The January 2010 earthquake left behind a scene of devastation and desolation in Haiti. As many as 220,000 people were killed with thousands more injured. Almost 1.5 million people were forced to leave homes which had either been completely destroyed or damaged.

UNOPS aims to fulfill the immediate shelter needs of these communities by building transitional wooden shelters, in a programme funded by the European Commission, the American Red Cross and the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom.

These transitional shelters are designed to provide a more durable and sustainable solution to the current emergency shelter and tent camps, as the removal of debris and the reconstruction of the damaged housing infrastructure is likely to last years.

Shelter design

Based on ground realities and Haitian weather conditions, UNOPS developed a customized 18 metre square design, consisting of a timber structure, plywood wall cladding and zinc aluminium roofing. The shelters are designed and built in accordance with international standards and the latest disaster risk reduction techniques, and have been tested to withstand wind speeds of over 170 kilometres per hour (Category 1 hurricane).

Completed shelters can house families of five people and last at least three years.

The process of designing the shelters was a joint effort between the UNOPS shelter team in Haiti, and the UNOPS Physical Infrastructure Design Unit. The teams are also testing the structural strength of shelters designed by some of the other organizations working in the shelter cluster.

Shelter production and construction

UNOPS has established a shelter production base in Port-au-Prince. Here Haitians from earthquake-affected and poor neighbourhoods are involved in producing and assembling the shelter kits, generating incomes as a secondary outcome of the project. UNOPS is also identifying and training female carpenters to join the production teams. In addition, fifteen teams are being established to construct the transitional shelters at their final destinations. In total, an estimated 200 Haitians will be employed to work on the transitional shelter programme.

Results

As of 15 October 2010, some 350 transitional shelters had been constructed, out of a current expected delivery of 2,835. These will provide durable shelter for 14,000 people, and constitute a key step towards rebuilding their lives.

Structural assessment project

UNOPS is concurrently working with the Haitian Ministry of Public Works on the national Building Damage Assessment project, financed jointly by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. Some 400 engineers have been trained to check the safety of damaged buildings, assessing over 300,000 buildings as of 15 October 2010.

Supported by ECHO, the engineers are working with 75 ‘community mobilisers’ to disseminate life-saving information, raise awareness and collect data at household, neighborhood and camp level on the danger of living in damaged buildings.

Once assessed, the buildings are marked either red (unsafe), yellow (safe after repairs), or green (safe). UNOPS uses this information to identify families whose houses have been destroyed in order to provide them with a transitional shelter on their existing plot.