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Habitat for Humanity

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Marco Werman talks with Kip Scheidler of Habitat for Humanity International about efforts to help in Haiti.

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MARCO WERMAN: Habitat for Humanity works with volunteers around the world to help build homes for families in need.  Kip Scheidler is senior director of global disaster response for Habitat for Humanity International.  He’s in Atlanta.  Scheidler says the organization itself was one victim of the earthquake.

KIP SCHEIDLER: Our office in Port au Prince was leveled.  All of our equipment was destroyed.  Thankfully our staff of approximately 50 people all Haitians survived the earthquake.  So we’ve secured a new office and today we’re moving into it.  So that was our immediate need attending to our folks.  Our assessment team has been on the ground for a few days now, and the initial numbers coming out are pretty staggering.  We’re looking at possibly one point two million people facing homelessness or displacement; 200,000 homes that have been destroyed or severely damaged.  So we will begin working as soon as possible with the families that can return to the site of their damaged or destroyed house, sift through the rubble to identify what is salvageable so that we can begin repairing and rehabbing and if need be building new homes as soon as possible.

MARCO: Now the people who’ve lost their homes, where are they mostly living now?

KIP: All indications are most of them are in impromptu camps in central parks across from the Palace, in the streets, any open space: soccer fields, basketball courts, that’s what we’re hearing from our people on the ground.

MARCO: And what are the conditions in these impromptu habitations?

KIP: Poor, very, very poor.  And getting worse by the day.

MARCO: So if you’ve got a sense of the numbers right now, what is the next step in actually starting to build new homes for, you said one point two million people I mean obviously, Habitat for Humanity can’t do all of that.

KIP: No, by no means.  And we are permanent members of the UN sponsored shelter cluster.  So Habitat for Humanity and other agencies that focus on shelter will be coordinating our efforts and we will go forward as a group.  But the cleanup is going to be very, very challenging.  Many of these homes, even the shacks if you will, had poured concrete roofs.  So it isn’t like in many places, for example in El Salvador after an earthquake where the families themselves could very easily clean up their lot, we need heavy equipment to get in to do the cleanup, which at this moment isn’t present.  So that’s an amazingly large challenge that we’re going to have to deal with there.

MARCO: Having been in Haiti for 26 years, I’m wondering if Habitat for Humanity has kind of a good idea of how this earthquake is going to change the housing situation in the long term in that country.

KIP: Quite often with these disasters we look for the silver lining and I think the silver lining in this is that potentially the resources that have never been brought to bear on the housing situation are finally going to come forward.  So the resources that are coming forward and the very intentional rebuilding, avoiding areas where the soil is inappropriate and going by standards that before didn’t exist or weren’t adhered to, what could come out of this is a new Haiti that is leaps and bounds beyond what we’ve ever known in that country.

MARCO: Kip Scheidler director of global disaster response for Habitat for Humanity International joining us from Atlanta.  Thank you very much indeed.

KIP: Thank you Marco.

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