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Many news outlets wrote about the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Depending upon who you read, they either have made a lot of progress or very little.
Two years ago, I was about to publish a book about the cities of the future.Upon seeing the city of Port-au-Prince pretty much destroyed, I thought that they need a city NOW, not in some distant future.
In my book, I talked about various accelerated construction techniques and tried to see if there could be something that could be adapted to the needs of a very poor country that needs simple basic homes quickly.
Finding a way of making houses from native materials quickly and at a low cost was the easy part. But finding a way to implement the system was something else. I knew that it would take a lot of time to just get the system accepted that the homeless population would spend years under blue tarps in refugee camps.
A quick temporary housing solutions had to be found. Tents are good for a few weeks or a few months but not beyond that. The United Nations talks about those “transitional shelters” which were designed for the longer term. The concept of “transitional shelters” as currently presented is about the stupidest idea ever conceived. It could only come from architects who haven’t got a clue as to the living conditions of people in third world countries.
I came up with a much better approach which, could be implemented faster than implementing the permanent housing.
As I was learning more and more about the Haitian situation, I came to realize that the single most important roadblock to getting anything done was the amount of rubble. With too much rubble, no room to build anything, not even long term temporary shelters.
I then decided to find a quick, efficient and economical way to get rid of the rubble which could also automatically convert it into something that could be reused in the process of rebuilding the country.
This was a winning proposition and I was sure that if i could communicate with any type of organization involved in any way with the removal of rubble in Haiti that the solution could be quickly implemented.
That’s me, the eternal optimist.
The greatest stumbling block to aid is not the lack of ideas, it is not the lack of money it is simply the lack, from the people whose job it is to provide the help to open their eyes and see what is already out there and implement it.
If those organizations would truly do what they are supposed to do, they would spend a little more time finding the novel solutions already out there which can save a lot of time and money.
Instead, tehy spend all their time chasing after donors for more money because the old inefficient methods that they use cost so much money that they never have enough money. They keep chasing after their tails and nothing gets done.
In the meantime, it is the native population that suffers.
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