Haiti: Housing

I have a lot of photos of Haiti taken over the years of travel to Haiti.  I will share some of them with you so you can get an idea of life in Haiti.

Housing can be anything from a cement structure to a woven corn or sugar cane shack:

You can see the foundation has washed away when there are heavy rains. The tin roof (most typical roofing material in Haiti) looks old and rusted.

Riverfront property! 

Stucco over woven sticks with a thatched roof

Banana leaves for the roof. Sticks and mud are the walls.

What looks like rubble in the yard is stone they have bought for a future house

Houses like this are often brightly painted.

A typical street scene.  

These donkey are probably carrying  molasses from the sugar cane 

field to be sold to the rum "factory". The donkeys seem to know their way to the 

distillery or market and their way home.

In the south central you see these buildings in the yards. 

The family builds a cryt to bury relatives in their yard.

The house here is very typical with cement or stones walls, a small front porch and a tin roof.

Cost for a house like this is about $1500 last time I asked.

Probably a very nice house when it was built.

You can see where the stucco has washed away and shows the sticks underneath.

In the foreground you can see the beginning of a new house. On the left is the cemented foundation and the right are the rocks collected or purchased to make that foundation.

As you drive around Haiti you see a lot of partially finished houses. In Haiti there is no such thing as a mortgage for the majority of the population. Therefore, when someone gets a little money they might buy a piece of land. That will sit idle until they get enough money to buy some materials. Then they will build as much of the house as they can until their money runs out.  This process continues until the house is finished.

I have been on trips to Haiti where we helped build a house for a family. We always have the community pick the family who needs the house. The community participates and is responsible to make sure the house gets finished. One of these houses was a woven frame which we then put stucco over. The 2 Haitian "bosses" showed us how to weave the sticks to hold the mud and stucco. So a couple of us took on a small wall to weave. We were so proud of our finished wall and went home for the night. The next morning, when we arrived at the site, it was obvious the wall we had done had been dismantled and the two Haitian managers were trying to quickly reweave our wall before we showed up.  I had to laugh because obviously I had no distinctions of what a good woven wall looked like and they were trying to not hurt our feelings by correcting us! When I looked at the newly woven wall I couldn't see a difference but obviously they could!

The following are photos are taken in Cap Haitien, the second largest city in Haiti. At one time it was described as the Pearl of the Caribbean.

This might look like and abandoned property but there are businesses that operate here. Either the owner doesn't have the money for repairs or fixing it is not a high priority.

In the last 15 years the roads have been paved with brick or cement blocks.

More modern buildings that have shops or commercial businesses on the first level with housing above-like a lot of US cities.

My favorite building in Haiti! In it's day it must have been a gorgeous and elegant house.

Of course it has been abandoned but is still owned by someone.

Every time I'm in Cap I am glad to see it is still standing!!

Another view of my favorite house! Ivy has grown up the side of the house.

Another great house in it's day but the thatched  roof has fallen in.

The umbrellas are where vendors on the street have set up shop.

Lots of cars and bicycles near the center of town.

Damage from the 2010 earthquake is still evident in some places of Haiti. I didn't travel to Haiti immediately after the quake. Even a few years later some of the buildings haven't been removed.