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¶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. 
 
 
 
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Challenges 
 
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¶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. 
 
 
 
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President Preval Receptive to Broader Shelter Approach 
 
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¶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