TBF
01-25-2010, 11:24 AM
I wonder where the "billions" in aid is going if everyone is going to be living in tents. I guess only millionaires get houses to live in these days.
Urgent need for tent cities for Haitian refugees
By VIVIAN SEQUERA and MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writers Vivian Sequera And Mike Melia, Associated Press Writers – 46 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The collapse of much of Haiti's capital has a large part of the nation struggling just to find a place to sleep.
As many as 1 million people — one person in nine across the entire country — need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there are too few tents, let alone safe buildings, to put them in.
That leaves about 700,000 other people living on the streets around Port-au-Prince under whatever they can salvage. In the case of Jean Anthony's family, that's a blue plastic tarpaulin for a ceiling and a faded pink sheet with a floral print border for two walls.
"I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it's much more than terrible," said Anthony, the 60-year-old owner of a collapsed restaurant. Thousands of people were camped around him Monday across from the National Palace, amid piles of trash and the stench of human waste.
"We live like dogs," said Espiegle Amilcar, an unemployed 34-year-old who has been living under a sheet of plastic nearby.
Aid organizations say they are collecting tents, but few so far are in evidence. And the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency, says it could take experts weeks to search out suitable sites for enough tent cities to hold earthquake refugees.
Vincent Houver, the Geneva-based agency's chief of mission in Haiti, said Sunday that the agency's warehouse in Port-au-Prince holds 10,000 family-size tents, but he estimates 100,000 are needed.
The organization has appealed for $30 million to pay for tents and other aid needs and has received two-thirds of that so far, he said.
Haiti's government wants many of the homeless to leave the capital city of 2 million people, to look for better shelter with relatives or others elsewhere. Officials estimate that about 235,000 have taken advantage of its offer of free transport to leave the city, and many others left on their own, some even walking.
More here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake_419
Urgent need for tent cities for Haitian refugees
By VIVIAN SEQUERA and MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writers Vivian Sequera And Mike Melia, Associated Press Writers – 46 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The collapse of much of Haiti's capital has a large part of the nation struggling just to find a place to sleep.
As many as 1 million people — one person in nine across the entire country — need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there are too few tents, let alone safe buildings, to put them in.
That leaves about 700,000 other people living on the streets around Port-au-Prince under whatever they can salvage. In the case of Jean Anthony's family, that's a blue plastic tarpaulin for a ceiling and a faded pink sheet with a floral print border for two walls.
"I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it's much more than terrible," said Anthony, the 60-year-old owner of a collapsed restaurant. Thousands of people were camped around him Monday across from the National Palace, amid piles of trash and the stench of human waste.
"We live like dogs," said Espiegle Amilcar, an unemployed 34-year-old who has been living under a sheet of plastic nearby.
Aid organizations say they are collecting tents, but few so far are in evidence. And the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency, says it could take experts weeks to search out suitable sites for enough tent cities to hold earthquake refugees.
Vincent Houver, the Geneva-based agency's chief of mission in Haiti, said Sunday that the agency's warehouse in Port-au-Prince holds 10,000 family-size tents, but he estimates 100,000 are needed.
The organization has appealed for $30 million to pay for tents and other aid needs and has received two-thirds of that so far, he said.
Haiti's government wants many of the homeless to leave the capital city of 2 million people, to look for better shelter with relatives or others elsewhere. Officials estimate that about 235,000 have taken advantage of its offer of free transport to leave the city, and many others left on their own, some even walking.
More here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake_419