ProPublica.org: How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes

[LiberalElite]

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes?google_editors_picks=true

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF CAMPECHE sprawls up a steep hillside in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Goats rustle in trash that goes forever uncollected. Children kick a deflated volleyball in a dusty lot below a wall with a hand-painted logo of the American Red Cross.

In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which was hit hard by the earthquake that struck Haiti the year before. The main focus of the project — called LAMIKA, an acronym in Creole for “A Better Life in My Neighborhood” — was building hundreds of permanent homes.

Today, not one home has been built in Campeche. Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water.

The Red Cross received an outpouring of donations after the quake, nearly half a billion dollars.
-snip-

[kacekwl]

1. Shocking , I wonder

how much they were billed by the contractor that built the "transitional housing" shacks ? Never again will I give a penny unless I see exactly where it goes and how and who spends it.

[SunSeeker]

2. Wow. Maybe the Red Cross should just stick to blood drives. nt

[OnyxCollie]

3. The Clinton Foundation will loan you some money for a mortgage.

New Program Launched to Make Home Mortgages Available to Haitians
http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/new-program-launched-to-make-home-mortgages-available-to-haitians

MARCH 24, 2011

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has announced the launch of a $47 million program to make home mortgages more widely available in Haiti.

Jointly sponsored by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Haiti Reconstruction Fund, the program will provide home mortgages and home-repair loans to low-income Haitians and small businesses affected by last year's earthquake. The Development Innovations Group will manage the program, pending approval by OPIC's board of directors in June after implementation details are finalized.

The program was approved last week by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, a group formed in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake to review and approve projects funded by bilateral and multilateral donors, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Funded by Haiti Reconstruction Fund ($10 million), the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund ($3 million), and OPIC ($34 million in debt funding), the program is modeled after similar efforts that have proved successful in other parts of the developing world.

"What Haiti needs today are smart investments that will create economic opportunities and lay the groundwork for long-term, sustainable growth," said Clinton Bush Haiti Fund CEO Gary Edson. "By providing funding for programs such as this, we're making it possible for ordinary Haitians to own their own home as well as their own future success and prosperity."