Glossary of Haiti Housing Challenges 1/17/2011 Page 4
Glossary of Haiti Housing ChallengesConcepts Terminology Acronyms
USA Housing mess info at end, shows that US financial industry is now too incompetent to function in USA, let alone any other nation use USA systems with any authority
Alister William Macintyre research notes
01/17/2011 (last updated)
Version 3.2
Table of Contents
Introduction (1 Jan 17) 4
Key Resources (0 Oct 09) 6
Version History (1 Jan 08) 6
Courtesy Reminder (0 Sep 30) 8
Copying Tips (0 Sep 10) 9
Haiti Housing Statistics (0 Oct 20) 9
Plan for Tent City Refugees (0 Nov 05) 11
Alternatives Pricing (0 Dec 28) 13
Strategic Housing Plan for 2011 (1 Jan 04) 13
Ideological Divides over Haiti (0 Dec 13) 14
Severe Weather (0 Oct 09) 14
Haiti Severe Weather Shelter (0 Dec 28) 15
Protecting critical documents (0 Dec 28) 15
Problem Solving Model (0 Oct 09) 15
Ideology Political Divisions (0 Oct 09) 16
Quake Rubble urgency (0 Oct 09) 16
Solve Rubble by Fastest Economical Means (0 Oct 09) 17
Rubble is a means to an Economy end (0 Oct 09) 18
Land Owner Documents (0 Oct 20) 18
Apparent orphan children (0 Dec 19) 19
FOOD insecurity (0 Oct 09) 21
Reconstruction Commission Split (1 Jan 06) 22
Transitional Challenges (0 Oct 01) 24
US IG evaluates USAID “Cash for Work” (0 Oct 01) 25
Recommendations of IG Audit of USAID CFW (0 Oct 01) 26
Eviction Scandals (0 Nov 17) 27
WATER Challenges (0 Nov 12) 29
Terminology Challenges (1 Jan 05) 29
Haiti Terminology Concepts (1 Jan 12) 30
C+ (1 Jan 11) 31
D+ (0 Nov 15) 32
E+ (0 Nov 15) 33
Eviction+ (0 Oct 20) 34
Forced Evictions+ (0 Oct 20) 35
G+ (0 Oct 01) 35
H+ (0 Nov 14) 36
Land+ (0 Oct 20) 37
N+ (0 Dec 26) 38
R+ (0 Dec 29) 38
Repair + (1 Jan 16) 40
S+ (0 Dec 26) 40
T+ (0 Oct 01) 42
U+ (0 Nov 14) 42
Al Mac Housing Research Notes (0 Oct 09) 44
Suggested Reference Documents (1 Jan 16) 44
World Bank (0 Nov 14) 46
Human Frailties (1 Jan 17) 47
USA Housing Terminology (0 Nov 24) 49
US Banking Fraud + (0 Nov 24) 49
US Documentation Bungled + (0 Nov 24) 51
US F+ (0 Nov 24) 52
US Fraud + (0 Nov 24) 52
US Justice + (0 Nov 24) 53
US MERS + (0 Nov 24) 54
US Put-Back + (0 Nov 24) 55
US Toxic + (0 Nov 24) 56
USA Toxic Housing Assets (0 Oct 10) 57
Forgery is Ok when Bank does it? (0 Oct 12) 58
Risk of Error (0 Nov 14) 58
New Orleans Snafu (0 Dec 05) 59
Home Investors (0 Dec 08) 59
Foreclosure FAQ (0 Oct 10) 59
Economic Impact of Scandal (0 Oct 16) 62
MSNBC Update (0 Nov 17) 63
Washington DC will investigate (0 Oct 10) 64
Nov 16 Congress Oversight Report (0 Nov 18) 65
Fire Dog Lake on CRS report (0 Nov 20) 65
Nov 16 Senate Hearing (0 Nov 17) 66
Primary Actors (0 Nov 17) 66
Some of the problems mentioned: (0 Nov 17) 68
Property Law replaced by Banker Oligarchy (0 Nov 17) 69
Perception in Eye of Beholder (0 Nov 17) 69
Conflicts and Confusion (0 Nov 17) 70
Solution Suggestions (0 Nov 17) 71
Solutions Elusive (0 Nov 17) 72
House Hearing (0 Nov 19) 73
Foreclosure and US Courts (0 Oct 10) 74
Toxic Foreclosure Documents (0 Oct 16) 74
States at Greatest Risk of Housing Fraud (0 Oct 11)’ 75
Florida Fraudulent Foreclosures (0 Oct 10) 75
Bank of America (0 Oct 12) 76
GMAC (0 Oct 12) 77
JP Morgan Chase (0 Oct 10) 79
One West Bank (0 Oct 10) 80
USA Foreclosure Statistics (0 Oct 10) 80
FTC actions fight US crisis (0 Nov 19) 80
Introduction (1 Jan 17)
Topic sub-titles end in a date signifying when that info last updated, so by viewing table of contents, we see where most recent input to these research notes, especially aiding people with copy of an earlier version. The digit, in front of the month, signifies year.
Different aid organizations, foreign governments, UN agencies, international alliances like OAS, portions of Government of Haiti, have differing viewpoints on best way to handle various problems. In my opinion, what’s needed is for the representatives, of the different viewpoints, to hold a conference to debate the opposing ideas, with major news media coverage, settle on which solutions best, or have most consensus, figure out how to implement, fund, make legal within Haiti legislation, get the job done. Instead what’s happening is a war of words, finger pointing, misery perpetuated for disaster victims, nothing happens. These research notes try to communicate an understanding of individual challenges, and opposing viewpoints on how best to deal with them. Other research documents will go into more detail on some of the major issues.
Journalists, Academics, other researchers and interested individuals, are advised to go to the primary sources which I cite in these research notes. I am not an expert on this stuff. I am just trying to wrap my mind around what the alleged experts and leaders say are good solutions, and try to think through the implications, to help avoid unintended consequences.
First ½ of this document is on the Haiti housing disaster and related problems, 2nd ½ on USA housing disaster. A lot in common with the two disasters, both man made, although smaller number of actors responsible for the Haiti situation. Figuring this stuff out is a voyage of economic education for me. Ultimately I will probably split this info into two documents, one each Haiti and USA. But for now, many people are interested in both areas … what is this mess, and is there any practical solution?
This “Glossary of Housing challenges in Haiti” research notes document focuses on understanding special terminology associated with:
· Earthquake Rubble Debris
· Eviction Scandal
· Haiti Life Quality Statistics
· Housing Policy
· Human Rights Housing
· Land Owner Documentation
· Land Reform
· Secure Land Tenure
· Transitional Shelters
This is because I am in the process of splitting my research notes on the above topics into separate documents, with only one or two such topics in each one, where the new “Glossary Housing” will be a companion document to the entire new collection, containing info logically common to all of the Housing research notes documents.
We all want to try to help Haiti even if we sometimes do not always agree on the methods or politics, or how we came to a current mess, as with inside our home nation’s politics.[1] Disagreement is more likely when it comes to what kind of balance is best between competing interests, and pros and cons of alternative solution paths.
What belongs in this Glossary document are facts that most everyone can agree on, definitions of terminology, summary of challenges, academic and other theories. Analysis of pro and con of alternative solutions to these challenges, that kind of content belongs in the research notes documents specific to each of the challenges or problems, since all solutions tend to be somewhat controversial, until final solution is selected and implemented.
By splitting research notes by major topic, it makes it simpler to upload download just what is of interest to individual people, reduce sheer size of info to manage. Previously many of these research notes documents had their own glossary, which mainly duplicated similar info in the companion documents. Now they will individually reference this document’s availability with a very short statement.
Key Resources (0 Oct 09)
UN systems for keeping track of all their documents have been running into several problems, such as dependency on Google group features which are now going away, and many clusters not using the One Response site which has had some problems, not all spelled out to general public. Fall 2010, UN moving to a replacement site for documents on Haiti Relief efforts, modeled after http://pakresponse.info/
http://haiti.humanitarianresponse.info/
UN cluster primarily in charge of Housing solutions in Haiti, prior to permanent reconstruction, building back better:
https://sites.google.com/site/shelterhaiti2010/
For people who wish to propose housing solutions for use in Haiti, where does above cluster want them to go, to offer their solutions?
http://groups.google.com/group/haitisheltersolution
Plan Haiti is where people can design replacement housing transparently, in accordance with international standards of building protection against earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters
Haiti Reconstruction forum with links to World Bank, Haiti Government, Reconstruction Commission, etc. etc. not individually listed here because the sites are down more often than they are up.
Version History (1 Jan 08)
My goal includes (I do not always succeed) is to be as factual as possible with the least political (controversial) content as possible. When the very roots of a problem are in fact political controversy, this can be very difficult. This is another reason to be very careful to attribute sources of where I get my alleged facts.
Another goal is to split subject matter to avoid an omnibus document which has many unconnected topics, where some potential users are only interested in a handful of dimensions. When there is an inter-relationship of land tenure security, real estate ownership documentation, permission to enter property to deal with debris rubble, etc. these complexities can mean that one document needs to have it all, or the different documents closely linked to each other. This is an evolving effort how I deal with this.
I plan to upload periodic updates of this research notes document (Glossary of Housing Challenges in Haiti), and sometimes some of my related Housing research and other reference documents to:
· Yahoo Groups / HDRR = Haiti Disaster Recovery Research / Files / Recovery Challenges
· HR = Haiti Rewired / Architecture for Haiti Group / Discussions / Definitions
· HR = Haiti Rewired / Building Housing Communities / Discussions / De-Mystifying Barriers to Haiti Recovery
· HR = Haiti Rewired / Forum Discussions / Housing Reconstruction Challenges
· MPHISE = Medical and Public Health Information Sharing Environment / Forums / General Discussion
· Housing and Shelter forum in the Haiti Resilience System. http://www.haitiresiliencesystem.org/node/118
· Many copies have been e-mailed when there are discussions and questions where I feel what is in here will answer many of the questions.
· Version 3.1 shared with MPHISE Group helping Rolling Stone research Jan 8 = 77 pages 610 k
· Version 2.8 posted to HR-Architecture Group Nov 29 = 71 pages 578 k
· Version 2.7 posted to Yahoo-HDRR Nov 28-29 wee hours = 70 pages 557 k
· Version 2.6 posted to HR-Forum Nov 26-27 wee hours = 70 pages 576 k
· Major updates in November = wrap my head around USA Toxic Housing mess
· Version 2.2 posted to HR-BHC Nov 17 = 58 pages 485 k
· Major updates since version 1.3:
o At the bottom, I added info about USA Housing Market Corruption, which is very similar to the Haiti Ownership mess, in that the people who live in the homes are screwed, the judicial system ensures that the alleged crooks make out like bandits, while the actors in charge of the paperwork explain all problems as “anyone can make a mistake” and “errors are unavoidable”. A mess has been created which could take many years or decades to clean up. If the USA is incapable of rapidly resolving this, what does that say about how long it will take to clean up the Haiti mess?
o If and when the US scandal diminishes, I may move this to a separate research notes document. I use same footnote source repeatedly to document where I got info from, in case later re-write inserts additional text from some other source in-between.
· Version 1.3 posted to HDRR Oct 10 = 32 pages 260 k
· Major Haiti updates since version 1.2 = Ideological Divides (new sections), and Eviction Scandals (new section).
· Version 1.2 posted to HR-BHC Oct 09 = 23 pages 210 k
· Major updates since Oct 04 = Inserted separate directory of Al Mac research notes documents relevant to Haiti housing challenges. Also note key resources addition, up top.
· Version 1.1 to HDRR Oct 04 = deleted when Nov 28-29 replacement posted
· Major updates since Sep 30 = Transitional Challenges (new sections) Terminology Concepts (e.g. Economy, Redistribution of Wealth) which now have letter break dates to facilitate future illumination where additions from version to version, and Suggested Doc (e.g. World Bank newsletter).
· Version 1.0 posted to HR-BHC Sep 30 = 17 pages 160 k
· Contents of this research document were previously in other research notes which Al Mac is now restructuring for several reasons.
Courtesy Reminder (0 Sep 30)
We should refrain from using the contact information in UN NGO reports, and those I share in my research documents, to actually contact people who are working in Haiti, unless we have something specific to help them with that is ready to be implemented RIGHT NOW. If our solution cannot be implemented, because of some need, such as transportation, money, whatever, we should say so up front.
When we cross post these reports to some public or semi-public site, we should either cut out all such contact information, and/or include a reminder to people about this courtesy need. This includes forwarding of e-mail, or cut posting it to some web site.
Please chop out e-mail addresses of the participants, do not invite them to get spam.
Relief workers on the ground are working 20+ hour days under frenetic conditions. To interrupt them, with anything other than direct assistance, in my opinion, is treason to their relief effort. If we are careless about not pointing this out any place we share the info, then there is a risk we are accessories to other people not being courteous, and this kind of information may become even more difficult to access in the future.
In addition to the ethics of not disrupting the workers on the ground by contacting them, there are also ethics that we should do nothing that might put them at additional risk. They are already conducting their affairs in a manner that places themselves at risk of kidnapping, ambush, theft, and other serious events. I am still mentally grappling with whether there is anything I can do about that. Please just give some thought to such issues, when selecting what info to share in a public forum.