Some members of middle class struggle to find affordable rent
Foreign aid workers’ need for housing aggravates shortage
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – She’s a sports journalist at one of Haiti’s most respected radio stations, universityeducated and middle class. But ever since an earthquake destroyed much of her city in 2010, she’s been unable to secure a decent place to live.
Like many living here, Shelove Perrin’s family had to move out of their home because of quake damage. Then they had to move again — and again and again. Landlords kept jacking up the rent or failing to provide even tap water.
Any country, much less the poorest in the Americas, would have struggled to cope with the massive quake damage. More than a million Haitians moved into squalid camps, and more than 2 million received food aid.
Perrin said the biggest reason for her persistent housing problem was the flood of international organizations that rushed in to help Haiti recover.
Aid groups saved lives and brought essential assistance. They provided good jobs to many Haitians. But foreign workers needed housing, and their presence exacerbated a severe shortage, pushing already high rents into the stratosphere and reducing incentives for landlords to keep local tenants happy.
Their presence may have inadvertently helped reinforce Haiti’s class structure, rated by the United Nations as one of the most unequal in the world. Most of those who benefited from the real estate boom were members of Haiti’s upper class, 3% to 5% of the population, including many people living overseas.
Among those who suffered were professionals and other members of Haiti’s struggling middle class, who make up no more than 15% of the population.
Long before the earthquake, Haiti was often snidely referred to as “the Republic of NGOs” for the number of nongovernmental organizations active here. Former president Bill Clinton put the figure at 10,000. The number exploded after the earthquake, then diminished over the years.
Almost eight years later, conditions should be in place for rents to fall dramatically. Most post-earthquake contracts are finished, and many humanitarian groups have cleared out. The U.N. peacekeeping mission put in place years before the quake has left, to be replaced by a much smaller one.
Perrin, who said she moved seven times in the past eight years, is eager to put her housing woes behind her.
In one case, rent went up 14% for a house she was already stretching to af- ford by supplementing her day job with marketing gigs and public appearances. She couldn’t pay the extra amount. She considered legal action when a landlord violated her lease, but she realized the legal fees would be more than the increase in rent.
Vanel Sylvestre, a real estate agent operating in an upscale suburb of Portau-Prince, said rental prices, and his commissions, are the lowest since he started real estate work five years ago.
Movement is grudging and uneven. Some furnished two-bedroom apartments with 24-hour electricity have fallen from $1,400 to $900 a month. Others won’t budge, such as $2,000 two-bedroom places sitting vacant for months. The Facebook page of Sylvestre’s company, Vally Realstate Agency, features a house for rent for $4,500 a month and one for sale for more than
$1 million.
Sylvestre said he made most of his money off foreigners, especially staff for the U.N. peacekeeping mission. The force, which peaked at more than 12,000 after the quake, operated in Haiti from
2004 until last October. The new mission will have about 1,600 people, mostly police.
Although most of the old mission’s military and police lived on bases, some rented homes, as did the more than 1,000 civilian staffers. Sylvestre said that’s why a four-bedroom house that once rented for $5,000 rose to $8,000.
Landlords would ask the same price of Haitians, even if they didn’t want the same amenities. “If you are a local guy, you say, ‘What? Why do you ask so much money?’ ” Sylvestre said. “And the landlord will say, ‘Sir, if you can’t take it, just leave.’ ”
Landlords have been spoiled, said Yves Francois, a Haitian American who moved back to Haiti in 2009 and started a construction firm.
For four years after the earthquake, he was stunned at having to pay more in rent for office space in Haiti than he’d paid the previous decade on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He said he knows many people who built high-end apartments for foreigners after the earthquake, “and most of those apartments are vacant now.” The prices should be falling, he said, but the owners are holding off.
“Some owners are still waiting for a miracle,” Sylvestre said. “They think, ‘I can wait. They will come back.’ ” Unfortunately, that “miracle” would probably be another natural disaster or more political upheaval — occurrences all too common in Haiti throughout its 214year history.
Sylvestre said the foreign presence did not make Haiti’s class divisions worse. Some middle-class people moved into more modest homes, so they could rent to the foreigners, and Haitians who found jobs working for the international organizations were able to afford better places to live.
Jeremie Dalusma, a civil engineer, is someone who benefited. He has headed logistics operations for State Department programs and several non-governmental organizations since the earthquake. Without that work, he said, he probably would have left Haiti.
The presence of foreign organizations is not the primary reason the country is impossibly expensive, said Daniel Dorsainvil, Haiti’s former minister of economy and finance. If Haiti boosts domestic productivity with better infrastructure, the entire economy will improve, he said.
Perrin recently moved again, into a new place she shares with her sister. She said the rent is cheaper but still takes most of her income.
Overall, she regards the foreign presence as a negative for the middle class, but she is pleased with one aspect: There is a lot more housing on the market with amenities such as generators and air conditioning. For some in the middle class, these units might be coming within reach.
Contributing: Michel Joseph This is the third in a series on Haiti produced in association with Round Earth Media, which trains and supports young journalists around the world.