Blog #8 Shelters Don't Shelter Haiti's Needy

In this article it discusses the misuse of T-homes given to families in Haitis. It states that 34 of the 84 families who received temporary houses didn’t live in them, and that 11 families got two houses from two different humanitarian organizations. The emergency shelters distributed around the town were not passed out fairly. In the article also states that a farmer, her husband and six children used to live in a four-room concrete home that was destroyed during the earthquake in Haiti, whose epicentre lies about 25 kilometres away. The family is now cramming into a shack made of wood, cloth and plastic. These are not fit for any family let alone a family of six. Making many T-shelters for these families are beneficial but is still not fit to live in. Many shelters in America are not worse than these. There were 300,000 people in need of shelter following the earthquake in Haiti. In order to get a T-shelter families had to prove that they owned land or had a long-term lease. Moreover, over two-thirds of the post-quake refugee families-some 200,000 families were renters, meaning they were not eligible for the structures. 

 On the other hand, the shelters distributed around were not passed out fairly; many families were given homes and were not staying in them. This made it difficult for the families that were turned down when trying to get a home. People that didn’t need shelters still got shelters, which shows us how society put people in groups according to what they have. Many families did not understand the matter of how they could get a home and was not given any information. In addition to this, not knowing the region, the researchers were fooled by people who pretended that abandoned, destroyed homes belonged to them. It was very possible that some people were not honest when signing up for the homes.

http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/03/15/13026