OTTAWA – The Canadian government is marking the second anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake by promising to help resettle thousands of Haitian families still left homeless as well as their businesses.
Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda, who is in Haiti, announced the federal government will funnel $19.9 million over two years into the country to help 20,000 people, currently living in a landmark park, find permanent homes.
The park, called Champs de Mars, faces the Haitian Parliament building. Once a celebrated public space, it became one of the four largest camps for internally-displaced persons following the 35-second, 7.0 magnitude earthquake which killed 300,000 and left 1.5 million homeless in 2010.
Two years later, more than half a million people still live in squalid camps or temporary shelters, a situation that has left displaced persons vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera.
Spurred on by frustration with the slow progress, there has been a push to relocate quake victims. The U.S. Agency for International Development has already moved to help thousands of people by giving them a one-time $500 payout to cover rent for one year.
The program announced by Oda on Wednesday will take a similar tact. With the help of the United National Development Programme and other multilateral organizations, the Canadian money will help match camp residents with case workers who will help them find rental accommodation or repair their homes using one-year subsidies.
The Canadian government expressed disappointment with the slow pace of Haiti’s reconstruction, which it says was hampered by political crises and a cholera epidemic, but Oda said there is new momentum in Haiti.
“This is not a temporary situation. We are not moving people out of a space into another space. We are moving people into homes and back into neighbourhoods. This is true development,” she said during a teleconference from Haiti on Wednesday.
Oda also said challenges to reconstruction and resettlement are now being clearly identified and addressed by aid organizations and the Haitian government, allowing the country to focus on medium-term goals, not just the next crisis.
The resettlement is scheduled to start almost immediately, with all 20,000 people expected to be housed by 2013. The project will help rebuild two neighbourhoods badly damaged by the earthquake, focusing on basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation.
Along with people, 500 businesses operating in the temporary camp will be re-established and registered with the government.
The project is expected to create 2,000 local construction jobs and provide 240 people with certified construction training.
David Morley, president of UNICEF Canada, praised Canada’s plan on Wednesday.
“It’s important because people need to find, need to have secure homes,” he said. “Families need to have a place they know they are going to be living in for a while so they can really start to rebuild their lives.”
Morley said it appears the government has addressed some of the common roadblocks to resettlement.
For example, people seldom have money to pay for rent. In other cases, infrastructure in permanent neighbourhoods is just as decrepit as that in the camps.
Perhaps most important of all, according to Morley, is the impact restoring the park will have on the psyche of the Haitian people.
“If the Peace Tower were broken and a bunch of people were living in front of the Parliament Buildings – and it is an important symbol to us as Canadians – it would affect us at some level. That is one of the many things that happened to Haiti.”
The Harper government made Haiti a development priority long before the earthquake. By the end of 2012, it will have funneled more than $1 billion into the country over six years.
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