SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Haiti has a vast need for permanent shelter. Haiti’s housing sector sustained roughly 40 percent of the damage caused by the January 2010 earthquake, according to the government’s initial needs assessment. The quake destroyed about 105,000 homes and severely damaged more than 208,000.
To address the need, in August 2011 USAID/Haiti began ambitious activities to (1) upgrade neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, (2) build permanent housing in new settlements outside the capital, and (3) improve urban management through policy assistance to Haitian institutions.
This audit focused on the second activity—the building of new settlements in the Northern and St. Marc development corridors (shown below). The new settlements, circled in red, are located near the towns of Caracol (settlement name is Caracol-EKAM) and Cabaret (settlement name is Declared Land Area 1.5 or DLA 1.5).
According to USAID/Haiti planning documents approved in August 2011, the new settlement construction activities would build up to 4,000 houses, provide 11,000 home sites, and equip the sites with basic services and infrastructure; other partners and donors would then fund the construction of houses on these sites. The mission expected these activities to cost $55 million, with completion in December 2012.