“Under Tents”: International Campaign Launch for Housing in Haiti

"The quantity of people who are homeless in Port-au-Prince today is not acceptable. We need the support of other governments, like the US, to demand that the Haitian Government create a social housing plan. We are looking for allies to help our advocacy. We are asking simply for quality homes where people can live." - Jackson Doliscar of the grassroots group Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA).

Haitian grassroots organizations and international allies are launching an urgent housing rights campaign today, July 2, calling for permanent housing solutions for the nearly 400,000 people who are still living in displacement camps more than two years after the earthquake.

As part of the Under Tents campaign, Haiti’s homeless are demanding that the government immediately halt all forced evictions until public or affordable housing is made available. They request that the Government of Haiti, with the support of its allies and donor governments in the U.S., Canada, and Europe move quickly to: (1) designate land for housing; (2) create one centralized government housing institution to coordinate and implement a social housing plan; and (3) solicit and allocate funding to realize this plan.

The campaign will press for US Congressional and European Parliamentary action, raise international awareness about the crisis through news media, mobilize international grassroots pressure through a petition, and build an international support movement especially with US and international housing rights organizations.

Under Tents is a joint initiative of dozens of Haitian grassroots groups and international allies who are committed to a solution for earthquake victims. The hundreds of thousands still living under shredded plastic tarps and tattered tents face high rates of gender-based and other violence, lack access to clean water and toilets, and combat a surge in the cholera epidemic. One in five is also at risk of imminent forced eviction.