Two years after the earthquake, half a million Haitians live in tents

Days after the devastating earthquake of 2010 that killed her daughter and destroyed his home, Meristin Florival and his family spread a canvas on a hill in the Haitian capital and settled to live in that place. Have there not been moved.

A few kilometers, Jean Rony Alexis moved out of the camp where he stayed several months after the earthquake to a precarious shack built the Red Cross. But it is not much better. The rent doubled and has neither running water nor work.

"I see no benefit," said Alexis, a street vendor, who now lives in a shack where echoes the noise of a nearby bar, the "Frustration Bar".

Florival and Alexis were among the hundreds of thousands of Haitians whose lives have barely improved since the earthquake, despite the arrival of an unprecedented amount of help from the outside.

The Secretary general of the Nations United Ban Ki-mun, former US President Bill Clinton and others u000aThey pledged to "build a better Haiti" than the previous. However, many Haitians not perceived any improvement in their situation, however 2.380 million of dollars in reconstruction.

Initially grand plans have been announced and it was said that a modern city that would give better living conditions to its 3 million people would emerge from the rubble. But now the Government seems to be focusing on the basic things, tackling projects that seek to create housing for displaced persons in their old neighborhoods, renew infrastructure and find work people through friends.

There are several reasons for the slow progress. In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, is often not clear who were the owners of the land and this creates bureaucratic. There was also a political standoff that lasted more than one year, which still affects the taking of decisions.

After the earthquake there were elections to u000athey were questioned and led to riots. Port-au-Prince was paralyzed three days and the international airport was closed.

Even after resolved the issue and that Michel Martelly assumed the Presidency in May of 2011 there were new problems. Martelly, a star of the pop music without political experience, took six months to nominate a first Minister in charge of overseeing the reconstruction. He angered the opposition when the Government stopped a member without following legal procedures and also to appoint a Prime Minister without consulting them. Responded obstructing all its movements.

Six months Martelly ruled with former Government Ministers. "It created a situation in which it was difficult to do things", said the new Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe to the Associated Press.

Another victim of the standoff was headed by Clinton, Special Envoy of the United Nations, working group for the u000alegislators refused to renew his mandate, on the grounds that there were few Haitians. There are those who believe that this was an excuse and that the aim was to harm Martelly. Thus six months there was no body to coordinate the construction of homes.

While much, was not unusual to find State employees asleep at their desks, waiting for orders that never came.

The Government and international agencies say that there has been some progress, such as the construction of 600 classrooms receive 60,000 students, the cleaning of almost 10 million cubic meters of rubble and the paving of streets and roads.

But the camps, the most visible symbol of the earthquake, are still present on the slopes of the hills surrounding the capital or locked between the alleys of the city on 12 January 2010 Haiti was Government by an earthquake as they had ever seen and there is talk of more than 300,000 u000adead. Nobody thought that two years later, followed the capital in ruins. Refugee camps resulted in real neighborhoods marginal.

After the initial emergency, in that priority was given to food and medicine, the main need was to give housing to 1.5 million people left homeless. More than 400,000 buildings were destroyed totally or partially by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Already two years passed and the shortage of housing remains the greatest problem.

More than 550,000 people still vivien in grim camps and densely populated, and many of those who went from those sites, evicted or because they got a House, say that their situation has hardly improved, and in some cases worsened.

Some say that the housing shortage reflected failures of reconstruction.

"Certainly does not believe that (the reconstruction) was a success," stated Alex Dupuy, Haitian Professor of psychology u000athat teaches at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, United States. "Installed a Government, but I do not see any other sign of recovery".

In the first year after the earthquake, the Government did not create a body to build homes or worked out a clear housing policy. Meanwhile, the refugee camps were filled because international aid did reach things that the Government not supplied: water, electricity and hinodoros.

None of the 10 projects that have better funding focuses exclusively on housing. In the most publicized initiative, the U.S. Army and actor Sean Penn carried 5,000 ground in Corail Cesselesse, North of the capital, where was to build the first planned community in the country, with factories and housing for 300,000 people.

The project was never carried out.

The inhabitants of Corail Cesselesse support constant flooding and u000aThey cooked in the heat of the Sun in precarious housing. They live far from the sites where working and say feel abandoned.

"Is as if there was not a Government, said Stanley Xavier, a man of 30 years than in the past was driving and taxi and he is not currently working. "When we pulled out of the golf club where we were, made many pledges".

"Told that they would work", he said his neighbor Jocelyn Belzince, 39 years. He noted then that it had to become an extorsionista and that charged $250 people by a terrain that is not your property.

"Do this to survive." "I have to feed my children," he added with a smile. "Many people are doing the same thing".

The new Government of Martelly began building two housing complexes: 400 houses in the Bay and other 3,000 at the foot of a deforested mountain. The Chancellor Lamothe said that 40 million of aid offered by Venezuela will be used for u000adevelop the southern coastal town of Jacmel, to try to decongest capital.

The Government's current strategy seems to be that the survivors return to their old neighborhoods, including marginal sectors. This allows to ignore the issue of ownership of land and located people near his old friends, who can help them achieve work.

In a project called "6/16", residents of six camps are being installed in 16 districts to be developed. Several thousand people have already left the tents.

The plan covers 5% of the displaced population, but authorities say that is a pilot program that can be repeated in other sites

People you can pay a subsidised annual rent of $500 to the owner of the House or accept money to build or rebuild your home. Also receive $150 for the move

"Continue in tents two years after the earthquake is ruled out" u000asaid Nicole Widdersheim, the Agency for the development international de United States.

"6/16" features of $ 125 million contributed by the World Bank and the Fund for the reconstruction of Haiti, which administers the BM.

Many people lived in tents, moved to old departments the poor neighborhood of Jalousie, which seems to be emerging a sense of community.

Marise Nelson, a woman with a son and that expected another, received $ 500 for a Fund for assistance to rent a year and says that not strange at all the camp where he lived two years.

"Not could find food." "There was no water," said the housewife 26.

He says he likes its housing of a bedroom, neighbours, the water well and the small shops of clothes.

"The big difference is that I can keep my house clean," he said while it cooked rice and watch to his daughter.

Meristin Florival would like to be able to say the same. In u000achange, must support neighbors who use plastic bags for their biological needs and then throw them on the top of the neighbors.

Alexis and his wife, Darlene Claircin, feel happy to have a roof and a room with a table and a bed, but they claim that his life is not better than in the tents.

"It is the same," said Alexis. "He suffered there and suffer here".

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