Vision

•   Creating safe neighborhoods, addressing the concerns of safety, creating spaces with constant high visibility

•   Avoiding the typical issues with temporary housing; inevitably turning into long term housing

•   Reducing the waste associated with relief efforts, all components multifunctional

•   Designed initially as high density, and transitioning into single family multistory residences; long term adaptability

•   Anticipating the needs; plumbing, electricity, cooking space, heating and warming, educational spaces, community areas, retail, built-in furniture, agricultural spaces

•   Empowerment; giving the locals not short term relief, but a depth of vision into sustainable development

 

Construction Strategy

•   Modular, bolt together construction (house modules and components)

•   Kit of parts; shipping container module, stairs, glazing, cisterns, water collection and shading membranes, balconies, furniture; all elements packed in container

•   Locally sourced infill components; earth floors, bamboo truss beams, bedding, seating

•   Seismically sound construction, pre-engineered footings and structural connections

•   Stacking, welding and fabrication done on the ground in Haiti

 

Design

•   Secure entry points for the community

•   Terraced and vegetated interior courtyards to foster community

•   Beauty as an essential element of the design; colorful steel and natural toned elements, organic and nonlinear configurations, and educational agricultural outdoor spaces; lifting the hopes of the residents

•   Row-house modules, oriented for maximum natural ventilation and day-lighting

•   Interior insulation of the container, as well as shading and vegetated roof panels to reduce heating loads

•   Doors and glazing predominantly on the ends of the container to maintain structural integrity of the container, as well as reduce welding costs

•   Creating a mixed use community consisting of residential, retail, aid, educational, and manufacturing purposes

•   Higher cost, long term payback

•   Multistory neighborhoods, eliminating the shantytown

 

MicroFinancing

The building block of any successful community is the family. The Haiti Housing Project is focused on bringing families together in sustainable communities. Families will be selected to receive a unit based on employment, integrity and family size. Selected families will receive mortgaged unit, funded by Fonkoze (http://fonkoze.org), the leading microfinancier in Haiti with 39 branch locations.  Microfinanced loans will be deferred for 2 years and will pay back the lender directly at a very low interest rate. The ideal family for this program will consist of 2 parents, 2 children and one or two elders, but exceptions will be made on a case by case basis.

 

Work Training

In the intial phase of installations, trained workers will be hired and sent from the United States. Each trained worker will provide on the job training for two additional Haitian workers for each position. The role of these workers will be two fold: to construct the installation and to train as many Haitian workers as possible to construct the same installations. Trades used and trained for will include: Welding/Fabrication, Plumbing, Construction, Electrical, Crane Operation, Site Preparation and Grading, Bulldozing. Each installation will create jobs for XX Haitian workers and create XX more Skilled Workers in the country. The benefits of these jobs and workers will ripple through the economy of Haiti.

 

Job Creation

The Haitian workforce will be used at every opportunity. As currently modeled, each installation will create jobs for XX Haitian workers, train XX more Haitian workers and use XXXX man hours of work. Workers wil be hired based on skills, work ethic, need and reference. Head of households will receive priority to men without dependants. Workers will be paid hourly.

 

Investment Call

Funding for this project will come as a mixture of investment and donation. Families selected to receive a unit will agree to a 2 year deferred mortgage, financed by microloans. The loans are currently expected to be for approximately 100% of the labor cost of each unit, or $XXXXX. Loans will be managed through Fonkoze (http://fonkoze.org)

 

The Future

Education

The key to Haiti's future is education for the youth. To this effect, one major communal area built into this design is a classroom. Each installation will house approximately 60 children. Each classroom will be outfitted with 20 computers provided by the One Laptop Per Child program. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Haiti

Garment Production

Providing ongoing jobs for members of the community will be critical to alleviating the current economic condition. To this effect, and in light of The Plus One for Haiti (http://geneva.usmission.gov/2010/02/16/ustr-haiti-initiative/ ) initiative and subsequent trade legislation, garment manufacturing facilities will be built into each development. The facilities will in effect be leased to a manufacturing partner, the proceeds of which will be used to subsidize the development costs of the installation and provide community upgrades. The manufacturing partner will be required to pay at least $10/day to employees, double the current minimum wage in Haiti and triple the minimum wage for garment manufacturing. The facility will be purposed to house 40 workers and subsequently generate $8000/month of cash influx to the community. All manufacturing, employment, and management will be managed by the leasing company.