Major disasters always take time for housing recovery. For instance, following the 2010 earthquake, Haiti took more than ten years. Following the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, the government planned for ten years of recovery. Nepal took more than six years after the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. But there are some people who are still working on their recovery beyond their government recovery time frame. The problem with massive recovery campaigns is that some people are still struggling to rebuild their housing while their neighbors have already completed the reconstruction. People in their vulnerability will potentially left behind due to a lack of capacity to acquire resources such as builders, construction materials, and banking systems.
The affected people surely want to get their lives back to normal, including having their houses rebuilt. From the government's point of view, prolonged housing recovery time will potentially create social and political tension. Hence, in many countries, pressure from political actors for a quick rebuild adds noise to the recovery plan. Aid agencies also facing the same challenges. Due to limited funding, which is also reflected in the limited timeframe, many are tempted to deliver quick assistance but not significantly contribute to the affected people's recovery pathways. Learned from the Asian Tsunami 2004, fishermen in Aceh, Indonesia, who usually live in wooden and timber houses, got housing donations made of brick and reinforced concrete. Since it was a turn-key project, they just received the houses, they have no ability to expand, maintain, or repair. Therefore, many of those houses were broken and unrepaired. The hardest lesson learned was that giving houses will not automatically correlate to improving the earning ability. There are other factors that need to be provided, not merely housing construction per se.
From the affected people's perspective, they are in shock due to the loss of their family members, their houses, or maybe their livelihood. They need time to digest and comprehend their situation and limitations. Some of them may take refuge in other cities. These situations show that affected households have uniqueness, and we need to be aware of their specific needs. The problems are aggravated if their land is missing due to landslide or tsunami. This includes if they are not allowed to rebuild their houses on their original site due to government regulations that their land is unsafe to rebuild. On the other hand, the construction market those are builders, and construction materials, need time to balance the supply and demand due to massive reconstruction.
Hence, housing recovery needs to be seen as a massive collaboration between recovery actors and the construction market which affected people should be part of it. Both affected people and builders should be trained for proper construction. Government and aid agencies should encourage self-recovery and at the same time, strengthen the initiative with construction market improvement through subsidies, capacity building, and streamlining the policies. Aid agencies with their limitation need to find meaningful contributions that link the house rebuild with their livelihood for sustainability. Shelter or housing organizations should collaborate with other NGOs who are experts in livelihood and land issues since housing recovery is not merely a house rebuild. All of these are taking considerable time since those are processes; in the end, solid collaboration will deliver comprehensive and long-term solutions to the affected people.
Arwin Soelaksono
Photo from Carl Courts Getty Images Photo Journalist https://twitter.com/GettyImagesNews/status/1702063191914668088
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