The danger becomes even greater amid rising sea levels
Faced with precarious living conditions, residents of the Carrefour coast are pushing back the sea with rubbish and embankments to plant houses.
A cabin built on piles of garbage on the coast of Carrefour.
In the area, several neighborhoods are affected by this phenomenon literally called “fè tè”.
In Côte Plage 16, Arcachon 32, 34 and Lamentin 54 for example, people settle in these houses vulnerable to flooding, built in water in disregard of construction standards, with massive use of rubbish posing a risk of destruction marine ecosystems.
A “peristyle” on the coast of Carrefour, surrounded by rubbish as a fence.
Chimène, a 35-year-old mother who has lived in the area for more than ten years, owns a house there.
“We added soil here, but a few years ago it was washed away by a cyclone,” says the woman, pointing to the site of a hole in the ground that her family had to fill with huge trucks of earthworks in order to build the slum which today houses five people.
Around Chimène’s home, on this Tuesday, January 9, 2024, we can distinguish several small concrete rooms with decrepit walls and others, covered with rusty sheets, tarpaulins or plastic. The less fortunate use dry branches of coconut trees and other leftover materials.
A house planted in the middle of piles of garbage on the coast of Carrefour.
According to specialists, these slums illustrate the housing crisis in Haiti. This crisis has accelerated since the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010.
Read also: Where in Port-au-Prince is most at risk if there is another earthquake?
The only National Housing and Habitat Policy (PNLH) was developed in 2013 by the Housing and Public Buildings Construction Unit (UCLBP).
Pursued by the insecurity strangling the metropolitan region, former inhabitants of slums like Canaan find refuge in these slums.
Huts in the background and a ‘toilet’ in the foreground discharging feces into the sea.
The practice is growing, but it remains illegal.
According to the 1987 Constitution, the right to property does not extend to the coastline, sources, rivers, watercourses, mines and quarries. These places are part of the public domain of the State.
“The public domain of the State is inalienable and cannot be rented or sold,” recalls Michèle Oriol, executive secretary of the Interministerial Committee for Territorial Planning (CIAT).
According to Oriol, we are facing “an unconstitutional and illegal phenomenon”, which has accelerated over the last 25 years.
Piled up waste, including used tires, in an attempt to reduce the power of the waves, thus pushing back the sea to “fè tè”.
Despite the risks, CIAT cannot help but attract the attention of stakeholders. The law does not give the entity “the authority to act against abuses”, specifies Oriol.
In the absence of state intervention, citizens like Roussel Pierre cannot wait.
This father, a mason worker, pays 15,000 gourdes per year for a portion of land created with the “fè tè” practice to house his family of five members in Arcachon 32 for four years.
Tires and debris used as fencing surround a house built on the coast of Carrefour.
He says he no longer works almost at all due to insecurity. However, at least his children will be sheltered from the rain in the small room he built himself on the land, made of sheet metal and formwork wood.
“I don’t like where I live, but that’s what my economic level allows me,” Pierre told AyiboPost.
For “fè tè”, the inhabitants build ramparts with wooden stakes on which they pile used tires and rubbish to slow down the force of the waves.
Houses erected among waste and tires on the coast of Carrefour, illustrating the practice of “fè tè”.
Then, they add aggregate and alluvium fill to raise the area above sea level.
The clutter makes the air difficult to breathe. According to specialists, this practice also makes soils potentially liquefiable, when they lose their potency after water saturation.
The danger becomes even greater in the context of rising sea levels due to climate change and the increase in extreme weather events.
This global phenomenon further threatens poor countries like Haiti, with 27% of its population living in coastal areas.
Read also: Haiti under the clutches of climate change
According to Christin Calixte, agronomist and holder of a specialization in environmental management, the “fè tè” phenomenon is a “maladaptation”, that is to say an adaptation action which increases the risk of harmful effects linked to climate.
According to the former executive of the Ministry of Agriculture, these urban practices, which do not respect technical standards of land planning, “represent a threat to the lives of people, the environment, the ecosystem of mangroves and affect aquatic fauna.”
At Côte Plage 28, a sheet metal hut is erected on piles of miscellaneous objects, including waste and tires, as part of the “fè tè” practice.
Last year, the house built on the seaside of Carrefour by Aulyraude Moïse was flooded by runoff water which accumulated there.
The video editor and the three other members of his family living in the home know the risks. Specifically, he complains about the trash nearby, as well as the usual flooding during downpours.
But, like hundreds of his neighbors, Moïse cannot even consider rehousing, “for lack of economic means”.
Houses built in an environment littered with rubbish and tires on the coast of Carrefour, testifying to the implementation of the dangerous practice “fè tè”.
Par Kenley Augustin & Jérôme Wendy Norestyl
Cover image: A family gathers in their backyard on the coast of Carrefour, surrounded by tires and rubbish.
The photos are from Kenley Augustin.
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