News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Apr 28, 2015
• Views : 743
• Category : Haiti News
• Description : VICE on HBO follows the money in Haiti
  
  By Center for Economic and Policy Research
  Global Research, April 24, 2015
  Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Location : Haiti
• Website : http://www.globalresearch.ca/haiti-what-happened-to-the-10-billion-in-u-s-aid-pledged-after-the-earthquake/5445016

Overview

• Tonight, Vikram Gandhi, VICE on HBO correspondent travels to Haiti to see just what happened with the $10 billion in aid pledged after the earthquake that occurred more than five years ago. The episode airs at 11 PM EST.
  
  In a sneak peek posted yesterday, Gandhi goes to the site of a housing expo held in 2011. Organized by the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission led by Bill Clinton, the expo was meant to showcase model homes that could be built across the country. With more than a million made homeless, and hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed, providing new housing was seen as key to “building back better.”
  
  “If we do this housing properly, it will lead to whole new industries being started in Haiti, creating thousands and thousands of new jobs and permanent housing,” Clinton stated after the earthquake.
  
  But, as Gandhi shows, the expo never had the intended impact. Instead, the homes were abandoned and left to decay. Now, years later, the model houses have been occupied by residents, creating a new community in the rubble of the international community’s broken promises.
  
  Gandhi speaks with CEPR Research Associate Jake Johnston, who explains how the U.S.’ premier aid agency, USAID, had an ambitious plan to build some 15,000 houses. But while costs nearly doubled to over $90 million, currently only 2,600 are planned and only 900 have been built thus far. USAID is no longer involved in new housing construction.
  
  Read more here >>