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Showing posts with label evictions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evictions. Show all posts
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
"Under Tents" - International Campaign Launch for Housing in Haiti
"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).
Haitian grassroots organizations and international allies are launching an urgent housing rights campaign this week calling for permanent housing solutions for the nearly 400,000 people who are still living in displacement camps more than two years after the earthquake.
As part of the Under Tents campaign, Haiti’s homeless are demanding that the government immediately halt all forced evictions until public or affordable housing is made available. They request that the Government of Haiti, with the support of its allies and donor governments in the U.S., Canada, and Europe move quickly to: (1) designate land for housing; (2) create one centralized government housing institution to coordinate and implement a social housing plan; and (3) solicit and allocate funding to realize this plan.
The campaign will press for US Congressional and European Parliamentary action, raise international awareness about the crisis through news media, mobilize international grassroots pressure through a petition, and build an international support movement especially with US and international housing rights organizations.
Under Tents is a joint initiative of dozens of Haitian grassroots groups and international allies who are committed to a solution for earthquake victims. The hundreds of thousands still living under shredded plastic tarps and tattered tents face high rates of gender-based and other violence, lack access to clean water and toilets, and combat a surge in the cholera epidemic. One in five is also at risk of imminent forced eviction.
To add your name to the petition, click here.
For updates, check out the campaign's website, Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter at @UnderTentsHaiti.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Grace Village (Post removed temporarily)
Friends,
Yesterday I shared information about rights abuses in Grace Village camp in Carrefour, along with an action alert from Amnesty International.
I stand by everything that I wrote, knowing that my information comes from credible first-hand sources (the camp residents themselves, along with the community activists and human rights lawyers - who are also trusted friends - that are working on their behalf).
However, the post has already generated vehement responses from individuals and organizations that are supporting Grace International, which I feel a responsibility to address thoughtfully. In the meantime, I will temporarily take down this post. To those of you that did send comments in defense of Grace International and the situation at Grace Village: I would love to have a conversation about this with you. Please email me directly through the profile on this blog.
Meanwhile, to contact Haitian authorities and demand an end to the human rights abuses that are most certainly occurring in Grace Village, you can download Amnesty's Action Alert here in English, French and Spanish.
With love,
Alexis
Yesterday I shared information about rights abuses in Grace Village camp in Carrefour, along with an action alert from Amnesty International.
I stand by everything that I wrote, knowing that my information comes from credible first-hand sources (the camp residents themselves, along with the community activists and human rights lawyers - who are also trusted friends - that are working on their behalf).
However, the post has already generated vehement responses from individuals and organizations that are supporting Grace International, which I feel a responsibility to address thoughtfully. In the meantime, I will temporarily take down this post. To those of you that did send comments in defense of Grace International and the situation at Grace Village: I would love to have a conversation about this with you. Please email me directly through the profile on this blog.
Meanwhile, to contact Haitian authorities and demand an end to the human rights abuses that are most certainly occurring in Grace Village, you can download Amnesty's Action Alert here in English, French and Spanish.
With love,
Alexis
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Fighting Fire
Camp Lycèe Toussaint after an arson attack. Photo from Mark Synder.
By Alexis Erkert, Other Worlds
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.
Residents of the 660 displacement camps scattered throughout the Port-au-Prince area are experiencing increasing levels of threats and violence. Repeated acts of arson have both killed six people and displaced hundreds. Though cramped living conditions and a lack of available water during Haiti’s dry season have made camps vulnerable to accidental fires, camp organizers believe that all the recent fires have been deliberate.
Until her own tent was burned down, Arlette Célissaint lived in Camp Lycèe Toussaint. At a press conference on Friday, March 23, Célissaint and four other camp residents described the horror of waking up at 2:00 in the morning to a camp engulfed in flames. “Fire took over... We were all in our tents, all asleep and suddenly it was, ‘Run!’ and everyone started to get up and run. There were people burned on the spot and six went to the hospital…”
That morning, 96 of approximately 120 shelters were burned and five people, including a mother and her three children, were killed. Families lost everything they had managed to salvage from the earthquake and the little they have saved since, including money and legal documents. To date, none of the relevant government authorities have launched an investigation into the crimes. Neither the government nor aid agencies have stepped up to provide these doubly-displaced—and doubly-traumatized—communities with adequate disaster assistance.
“Look out for us.” Looking directly into a TV journalist’s video camera, Marie Charles, another former Camp Lycèe Toussaint resident said quietly, “We ask the government to look out for us. We’re people, not animals, but the conditions that we’re living in are not fit for people.”
Camp residents like Célissaint and Charles are raising the volume of their denunciations about the fires and about evictions in general with protests, press conferences and letters to the government. Others, like the families in Camp Maïs Gate, are physically refusing to move. Though paid thugs have been harassing them for weeks, families refuse to leave until they are provided with an adequate alternative.
No such alternative yet exists. Though the government is touting a plan called ‘16/6’ as a solution to Haiti’s housing crisis, it does not address the underlying structural challenges to relocation by making land available to camp dwellers for permanent resettlement or building houses. Instead, ‘16/6’ targets six camps, or approximately 5% of the displaced population, providing families $500 apiece to relocate into 16 communities. Critics say implementation of the plan has been rife with corruption and that it has accelerated rates of violent forced evictions in other camps. Though the ‘16/6’ model is being replicated by aid groups in a handful of additional camps, there is still a glaring absence of any comprehensive housing plan.
Human rights advocates and camp residents point to the eviction of a camp called Place Jeremie in late December as a prime example of the corruption and disregard for displaced peoples endemic in the relocation process. Though families were supposed to receive $500 apiece to relocate, police came to the camp in the middle of the night, armed with machetes and batons, destroyed tents and violently evicted the families living there. The Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA) reports that the majority of residents received $25 in compensation.
Regardless of whether families receive $25 or $500, there is no evidence that they do indeed wind up in safer, more dignifying circumstances once they’ve relocated. Housing in Haiti is expensive and the numbers make it clear that there is not enough undamaged housing available in Port-au-Prince to absorb displaced people, 80 percent of whom were renters before the earthquake. According to data from the International Organization for Migration, current shortages will leave more than 300,000 without housing.
With the displaced population down to 490,545 from 1.2 million just after the earthquake, Antonal Mortimé of the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) wonders where people who have left the camps have gone. “Have they moved to the countryside? Back into their houses? Are enough new houses being built? Are new camps springing up? Or are people returning to fissured and unsound homes? No-one knows.”
Thus, an assembly of local human rights groups called the Right to Housing Collective is supporting camp dwellers in a call for a comprehensive national housing plan that includes public housing for the displaced. In the short-term, they are calling for an end to the violence plaguing camps and for a moratorium on evictions.
“We are struggling alongside the people whose rights are being trampled, to create a movement that forces the government into taking responsibility for its citizens…” said Jackson Doliscar. Doliscar is a community organizer with FRAKKA, a coalition of 26 camp committees and grassroots organizations and a key member of the Right to Housing Collective. “People are unaware of their specific rights, especially as displaced people. They don’t think that they have the right to ask anything of their government… That’s beginning to change… Many camps are ready to join hands.” And indeed, the arson attacks have renewed camp dwellers and rights advocates’ sense of urgency.
During Friday’s press conference, Mortimé reminded his government that the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement require that they make every effort to guarantee the right to life and security of all earthquake victims.
Mortimé adds, “We aren’t just denouncing, we are pronouncing. We are proposing and advocating for solutions that come from displaced people themselves and we will not give up on pressuring the government to take responsibility for meeting these demands.”
To read more about the ways that the Haitian housing movement is creating and promoting solutions to the housing crisis, read Home: From displacement camps to community in Haiti.
Alexis Erkert is the Another Haiti is Possible Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has worked in advocacy and with Haitian social movements since 2008. You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.
Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Alexis Erkert and Other Worlds.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
"We are Tired of Living under Tents"
Originally published at Daily Kos, October 6, 2011
By Alexis Erkert, Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator, Other Worlds
On Monday morning, October 3, ten women stood across the street from the Ministry of Social Affairs, waving their arms, wailing and chanting. They were calling on Osany, of the pantheon of vodou lwa, or spirits, for assistance. The lyrics of their chant, repeated over and again, were patently simple:
Stop stealing this country’s money
This country’s money belongs to the poor.
The Creole word for “poor,” malerè, also means miserable. And the litany of the women’s sources of misery is overwhelming: aging tents, shredding tarps, heat, rain, wind, high blood pressure, colds, body aches, cholera, rats, cockroaches, raw sewage, no potable water, no privacy, no security. One is a single mom with a 2-month old. And they are all facing eviction from Vilaj Fratènite, Brotherhood Village, the displacement camp where they have lived since the earthquake.
Monday was World Habitat Day, established by the UN in 1986. The month of October is annually one in which movements and organizations around the world mobilize for housing rights and in opposition to evictions.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 595,000 Haitians are still living in camps – half of the total number displaced by the earthquake 21 months ago. And, despite last year's ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the Haitian government impose a moratorium on all evictions, the government has not stepped in to keep private landowners and local government officials from forcing displaced people off both public and private land. IOM reported that the number of camps under threat of eviction increased by 400% per cent between July 2010 and July 2011.
Although conditions in the camps are abominable, residents that remain in the camps - facing the challenges that the women from Brotherhood Village enumerated above - do so simply because they have no better options. Summed up one member of the group, “That’s how we live now. But where will we go when we are evicted? We have nowhere to go.”
Homeless people and their allies have begun to vocally insist on their democratic right to participate in planning the reconstruction of their homes, communities, and nations. It is acknowledged in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that displaced people should be able to participate in the “in the planning and management of their return or resettlement.” Yet the government has consistently excluded the vast majority, including those directly impacted. Although various housing plans are being drafted by the government and international agencies, human rights lawyer Patrice Florvilus says, “If it’s decided without us, it won’t help us.”
President Michel Martelly’s housing plan, referred to as “sixteen-six,” includes provisions for the relocation of six larger, more visible camps to sixteen rehabilitated neighborhoods. As for how those ten women calling out to Osany might benefit, there may as well be no plan. The same goes for residents of the 184 other displacement camps that are not addressed by Martelly’s program.
Patrice went on to point out that the housing repair projects being led by many international agencies throughout earthquake-damaged areas benefit those who were homeowners before the earthquake. While this is helpful, it does not address the needs of the renters and homeless, who are the most vulnerable. “What housing projects are targeting the people that need housing the most?” he asked.
In response, the Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA), a collective of 30-some committees and associations from displacement camps, formed to advocate for secure and dignifying housing for all, as well as to combat forced evictions. More recently, a group called the Housing Rights Collective, which includes FRAKKA and other organizations, have been attempting to create possibilities for camp residents to organize, collectively determine their needs and priorities, and form strategies to achieve them.
Nou bouke viv anba tant, We are tired of living under tents, was the slogan for three days of events, from October 1-3, planned by the Housing Rights Collective to mark World Habitat Day. Events included a forum, skits and cultural activities in Camp Corail-Cesselesse, and a rally in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Allies from the International Alliance of Inhabitants, the Zero Evictions Movement, COOPHABITAT in the Dominican Republic, and housing cooperative movements in Puerto Rico and Cuba came to Haiti to lend support, reminding displaced Haitians that they are not isolated in their struggle. They also shared strategies from their own successes in winning housing.
Forum participants included approximately 120 camp residents and members of camp committees or associations. An emphasis in the discussion was on evictions. Testimonies from camp residents who have already experienced forcible and often violent evictions resonated deeply with others in attendance. With no clear housing strategy in place, most expressed fear that they will eventually be forced to leave the camps without being provided alternative places to live.
“We have rights! Just like everyone else, we have the right to see our children live like other children. We have the right to sleep like other people, without rats crawling over us or rain dripping on us,” Marie-Helene Moïse, 32 years old and with two children, who has been living in Camp Kid since the earthquake, stood up and said. “When you say you live in a camp, people look at you like you’re inferior. We suffer and our people are not standing up for us. Morning, noon, night… it’s not possible to live well in the camps. The Haitian government needs to remove us from these conditions because we can’t keep going. My friends, this is why World Habitat Day should be so significant to those of us living in tents. Today, we’re reflecting, but there will be action to come.”
During the rally, some of that action was visible in front of the Ministry. Spirited protestors, mostly women, including the group from Brotherhood Village, waved hand-written signs:
“We are not made to live under the rain.”
“There is no liberty without well-being. There is no well-being without adequate housing for all. Housing without discrimination.”
“January 12 took most of what we own. We won’t let rain and hurricanes wash us away with the little that is left.”
“We are people. We want homes.”
“Ministry of Social Affairs, fulfill your responsibility.”
As for solutions? A letter drafted by camp committees and other grassroots groups and delivered during the protests requested that the Ministry: help to apply the Inter-American Human Rights Commission ruling to stop forced evictions; take leadership in creating a national housing plan, complete with zoning regulations; begin public housing projects for earthquake survivors; ensure that a housing fund be part of the national budget; and, finally, give the Public Office for Public Housing Promotion (EPPLS by its French acronym) the means and the power to execute a public housing plan.
More advocacy initiatives are being planned, including meetings with the parliament and chamber of deputies to discuss budgeting for public housing initiatives, and meetings with local magistrates to request their assistance in curbing forced evictions. FRAKKA and the newly formed pro-bono legal office started by Patrice Florvilus, Defenders of the Oppressed (DOP), are joining forces to provide legal training to camp residents. The International Lawyers Office (BAI) is carrying out similar work, conducting advocacy for housing rights and fighting forced evictions.
Today the Haitian popular movement (the succession of grassroots groups and progressive non-profit organizations that have led movements for alternative social, economic and political systems) is small and faces numerous challenges. The movement still bears the scars of past political divisions and for many, the risk of being outspoken is great. Despite relative civil liberty in Haiti today, ongoing beatings and arrests of activists at anti-eviction demonstrations have been a reminder of that risk. Progress is also often obstructed by lack of resources.
Given the size and desperation of Haiti’s displaced population, right to housing and anti-evictions work is necessarily one of the main foci of the popular movement. As time passes without adequate solutions from the government and international agencies, camp residents are growing increasingly exasperated.
In her introduction to Saturday’s forum, Lisane André of GARR reminded participants of the proverb, Se kolòn ki bat, It is a column that wins. She explained: “When we are faced with a struggle and we separate, each working individually, it will take a long time to achieve results, if they’re achieved at all. Instead, if we all come together, if we create a chain, if we stick together, if we form a column… We can achieve victory despite the odds.”
“We are a collective,” she cried, her voice ringing out, “And we invite everyone to join us in the movement for housing.”
Click here to participate in calling for an end to forced evictions.
For a more in-depth look at the current housing situation, see the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti’s new report, “Haiti’s Housing Crisis.”
Alexis Erkert is the Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has worked in advocacy and with the Haitian social movement for the past three years. You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.
Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Other Worlds.
By Alexis Erkert, Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator, Other Worlds
On Monday morning, October 3, ten women stood across the street from the Ministry of Social Affairs, waving their arms, wailing and chanting. They were calling on Osany, of the pantheon of vodou lwa, or spirits, for assistance. The lyrics of their chant, repeated over and again, were patently simple:
Stop stealing this country’s money
This country’s money belongs to the poor.
The Creole word for “poor,” malerè, also means miserable. And the litany of the women’s sources of misery is overwhelming: aging tents, shredding tarps, heat, rain, wind, high blood pressure, colds, body aches, cholera, rats, cockroaches, raw sewage, no potable water, no privacy, no security. One is a single mom with a 2-month old. And they are all facing eviction from Vilaj Fratènite, Brotherhood Village, the displacement camp where they have lived since the earthquake.
Monday was World Habitat Day, established by the UN in 1986. The month of October is annually one in which movements and organizations around the world mobilize for housing rights and in opposition to evictions.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 595,000 Haitians are still living in camps – half of the total number displaced by the earthquake 21 months ago. And, despite last year's ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the Haitian government impose a moratorium on all evictions, the government has not stepped in to keep private landowners and local government officials from forcing displaced people off both public and private land. IOM reported that the number of camps under threat of eviction increased by 400% per cent between July 2010 and July 2011.
Although conditions in the camps are abominable, residents that remain in the camps - facing the challenges that the women from Brotherhood Village enumerated above - do so simply because they have no better options. Summed up one member of the group, “That’s how we live now. But where will we go when we are evicted? We have nowhere to go.”
Homeless people and their allies have begun to vocally insist on their democratic right to participate in planning the reconstruction of their homes, communities, and nations. It is acknowledged in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that displaced people should be able to participate in the “in the planning and management of their return or resettlement.” Yet the government has consistently excluded the vast majority, including those directly impacted. Although various housing plans are being drafted by the government and international agencies, human rights lawyer Patrice Florvilus says, “If it’s decided without us, it won’t help us.”
President Michel Martelly’s housing plan, referred to as “sixteen-six,” includes provisions for the relocation of six larger, more visible camps to sixteen rehabilitated neighborhoods. As for how those ten women calling out to Osany might benefit, there may as well be no plan. The same goes for residents of the 184 other displacement camps that are not addressed by Martelly’s program.
Patrice went on to point out that the housing repair projects being led by many international agencies throughout earthquake-damaged areas benefit those who were homeowners before the earthquake. While this is helpful, it does not address the needs of the renters and homeless, who are the most vulnerable. “What housing projects are targeting the people that need housing the most?” he asked.
In response, the Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA), a collective of 30-some committees and associations from displacement camps, formed to advocate for secure and dignifying housing for all, as well as to combat forced evictions. More recently, a group called the Housing Rights Collective, which includes FRAKKA and other organizations, have been attempting to create possibilities for camp residents to organize, collectively determine their needs and priorities, and form strategies to achieve them.
Nou bouke viv anba tant, We are tired of living under tents, was the slogan for three days of events, from October 1-3, planned by the Housing Rights Collective to mark World Habitat Day. Events included a forum, skits and cultural activities in Camp Corail-Cesselesse, and a rally in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Allies from the International Alliance of Inhabitants, the Zero Evictions Movement, COOPHABITAT in the Dominican Republic, and housing cooperative movements in Puerto Rico and Cuba came to Haiti to lend support, reminding displaced Haitians that they are not isolated in their struggle. They also shared strategies from their own successes in winning housing.
Forum participants included approximately 120 camp residents and members of camp committees or associations. An emphasis in the discussion was on evictions. Testimonies from camp residents who have already experienced forcible and often violent evictions resonated deeply with others in attendance. With no clear housing strategy in place, most expressed fear that they will eventually be forced to leave the camps without being provided alternative places to live.
“We have rights! Just like everyone else, we have the right to see our children live like other children. We have the right to sleep like other people, without rats crawling over us or rain dripping on us,” Marie-Helene Moïse, 32 years old and with two children, who has been living in Camp Kid since the earthquake, stood up and said. “When you say you live in a camp, people look at you like you’re inferior. We suffer and our people are not standing up for us. Morning, noon, night… it’s not possible to live well in the camps. The Haitian government needs to remove us from these conditions because we can’t keep going. My friends, this is why World Habitat Day should be so significant to those of us living in tents. Today, we’re reflecting, but there will be action to come.”
During the rally, some of that action was visible in front of the Ministry. Spirited protestors, mostly women, including the group from Brotherhood Village, waved hand-written signs:
“We are not made to live under the rain.”
“There is no liberty without well-being. There is no well-being without adequate housing for all. Housing without discrimination.”
“January 12 took most of what we own. We won’t let rain and hurricanes wash us away with the little that is left.”
“We are people. We want homes.”
“Ministry of Social Affairs, fulfill your responsibility.”
As for solutions? A letter drafted by camp committees and other grassroots groups and delivered during the protests requested that the Ministry: help to apply the Inter-American Human Rights Commission ruling to stop forced evictions; take leadership in creating a national housing plan, complete with zoning regulations; begin public housing projects for earthquake survivors; ensure that a housing fund be part of the national budget; and, finally, give the Public Office for Public Housing Promotion (EPPLS by its French acronym) the means and the power to execute a public housing plan.
More advocacy initiatives are being planned, including meetings with the parliament and chamber of deputies to discuss budgeting for public housing initiatives, and meetings with local magistrates to request their assistance in curbing forced evictions. FRAKKA and the newly formed pro-bono legal office started by Patrice Florvilus, Defenders of the Oppressed (DOP), are joining forces to provide legal training to camp residents. The International Lawyers Office (BAI) is carrying out similar work, conducting advocacy for housing rights and fighting forced evictions.
Today the Haitian popular movement (the succession of grassroots groups and progressive non-profit organizations that have led movements for alternative social, economic and political systems) is small and faces numerous challenges. The movement still bears the scars of past political divisions and for many, the risk of being outspoken is great. Despite relative civil liberty in Haiti today, ongoing beatings and arrests of activists at anti-eviction demonstrations have been a reminder of that risk. Progress is also often obstructed by lack of resources.
Given the size and desperation of Haiti’s displaced population, right to housing and anti-evictions work is necessarily one of the main foci of the popular movement. As time passes without adequate solutions from the government and international agencies, camp residents are growing increasingly exasperated.
In her introduction to Saturday’s forum, Lisane André of GARR reminded participants of the proverb, Se kolòn ki bat, It is a column that wins. She explained: “When we are faced with a struggle and we separate, each working individually, it will take a long time to achieve results, if they’re achieved at all. Instead, if we all come together, if we create a chain, if we stick together, if we form a column… We can achieve victory despite the odds.”
“We are a collective,” she cried, her voice ringing out, “And we invite everyone to join us in the movement for housing.”
Click here to participate in calling for an end to forced evictions.
For a more in-depth look at the current housing situation, see the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti’s new report, “Haiti’s Housing Crisis.”
Alexis Erkert is the Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has worked in advocacy and with the Haitian social movement for the past three years. You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.
Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Other Worlds.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Evictions Continue
We're a little behind the game on this post, but, still, the forced evictions of already-displaced people from camps is an ongoing issue and one that we need to make sure isn't dropped from public discourse.
A week ago the residents of Camp Django, on Delmas 17, were facing eviction. So, with the solidarity of 4 other displacements camps from around the city, they protested:
They laid on one side of Route Delmas, singing and effectively blocking off traffic for several hours with signs that read, "Justice for people in tents," "We ask for justice," and simply, "Justice."
Later that night, the landowner came anyway, with thugs and machetes, forcing people off of the property with threats of violence. UN officers stationed nearby, theoretically to protect camp residents, claimed not to have known that the eviction was occurring. Al Jazeera produced this short film* with footage that was shot by Bri Kouri:
Today there are still more than 600,000 people living in displacement camps. It's been 18 months since the earthquake. Conditions in the camps are abysmal and residents have had to cope with security issues, including high incidences of rape and violence against women and children, a cholera epidemic, lack of access to basic services such as latrines and potable water, and are now in the midst of their second hurricane season.
A recent survey conducted by IOM finally refuted the all-too-popular theory that many people are choosing to live in camps. A summary states, "The Intentions Survey found that 94 per cent of people living in camps would leave if they had alternative accommodation. Most of those surveyed said if they had to depart immediately, they would not have the means to pay rent or the resources to repair or replace their damaged or destroyed homes."
Although the government is implementing a plan to relocate residents of six of the most visible camps (one of which was Sylvio Cator...), there is still no plan in place to provide housing for all IDPs. So far, the amount of money being given to families to relocate does not come close to enough to allow them to pay rent somewhere or to repair or replace a damaged home. So when they are evicted, where will they go?
For more about the eviction of Camp Django, and the exclusion of displaced people, read Inactions Speaking Louder than Words: Hurricane Emily's Near-Miss Too Close for Haiti's IDPs by Mark Schuller and Mark Synder.
* In the film, Mark Snyder of International Action Ties is erroneously depicted as Mayor Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of Delmas
A week ago the residents of Camp Django, on Delmas 17, were facing eviction. So, with the solidarity of 4 other displacements camps from around the city, they protested:
Later that night, the landowner came anyway, with thugs and machetes, forcing people off of the property with threats of violence. UN officers stationed nearby, theoretically to protect camp residents, claimed not to have known that the eviction was occurring. Al Jazeera produced this short film* with footage that was shot by Bri Kouri:
Today there are still more than 600,000 people living in displacement camps. It's been 18 months since the earthquake. Conditions in the camps are abysmal and residents have had to cope with security issues, including high incidences of rape and violence against women and children, a cholera epidemic, lack of access to basic services such as latrines and potable water, and are now in the midst of their second hurricane season.
A recent survey conducted by IOM finally refuted the all-too-popular theory that many people are choosing to live in camps. A summary states, "The Intentions Survey found that 94 per cent of people living in camps would leave if they had alternative accommodation. Most of those surveyed said if they had to depart immediately, they would not have the means to pay rent or the resources to repair or replace their damaged or destroyed homes."
Although the government is implementing a plan to relocate residents of six of the most visible camps (one of which was Sylvio Cator...), there is still no plan in place to provide housing for all IDPs. So far, the amount of money being given to families to relocate does not come close to enough to allow them to pay rent somewhere or to repair or replace a damaged home. So when they are evicted, where will they go?
For more about the eviction of Camp Django, and the exclusion of displaced people, read Inactions Speaking Louder than Words: Hurricane Emily's Near-Miss Too Close for Haiti's IDPs by Mark Schuller and Mark Synder.
* In the film, Mark Snyder of International Action Ties is erroneously depicted as Mayor Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of Delmas
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
It rained last night.
And while we were sheltered inside with our generator, all I could think about were these families and our courageous friends that are mobilizing against the unlawful and inhumane evictions of displaced people.
"Just far enough to be forgotten": Follow this Amnesty International link to make sure that the 514 families of Sylvio Cator are not forgotten.
"Just far enough to be forgotten": Follow this Amnesty International link to make sure that the 514 families of Sylvio Cator are not forgotten.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Housing Rights... or Forced Evictions?
So last week wasn't all birthday parties. On Monday the 23rd, the mayor of Delmas (a municipality amalgamated with Port-au-Prince) sent his security forces, BRICOR - trained by a sketchy American security company - and national police officers to destroy a displaced people's camp in Carrefour de l'Aeroport, or Kafou Ayopo, where people have been living in tents and makeshift shelters since the earthquake. More than 100 families were threatened, some residents beaten or arrested, and evicted from the public plaza.
Ben got there about 2 hours after they smashed the tents but the BRICOR were still there pulling stuff into the street so that a bulldozer could scrape it into a dump truck. He was told by an officer that they don't want any abri proviswa (temporary shelters) in the Delmas area because they needed to clean up the streets for tourists. While Ben was there, about 100 people were trying to salvage their belongings.
One woman that he spoke to, 52-yr old Yvonne Andre told him, "I've been here since the earthquake. We don't have anywhere to go - if we had homes, we wouldn't be here." It infuriates me that a popular narrative regarding Haiti's IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) camps is that people want to live in them. Want to live under a tarp, in rainy season, in unsanitary conditions, with no privacy, and almost a year after food aid has ceased being distributed. A newspaper ad just months after the earthquake featured a picture of a tent camp with "No to squatters and anarchists!" stamped across the photo. Can you imagine?
Evictions continued throughout the week, increasing in intensity, and some Haitian human rights activist friends trying to hold a press conference in a camp were victims of attempted assault by police and BRICOR armed with machetes and shovels. They were protected by the camp residents.
Pressure from concerted national and international efforts have resulted in a halt in evictions, for now. Nigel Fisher, Haiti's UN humanitarian coordinator, sent a letter to the Haitian president, Haitian grassroots groups and activists mobilized, several Congressmen and women issued a statement and many concerned individuals reacted (thank you if you responded to alerts on facebook asking you to call your representative or to call or write the Haitian embassy).
You can read more about what happened on CommonDreams.org, and on Bea's blog, or see more photos taken by Bri Kouri Nouvel Gaye.
In stark contrast, we had the privilege the week before of attending a 3-day forum on housing rights, organized by FRAAKA (Fòs Refleksyon ak Aksyon sou Koze Kay). Since she has already written about the forum so eloquently, I'll quote Other Worlds' Beverly Bell:
"Two days before the Delmas camp demolitions began, several hundred displaced people rallied against evictions in Camp Karade. The event was part of the International Forum on the Housing Crisis, held May 19 -21 and attended by hundreds. More than 40 grassroots and Haitian non-governmental organizations from throughout the capital region and five other towns, as well as 35 displacement camp committees, were represented. In the first broad-based gathering led by impacted people since last year’s disaster, Haitians strategized with each other and with housing activists from elsewhere in the Americas about how to win their guaranteed right to housing.
Sanon Reyneld from FRAKKA, the main organizing group of the forum, said in the opening address, “The right to housing is a debt that the government has toward the poor for the responsibility it never took on housing that caused so many people to die.” The toll from the earthquake, an estimated 225,000 to 300,000, was in large part this high because so many inferior quality houses collapsed.
The final declaration of the forum read in part, "We ask: [1] for the authorities to stop the violence that is accompanying evictions…; [2] for the authorities to arrest and bring to justice all those engaged in violence against those living in camps; [and 3] for them to take all measures to help people find permanent housing so they can relocate out of camps." "
According to Bell, "Displaced persons are protected by both Haitian and international law. Article 22 of the 1987 Haitian constitution guarantees “decent housing” for everyone. Article 25 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees every individual a “standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including… housing.” Many sections of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs declare protection from displacement, notably for victims of disasters. In a ruling last November, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights directed the Haitian government to stop evicting IDPs unless it provided them safe alternative shelter." Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration reported in April that nearly 170,000 displaced people living in camps are facing the threat of imminent eviction.
FRAKKA and other grassroots organizations trying to deal with the housing crisis have advocacy activities planned for the coming weeks to raise general awareness and put pressure on the government and NGOs to take these issues (and the basic rights of displaced people) more seriously.
Ben got there about 2 hours after they smashed the tents but the BRICOR were still there pulling stuff into the street so that a bulldozer could scrape it into a dump truck. He was told by an officer that they don't want any abri proviswa (temporary shelters) in the Delmas area because they needed to clean up the streets for tourists. While Ben was there, about 100 people were trying to salvage their belongings.
Evictions continued throughout the week, increasing in intensity, and some Haitian human rights activist friends trying to hold a press conference in a camp were victims of attempted assault by police and BRICOR armed with machetes and shovels. They were protected by the camp residents.
Pressure from concerted national and international efforts have resulted in a halt in evictions, for now. Nigel Fisher, Haiti's UN humanitarian coordinator, sent a letter to the Haitian president, Haitian grassroots groups and activists mobilized, several Congressmen and women issued a statement and many concerned individuals reacted (thank you if you responded to alerts on facebook asking you to call your representative or to call or write the Haitian embassy).
You can read more about what happened on CommonDreams.org, and on Bea's blog, or see more photos taken by Bri Kouri Nouvel Gaye.
In stark contrast, we had the privilege the week before of attending a 3-day forum on housing rights, organized by FRAAKA (Fòs Refleksyon ak Aksyon sou Koze Kay). Since she has already written about the forum so eloquently, I'll quote Other Worlds' Beverly Bell:
"Two days before the Delmas camp demolitions began, several hundred displaced people rallied against evictions in Camp Karade. The event was part of the International Forum on the Housing Crisis, held May 19 -21 and attended by hundreds. More than 40 grassroots and Haitian non-governmental organizations from throughout the capital region and five other towns, as well as 35 displacement camp committees, were represented. In the first broad-based gathering led by impacted people since last year’s disaster, Haitians strategized with each other and with housing activists from elsewhere in the Americas about how to win their guaranteed right to housing.
Sanon Reyneld from FRAKKA, the main organizing group of the forum, said in the opening address, “The right to housing is a debt that the government has toward the poor for the responsibility it never took on housing that caused so many people to die.” The toll from the earthquake, an estimated 225,000 to 300,000, was in large part this high because so many inferior quality houses collapsed.
The final declaration of the forum read in part, "We ask: [1] for the authorities to stop the violence that is accompanying evictions…; [2] for the authorities to arrest and bring to justice all those engaged in violence against those living in camps; [and 3] for them to take all measures to help people find permanent housing so they can relocate out of camps." "
The last day of the forum, a rally in Caradeux.
FRAKKA and other grassroots organizations trying to deal with the housing crisis have advocacy activities planned for the coming weeks to raise general awareness and put pressure on the government and NGOs to take these issues (and the basic rights of displaced people) more seriously.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Video Postcard: Forced Evictions
For more information, reports and to find out how you can advocate to stop camp evictions go to ijdh.org/projects/housing
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Stop Forced Evictions of Haiti's Earthquake Victims
Make your voice heard by signing this petition.
Many residents of Port-Au-Prince that lost their homes in the earthquake are being systematically displaced by the government and private landowners from the spaces where they have set up temporary shelters.
At the end of April, Ben received a call that CNE (the construction company that the government and private landowners are using to evict displaced people from a number of spaces) bulldozers were preparing to raze temporary shelters in a camp called Camp Canaan. Ben and I went to check it out and found that the camp, which is on a hillside, was being leveled by the government so that they could relocate several thousand people living in another camp at high-risk for flooding.
The woman pictured above is Violene Gedeon, 49. She has six children. In mid-April, she lost everything that she managed to salvage in the earthquake except a pair of bedsheets when the Haitian National Police arrived at Camp Canaan with heavy machinery. They told camp residents to leave because their shelters were about to be demolished. According to Gedeon, they received no advance warning, no opportunity to dismantle their temporary homes and no information as to where they should move to. She has an injury which she says she received from falling on a nail as she tried to run from the bulldozers. When they moved to a spot several hundred feet away, they were forcibly displaced a second time as the new site also needed to be leveled. There are approximately 50 families at Camp Canaan in this situation, none of which, according to Gedeon, set up shelters a third time. They are sleeping with friends and in other family members' shelters.
This points to a grave disregard for the dignity and rights of IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples), as well as a lack of coordination amongst the various sectors of the Haitian government and international community that are handling relocation. The parties that are responsible for making decision about the relocation of IDPs include the Coordinating Support Committee (CSC - formed following a request by the Government of Haiti for enhanced coordination measures, this committee is made up of representatives of the government of Haiti, senior UN staff and donors), the Department of Civil Protection (DPC), which is part of the Ministry of the Interior, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. MINUSTAH's human rights section and the OCHA protection cluster have the responsibility to ensure that all actions that concern IDPs conform to international human rights standards.
By signing the petition at Change.org, you can send a letter to these folks, as well as to President Rene Preval, Bill Clinton and others that have the power to protect the rights of displaced Haitians.
Many residents of Port-Au-Prince that lost their homes in the earthquake are being systematically displaced by the government and private landowners from the spaces where they have set up temporary shelters.
At the end of April, Ben received a call that CNE (the construction company that the government and private landowners are using to evict displaced people from a number of spaces) bulldozers were preparing to raze temporary shelters in a camp called Camp Canaan. Ben and I went to check it out and found that the camp, which is on a hillside, was being leveled by the government so that they could relocate several thousand people living in another camp at high-risk for flooding.
The woman pictured above is Violene Gedeon, 49. She has six children. In mid-April, she lost everything that she managed to salvage in the earthquake except a pair of bedsheets when the Haitian National Police arrived at Camp Canaan with heavy machinery. They told camp residents to leave because their shelters were about to be demolished. According to Gedeon, they received no advance warning, no opportunity to dismantle their temporary homes and no information as to where they should move to. She has an injury which she says she received from falling on a nail as she tried to run from the bulldozers. When they moved to a spot several hundred feet away, they were forcibly displaced a second time as the new site also needed to be leveled. There are approximately 50 families at Camp Canaan in this situation, none of which, according to Gedeon, set up shelters a third time. They are sleeping with friends and in other family members' shelters.
This points to a grave disregard for the dignity and rights of IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples), as well as a lack of coordination amongst the various sectors of the Haitian government and international community that are handling relocation. The parties that are responsible for making decision about the relocation of IDPs include the Coordinating Support Committee (CSC - formed following a request by the Government of Haiti for enhanced coordination measures, this committee is made up of representatives of the government of Haiti, senior UN staff and donors), the Department of Civil Protection (DPC), which is part of the Ministry of the Interior, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. MINUSTAH's human rights section and the OCHA protection cluster have the responsibility to ensure that all actions that concern IDPs conform to international human rights standards.By signing the petition at Change.org, you can send a letter to these folks, as well as to President Rene Preval, Bill Clinton and others that have the power to protect the rights of displaced Haitians.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Overdue for an Update
Mostly we've been posting pictures and video lately. Sometimes pictures speaker louder than words and also sometimes we're just too busy to update our blog.
What's keeping us so busy these days?
Classes have resumed at the SKDE seminary and thank God for Sharon because now that she and Bryan are living in Port-Au-Prince, she will be working with Nixon to create a better, more systematized curriculum for our social justice, human rights and advocacy classes. See Sharon's post about our first class since the earthquake.
MCC is moving forward with a well thought-out response to the earthquake that will include income generation to create sustainable livelihoods, projects to strengthen national agricultural production and others, mostly with a focus on decentralization. More on that and things Ben and I have been working on later.
An announcement by President Preval (being spread endlessly on the radio) that we should be expecting another earthquake. A month and a half ago, this unsubstantiated rumor would have had us sleeping in the driveway, which is testimony to how much more normal we are feeling. I was talking to my mom earlier this week and she told me that I sound like myself again. I guess most of our post-earthquake healing has happened so gradually - and less as an effort on our part than as a function of life simply going on - that we haven't even noticed it happen. Our life in Haiti will never be the same and in some ways, we'll never be the same either, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty now that I am well.
Another gas shortage. Remember this one? Once again, it's difficult to find out exactly why there's little gas to be had in Port-Au-Prince but it stands to reason that when all of the gas stations in the country are owned by a small, wealthy group of business owners and the government decides to try to lower the cost of gas so that more people can afford it, said business owners will strike back. This is neoliberal capitalism hard at work, folks.
Waiting for kittens. Every day we rush home to see if Luna has delivered... And every day her mid-section just looks a little bit fatter.
Seeing rubble move. The new hotel catty-corner to our house (we can actually see it through our window when we're lying in bed) is being demolished because it was damaged in the earthquake. In the more visible parts of the city, damaged buildings are being demolished - most by a few manual laborers with sledgehammers - and rubble is being cleared. An ugly thing happening is that both the government and private landowners are beginning to force displaced people to move from many of the camps that spontaneously sprung up in the days following the earthquake. What's being publicized is that with the rainy season beginning, the government and international community have set up five areas on the outskirts of the city and are giving people in IDP camps that are at high risk for flooding and landslides the option and cash incentives to move. What's not being publicized are the other, forcible evictions taking place all over Port-Au-Prince with no resettlement options available for people.
Lastly, The Christian Century published an interview with us that you can see here and Ben has updated the photo slideshow at the bottom of this page.
That's it for now.
What's keeping us so busy these days?
Classes have resumed at the SKDE seminary and thank God for Sharon because now that she and Bryan are living in Port-Au-Prince, she will be working with Nixon to create a better, more systematized curriculum for our social justice, human rights and advocacy classes. See Sharon's post about our first class since the earthquake.
MCC is moving forward with a well thought-out response to the earthquake that will include income generation to create sustainable livelihoods, projects to strengthen national agricultural production and others, mostly with a focus on decentralization. More on that and things Ben and I have been working on later.
An announcement by President Preval (being spread endlessly on the radio) that we should be expecting another earthquake. A month and a half ago, this unsubstantiated rumor would have had us sleeping in the driveway, which is testimony to how much more normal we are feeling. I was talking to my mom earlier this week and she told me that I sound like myself again. I guess most of our post-earthquake healing has happened so gradually - and less as an effort on our part than as a function of life simply going on - that we haven't even noticed it happen. Our life in Haiti will never be the same and in some ways, we'll never be the same either, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty now that I am well.
Another gas shortage. Remember this one? Once again, it's difficult to find out exactly why there's little gas to be had in Port-Au-Prince but it stands to reason that when all of the gas stations in the country are owned by a small, wealthy group of business owners and the government decides to try to lower the cost of gas so that more people can afford it, said business owners will strike back. This is neoliberal capitalism hard at work, folks.
Waiting for kittens. Every day we rush home to see if Luna has delivered... And every day her mid-section just looks a little bit fatter.
Seeing rubble move. The new hotel catty-corner to our house (we can actually see it through our window when we're lying in bed) is being demolished because it was damaged in the earthquake. In the more visible parts of the city, damaged buildings are being demolished - most by a few manual laborers with sledgehammers - and rubble is being cleared. An ugly thing happening is that both the government and private landowners are beginning to force displaced people to move from many of the camps that spontaneously sprung up in the days following the earthquake. What's being publicized is that with the rainy season beginning, the government and international community have set up five areas on the outskirts of the city and are giving people in IDP camps that are at high risk for flooding and landslides the option and cash incentives to move. What's not being publicized are the other, forcible evictions taking place all over Port-Au-Prince with no resettlement options available for people.
Lastly, The Christian Century published an interview with us that you can see here and Ben has updated the photo slideshow at the bottom of this page.
That's it for now.
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