Everyone is focusing on the "stalemate" between the international community and the Haitian Government. The international community blames the Haitian government for raising roadblocks and is reticent to remit funds based on past experience with incompetence and corruption. The Haitian Government really the Preval Administration blames the international community saying that the path for them is clear but they are holding back to pressure him into accepting their priorities.
The international community has good reason to be weary of the Preval Administration for sure, but at the end of the day it is only the Haitian people that are suffering. So I'm not interested in this stalemate. I'm interested in how to get the help to the people.
For me, the biggest roadblock is actually a lack of vision, coordination and big thinking. There are no ideas out there to get behind which is part of the reason a stalemate occurs. No one has put forward big anchor projects let alone a recovery plan that people can get behind. Everyone is focusing on their own agendas, rather than on the greater good. If there were a compelling plan that people could get behind, the Preval Administration would have no choice but to follow along.
Franck: Then what do you see as the major priorities now for helping the people of Haiti and how should it be done?
Stanley Lucas: It is glaringly obvious that the number one issue is housing. About 2.1 million people are still living in makeshift tents spread out between 1,360 unofficial tent cities or refugees camps that do not meet international standards. It's appalling it's been six months. The scope of the problem is massive and requires a long-term solution. People rely on their houses to access credit. So now with 450,000 houses destroyed these people have nothing to leverage to get credit. We can get better tents. We can put people in refugee camp situations. But that's not sustainable and will not lead to recover.
We need a two-part solution to the immediate housing crisis:
1. The international community could support the creation of Haitian housing institution to manage a public-private partnership "Housing Fund". This program could operate as a low interest mortgage program. This would require probably about $2 billion, which could be raised from the already donated funds from multilateral institutions, governments and NGOs (that have collected more than $50 million). As a first step, this institution could identify and vet all individual owners that lost their homes and evaluate the cost to rebuild each unit. As a second step, low interest mortgages could be given for rebuilding or renovating homes. However, for this to be sustainable in the long run, the fund should work with the Ministry of Public Works with the support of Habitat for Humanity or states such as California that have effective codes to develop a new construction code that mandates earthquake and hurricane resistant construction. We'd have to carefully vet the claims and then determine appropriate loan amounts for traditional 30 year fixed rate mortgages at let's say a 2% APR. The donors would actually generate a small return, but more importantly this would be a sustainable project that would also create much-needed jobs in the construction sector.
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