As I stood in the rubble of countless destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti I thought to myself, how will they ever rebuild. I couldn’t even imagine where to begin. When I met with the President’s Chief of Staff he emphasized to me that their highest priority was housing.
It’s important to keep in mind that hundreds of thousands are still living in deplorable tent cities. They call them tents, but most of them are simply 4 poles wrapped in cardboard, sheets, or trash bags. The floors are dirt, mud, and trash. In these conditions diseases are rampant. There are thousands more who don’t even have tents. Some are sleeping under trees.
Housing is further complicated by the rainy seasons that have already begun. Mudslides have claimed lives and swarms of mosquitoes will take even more. The tents that Haitians are in now are not ...