Thursday at the Montana Hotel President, Michel Martelly, officially launched the national conference on the issue of social housing in Haiti that took place around the theme "Lojman sosyal se yon nesesite nasyonal".

This conference aimed to bring together all the key players in the social housing sector in Haiti, to find a strategy for the most vulnerable strata of the population to have a roof.

Particularly in the presence of Victor Benoit, the Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations, representatives of Parliament and Chambers of Commerce and Industry and professional associations, the Head of State has renewed its commitment to honor his campaign promise to rehouse victims of the 2010 earthquake families living in makeshift shelters.

The President Martelly commended the actions already taken by his Administration, with the support of partners and friends of Haiti in order to help this segment of the population "This conference on the problem of housing in Haiti, comes at a time of life of our people where all our efforts are invested to provide every Haitian better life [...] I congratulate the Public Enterprise of Social Housing Promotion (EPPLS), which conscious of the complex problems and enormous needs that persists in this area, decided to work to pool all necessary resources to offer our marginalized populations, decent living conditions." The President continued to encourage those responsible for this institution to establish solid structures in order to provide answers to the urgent needs of the most vulnerable segments of the population.

"2012 statistics in Haiti accuse an accumulated deficit of 400,000 housing units. Even by planning to build 40,000 housing units per year, we will be able to reach this challenge only in ten years," recalled the President Martelly adding "The effort that must be undertaken to ensure every Haitian decent shelter represents over $600 million per year and a total amount of nearly 7.5 billion over ten years," affirmed the Head of State.

A titanic challenge to overcome, especially as during the next 10 years, the population in Haiti will continue to grow and add new housing needs and that, regardless of the arrival in the next few months or years, of hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in irregular migratory situation, which will be repatriated by the Dominican Republic.

HL/ HaitiLibre