Welcomes You to Thinking

‘Outside of the Box‘

A Housing Solution for Haiti

What is Haiti Housing all about?

Hi! My name is Mark, I’m 43 years old and I live in the United Kingdom.

Haiti Housing .org is setting out to become a social enterprise post earthquake accommodation solution – for some of the most vulnerable people, living in the earthquake torn country of Haiti.

The people of Haiti are facing a very major problem right now…

Already they are well into the rainy season in Haiti and the full blown hurricane season starts in July.

At the time of writing this in early March (2010), this leaves just 4 months to put together an emergency housing project to provide earthquake and hurricane proof, dry, safe and secure housing for some of the most vulnerable residents living there.

This is going to require some proactive, ‘out of the box’ thinking and a very determined action plan.

To this end, I’m extending an invitation to the visitors of this Haiti Housing website to create a ‘mastermind group’ – A select number of individuals who can clearly see the major problem the people of Haiti are facing right now and between us, deliver a working springboard platform solution.

What Is This Plan Precisely?

I would like to forward the idea, the vision to create a ’small village’ housing community project either in Port Au Prince or very close to the city.

Tens of thousands of the victims of this devastating earthquake, natural disaster, are right now living in ‘tent cities’.

These ‘tent cities’ are going to be next to useless if and when a hurricane strikes directly.

Given the recent history of Haiti, the chances of this happening is very high. This possible event will once again put a great number of lives at risk, especially the most vulnerable residents, the very young, the elderly or those with physical disabilities.

Whilst we cannot hope to help everybody, (as much as we would like to), this is just not feasible or realistic.

Having said that, we can hopefully bring hope to some of the most vulnerable victims of this earthquake disaster and hopefully inspire at least a glimmer of hope for the future, for the people that we can actually help directly.

The plan is to source shipping containers locally, either from within Haiti or next door in the Dominican Republic.

Steel shipping containers typically come in 3 standard sizes to be of any use to us – 20′ long, 40′ long and 45′ long.

Typical 40' Shipping Container

Why Shipping Containers?

By their very nature steel shipping containers are exceptionally strong structures, in fact they surpass (to my limited knowledge) just about every structural building code in every country worldwide, renowned for their great strength, durability and ruggedness.

They have to be exceedingly strong. Conveying all manner of goods and products worth tens of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars across the worlds oceans on container ships, through enormous storms and large waves in every weather condition imaginable, the goods inside them must arrive safely at their destinations, completely dry and secure.

Interior Shot

The fact is that huge numbers of these shipping containers are decommissioned from use every year, in many ports there is actually a veritable stockpile of these shipping containers taking up very valuable dockside space. Under normal circumstances, many of them end up being crushed and turned into scrap metal.

All told, each year about 1 million shipping containers are taken out of use and replaced with brand new containers.

You can buy a used shipping container in the United States for as little as $1,000. In the United Kingdom, approximately the same.

Some of these shipping containers sold on the open market do end up being used for all kinds of very inventive and highly imaginative purposes.

You’ll find them in diverse places all over the planet being put to good use, from the depth of the Artic Circle to the hottest jungles of Africa and South America.

Now I’m betting that with the global economic slowdown, there is a glut of these shipping containers available and I think they would make near perfect, post natural disaster housing accommodation units.

In fact, (although this needs to be confirmed), I bet there’s a pretty good number of available shipping containers available from right within Haiti and if not there – certainly from the Dominican Republic next door.

Rather than importing shipping containers in from abroad which would push the price of each unit up dramatically, if it was possible to source these  locally and convert them on-site on the ground directly, (where they are needed the most), I believe this could be achieved at very little cost.

If one factors in the amount of timber and other recyclable materials etc which can be salvaged from the earthquake disaster zone – the conversion of these shipping containers into secure accommodation units could be supplied at minimal cost, especially since this is to be a social enterprise grassroots community project.

If we enlist the voluntary help of some of the locals and network with other aid agencies on the ground, how long would it take to turn each shipping container into a secure accommodation unit?

The plan therefore is to first get in touch with people working on the ground in the Port Au Prince area to see if we can locate a site suitable for the immediate conversion of 25 shipping containers. If each container home can sleep 18 people, we could be helping 450 of the most vulnerable victims of this natural disaster, in a very real and practical way.

How Can This be Funded?

I’m all for networking directly with whoever can help us to set this up very quickly.

This hurricane season is fast approaching and will wait for no man.

I say that this is a time for bringing together a very determined group of individuals, who are completely 110% committed to bringing this plan of action into being – just getting on with it and DOING IT!

The idea itself makes a lot of sense. Source the containers locally, salvage the conversion materials required at source, utilize local voluntary labor, helping the local people to help themselves.

Coming back to that funding issue…

I think this could be achieved – that is 25 container homes supplied, sited and converted, for a maximum $75,000.

If you divide $75,000 by 450 people helped, that’s just $167 to help each vulnerable individual, to get out of a soaking wet polythene tent into somewhere that is dry, warm and secure, not to mention a seismic and hurricane proof home – where they can at least sleep in some degree of comfort and security.

Either this plan receives some immediate interest for sponsorship funding deals or we put out a plea for every person that visits this site to donate whatever they can afford, ever single dollar will of course help.

Of course, it goes without saying that we would document the entire progress made through this website / blog, so everyone was made aware of exactly where the money was going and how it was being spent, right down to the last cent.

Certainly, there has to be some way of bringing this plan into action.

Which brings me back to the point about organizing a mastermind group.

A Mastermind Group?

The purpose of a mastermind group is…

To enable working solutions to take shape and to form the basis upon which, real action can take place on the ground.

Every idea, every vision needs a plan in order for it to work.

The mastermind group (for want of a better phrase) can brainstorm ideas and possible solutions to bring the plan fully into effect, in the most efficient manner possible, at the lowest possible cost, in the fastest timeframe.

If you would like to be considered for this voluntary role, please do feel welcome to contact me directly…

Mark@IMCopywriting.com

I would especially like to hear from very determined and highly committed individuals with a ‘can-do’ attitude.

Practical by nature with a strong interest in natural disaster post management or sustainability design implementation. If this sounds like you or you have other skills, which you feel would serve very well on a project like this – please do drop me a line. (Fundraisers are particularly welcome at this stage)

You must be able to supply own funding for the duration of any subsequent trip to Haiti, to help lay the groundwork for this community housing project.

Now, I do not want to exclude anyone else from taking part in this plan of grassroots, direct community action.

Everybody that visits this site if you so choose to, can have a part to be directly involved in this community housing project – to help some of the most vulnerable victims of the recent earthquake disaster.

You can help to promote this site simply by bookmarking it or if you want to go one step further, add a link to this site from your own blog or website, this would certainly help move this idea in the right direction.

This is entirely a voluntary project, not one prson will receive a single cent by way of monetary compensation, taking a part in this community housing project for the people of Haiti.

If you can write an article or two and submit these to the major article directories, even better!

If you can submit this site to the major social bookmarking and social networking sites – awesome!

For example, in no particular order…

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Hubpages, Squidoo, Wordpress etc etc etc – fantastic!

It’s only through the hands of many people coming together with a common cause in mind, that we might just be able to accomplish this vision and accomplish a great deal of good for the victims of this Haiti earthquake disaster.

The Goal?

End of June 2010 – 25 container homes converted on-site and ready for some of the most vulnerable victims of the earthquake disaster to move into.

Let’s give these people a fighting chance to start their lives over again.

They deserve and need our combined help – everybody deserves dignity.

Commit random acts of kindness…

Welcome to HaitiHousing.org

‘Thinking Outside of  the Box‘

Please feel welcome to submit any comments below…

Many thanks!

Mark

P.S. This website has no affiliation whatsoever to HaitiHouse.org – I did contact the owners of this domain to see if we could work together, only to receive sadly so, a rather blunt message from them, part of which can be seen below…

“Since we have an obligation to protect our company’s identity, be aware that the name HaitiHousing.org might confuse individuals into thinking you represent our company or products. Please note that we are specifically not granting any permission to yourself or your domain to post or repost information about our company, our materials, or products on your site, including this correspondence.”

Richard Rivette
Client Services Department
PR HaitiHouse.org

I thought this was a bit of a shame really – HaitiHouse.org taking this very hardline attitude and stance.

Whilst I think they have the perfect solution at hand, which could really help a great number of people on the ground in Haiti, it would appear that they no wish to help or support purely not-for-profit grassroots, social enterprise projects.

This website Haiti Housing .org is all about promoting grassroots community projects, action/s taken by well intentioned individuals who are fed up of the attitudes of large corporate entities who promise to deliver so much, but fail to see the importance of helping one another at the grassroots level.

How this small website (which I have no intention of benefitting from financially) could be perceived to be a threat to this large company is quite beyond my comprehension to understand.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I would love to work with HaitiHouse.org to effect positive change on the ground in Haiti but their own attitude prevents this from happening – therefore I must make it perfectly clear that this website HaitiHousing.org and HaitiHouse.org are completely and utterly separate from each other with no affiliation at all.

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