Building assessments and rubble removal in quake-affected neighborhoods in Haiti : BARR survey final report

The report suggests they inflate numbers and indeed have reason for doing so; namely, receiving additional public support for their expensive recovery efforts. Despite a massive international response with an emphasis on housing and shelter, OCHA and OIM estimated that as of January 12th 2011, one year after the earthquake, 810,000 people -- 30% of the metropolitan population--still remained displaced and living in Camps, Findings in this report as well as findings of the MTPTC color coded building program suggest this as well as most of the other estimates cited are improbable figures. To assist and encourage people to return to their homes, USAID funded Rubble Removal Programs including demolition of condemned buildings and the removal of rubble from streets and drainage canals. Between February 2010 and February of this year USAID also supported the Ministry of Public Works Transport and Communications (MTPTC) habitability assessments program in which buildings were structurally evaluated and color-coded green (for safe to return), yellow (unsafe to inhabit but reparable), and red (for unsafe to enter/damaged beyond repair). The precise impact of rubble removal and the assessments on IDP returns was, prior to the current study, unknown. To determine the contribution the programs made, USAID contracted LTL Strategies to conduct the Building Assessments and Rubble Removal surveys (here on referred to as BARR). The principal objective was to calculate, to a relatively high degree of accuracy and with a reasonably high degree of statistical probability, the impact on rate of re-occupancy of MTPTC assessments and rubble removal on IDP returns. This report focuses on the Port-au-Prince Cluster sample. (WorldCat abstract)