chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)54CHAPTER 3Evenif urban poor groups have some assets undamaged by the disaster, these can bequickly eroded by having to pay for consumption needs and through loss of livelihoodsor sources of income, so all the inequalities and difficulties that the urban poor facedbefore the disaster remain to constrain the post-disaster response. Having a home in aninformal settlement usually means lacking land tenure and any official documentationof ‘ownership’ of the land and house. It also often means living in a settlement with noinfrastructure, such as piped water supplies, sewers, drains and paved roads, because localgovernments refuse to provide these to ‘illegal’ settlements. It is this lack of infrastructurethat greatly increases the impact of the disaster event. Most informal settlements havelittle or no public provision for healthcare or emergency services, which further limitsneeded responses to disasters. After a disaster, the lack of tenure and documentation,combined with an absence of links to local government, compounds the constraints onresponse. Disaster relief and support for rebuilding often depend on proof of residenceand identity cards, which also explains why many do not move to safer sites when warnedabout an approaching storm or flood as they fear they will not be allowed to return home.The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights has noted that, unless disaster aid quickly learnsto work with the untitled, the unregistered, the unlisted and the undocumented, it cansupport and even reinforce the inequalities that existed prior to the disaster.Local governments may allow people whose homes were destroyed to settle in temporarycamps but would never sanction these as places where they can stay and rebuildpermanent homes. They often do not permit them to return to their former settlementbut they are also unwilling to provide them with alternative land sites (or if they do,these are peripheral sites with little or no infrastructure, far from their previous homes,social networks and places where they work). There may be good reasons for not wantingthem to return to their former sites because these are so much at risk (from floodsor cyclones, for instance) and post-disaster reconstruction could provide an opportunityto allow those affected to get safer sites on which to rebuild. However, they almostnever get appropriate new sites and they are hardly ever consulted about the appropriatenessof new locations. Fine words about ‘rebuilding a new, safe city’ and ‘decentralizing’to avoid the previous high concentration of informal settlements usually becomedistant camps and reconstruction sites where no one wants to live.Alfredo Stein, commenting on the reconstruction plan in Haiti to move people awayfrom the capital and drawing on his work in post-Hurricane Mitch reconstruction,said, “You are going to be constructing ghettos that are far away from where peoplewill need to restore their economic lives.” The estate agent’s mantra ‘location, location,location’ is actually even more relevant for low-income groups. Stein, an experton urban planning based at the Global Urban Research Centre at the University ofManchester, notes that planners must assume that people will return to their homesitesand work closely with them to rebuild. If their former site is destroyed or toodangerous for them to rebuild on, then they must be included in real discussions aboutwhat would be appropriate relocation sites given government capacity to act rapidly