People centered housing recovery for comprehensive recovery post-disaster

As house rebuild is the most needed by the disaster affected families whose houses are damaged, house reconstruction become the most captivating topic of recovery. The bigger number of house damage, the pressure for quick rebuild also increase. During the decade it was already proven that people centered housing recovery is the best solution for comprehensive recovery. Moreover community involvement might increase the impact of recovery initiative.

Growing pressure leads to quick solution

The toughest argument of people centered housing recovery is the process is to slow. The obstacle is considerable since there is insufficient capacity of affected people on rebuilding their houses. They might lost their livelihood, therefore their saving would not sufficient for house rebuild. To those who have sufficient saving they might repair or rebuild their houses but for many of affected people they might have conflicting priorities. Their priority is how they daily needs are met. In many events, housing recovery cannot be seen in a short time frame. Therefore setting a recovery program around time might lead to failure.

Market and livelihood both are also affected by disaster. The supply chain and economic system are disrupted. The impact of this condition is more severe if the affected area are in rural sites. There are transportation challenges as bridges or roads were damaged. In many events, earthquake in rainy season might cause landslide. Such as in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, the roads blocked due to landslide during monsoon[i]. Therefore the construction material prices would increase due to limited transportation.  

The problem continues to grow even more complicated if the local government does not have clear plan on housing recovery. Housing reconstruction is an essential element on the recovery but both strategy and policy are seldom can be found in the contingency plan. This missing part would give way to noise which come from political agenda. As disaster situations always useful for publicity seekers, political elites might use it for making political capital[ii]. It happens worldwide not unique to a particular country.

Over the time, combination of those three above becoming more intricate. The needs of affected people, market still not fully functional and political pressures might leads recovery initiatives to wrong direction. The government might give quick solution but overlook to get buy-in from the affected people.

Dilemma between rapid recovery process and actual people need

It is proven that construction using modular system is faster than using conventional system. Modular or prefabricated construction has gradually replacing the traditional on-site construction due to the benefits provided, notably faster time, reduced costs, better work quality, and less environmental impacts. Prefabricated construction guaranties more control over the quality of components and safety of the construction.[iii]

Government support the earthquake affected people in Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia with cash grant to build house through contractors. The contractors provide concrete fabricated columns and skilled labors to construct the houses. The contractor also deliver bricks and other materials. The houses design is uniform to all beneficiaries. But this initiative is not fully accepted by some affected people. Those who are still traumatic with bricks and concrete which collapsed during the earthquake, they are asking for different structure such as timber and bamboo.[iv]  To those who are still in government scheme, still have to top up with their saving since the cash grant is not sufficient to complete a house. The problem then the cost would increase due to high demand. Now they are worry since the contractor have more control on price setting.[v]

The idea is to speed up the reconstruction process should be appreciated but there are missing pieces should not to be overlooked. We have to realize that affected people have their own plan. Disaster will not undermine their ability to recover and on the other hand they know their limitation. The community should be consulted from the earliest phase of recovery of what is their perception on recovery path. They need support for sure but what kind of support would be the best for them. For those who have land title they would rebuild their houses[vi]. Then what kind of house they want to build; their answer will be many according to family size, land typology and their construction material preference. Therefore there will not be one solution fits for all.

Since in every disaster event there will be political pressure, the noise should be reduced. The government should have housing recovery strategy beforehand. The strategy document will be a reference which can communicate government plan clearly to the affected people, potential donors and humanitarian organizations. The spirit of the recovery plan is to put the affected people at the center. It is important to get community participation to develop a permanent housing recovery plan based on two ideas. The unique needs of the residents and the natural hazards they may experience[vii]. It is more important than build back safer as people centered housing recovery could represent a more detailed way to consider the varied aspects of housing recovery projects. [viii]

The recovery plan should promote housing owner driven reconstruction post-disaster. The homeowner should participate since the early stage of the project. There are important decisions to make, for instance house designs, choice of technologies and procedures.[ix] Then the role of local government, donor agencies and humanitarian organizations could provide support for proper funding mechanism and safer construction.

Beyond the house build

Then if people already at the center of housing recovery is the speed of recovery can be improved? Actually there is no guarantee that people centered housing recovery can make the recovery faster. But there are several things which lead to comprehensive recovery are noticeable. Since the house owner take the lead, there will be no rejection as it happened in Lombok. They choose the design, type of material and also the construction pace. It helps the local business since local builders will use mostly local material. This construction work can give multiplier effect for other economic activity in the area. More job and new business are open, which all of these are to fill the demand from the construction work.

Since the construction will use technology which quite familiar to the local builders, there is no need to bring builders from outside. But local builders still need external support to improve their skills to meet the build back safer requirement. In this part, government and humanitarian agencies can provide funding and technical assistance. Local builders need to be trained properly and continuous monitoring for sometime to develop their skills. It takes time but it is part of the process to change the old practices to the new custom on constructing safer structure.

Arwin Soelaksono

---

[i] McAdoo, Brian G. & Quak, Michelle & Gnyawali, Kaushal & Adhikari, B & Devkota, Sanjaya & Lal Rajbhandari, Purna & Sudmeier-Rieux, Karen. (2018). Roads and landslides in Nepal: How development affects environmental

[ii] Bose B.P.C., The Politics of Disasters, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 2, 1994

[iii] Molavi, Jeffrey and Barral, Drew L. A. Construction Procurement Method to Achieve Sustainability in Modular Construction, Procedia Engineering 145 ( 2016 ) 1362 – 1369, 2016

[iv] Trauma Rumah Beton, Sebagian Korban Tolak RISHA https://radarlombok.co.id/trauma-rumah-beton-sebagian-korban-tolak-risha.html   . Accessed June 16, 2019.

[v] Pembangunan risha di lombok barat terkendala bahan. https://mataram.antaranews.com/berita/38552/pembangunan-risha-di-lombok-barat-terkendala-bahan .

[vi] This article is not cover those who do not have legal land that they can build house upon.

[vii] Cantrell, Randall A. et.al. Pre-Disaster Planning for Permanent Housing Recovery VOLUME 2: Planning Strategy. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. 2012.

[viii] Maly, Elizabeth. Rethinking “Build Back Better” in housing reconstruction: A proposal for “People Centered Housing Recovery”. 2016

[ix] Lyons, Michael; Schilderman, Theo; Boano, Camillo. Building Back Better: Delivering People-centred Housing Reconstruction at Scale. 2010