Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Glossary of Haiti
Housing
Challenges
Concepts Terminology Acronyms
USA Housing mess info at end, shows that US financial industry is now too incompetent
to function in USA, let alone any other nation use USA systems with any authority
Alister William Macintyre research notes
02/17/2011 (last updated)
Version 3.4
Table of Contents
Introduction (1 Feb 16)....................................................................................................................... 4
Key Resources (1 Feb 1)................................................................................................................. 6
Version History (1 Feb 17) ...................................................................................................7
Courtesy Reminder (1 Feb 17) ..................................................................................................9
Copying Tips (0 Sep 10)...........................................................................................................10
Haiti Housing Statistics (1 Feb 17) ............................................................................................. 10
Plan for Tent City Refugees (0 Nov 05) ................................................................................12
Still Unresolved thru 2011 (1 Feb 17) ....................................................................................14
Alternatives Pricing (0 Dec 28) ............................................................................................... 14
Strategic Housing Plan for 2011 (1 Feb 17) ..............................................................................15
implement, fund, make legal within Haiti legislation, get the job done. Instead what’s
happening is a war of words, finger pointing, misery perpetuated for disaster victims,
nothing happens. These research notes try to communicate an understanding of individual
challenges, and opposing viewpoints on how best to deal with them. Other research
documents will go into more detail on some of the major issues.
Journalists, Academics, other researchers and interested individuals, are advised to go to the
primary sources which I cite in these research notes. I am not an expert on this stuff. I am
just trying to wrap my mind around what the alleged experts and leaders say are good
solutions, and try to think through the implications, to help avoid unintended consequences.
First ½ of this document is on the Haiti housing disaster and related problems, 2nd ½ on
USA housing disaster. A lot in common with the two disasters, both man made, although
smaller number of actors responsible for the Haiti situation. Figuring this stuff out is a
voyage of economic education for me. Ultimately I will probably split this info into two
documents, one each Haiti and USA. But for now, many people are interested in both areas
… what is this mess, and is there any practical solution?
This “Glossary of Housing challenges in Haiti” research notes document focuses on
understanding special terminology associated with:
Earthquake Rubble Debris
Eviction Scandal
Haiti Life Quality Statistics
Housing Policy
Human Rights Housing
Land Owner Documentation
Land Reform
Secure Land Tenure
Transitional Shelters
This is because I am in the process of splitting my research notes on the above topics into
separate documents, with only one or two such topics in each one, where the new “Glossary
Housing” will be a companion document to the entire new collection, containing info
logically common to all of the Housing research notes documents.
We all want to try to help Haiti even if we sometimes do not always agree on the methods or
politics, or how we came to a current mess, as with inside our home nation’s politics. 1
Disagreement is more likely when it comes to what kind of balance is best between
competing interests, and pros and cons of alternative solution paths.
What belongs in this Glossary document are facts that most everyone can agree on,
definitions of terminology, summary of challenges, academic and other theories. Analysis of
1 Phraseology patterned after a similar sentiment by Mike Perrett on Facebook. Thanks Mike.
pro and con of alternative solutions to these challenges, that kind of content belongs in the
research notes documents specific to each of the challenges or problems, since all solutions
tend to be somewhat controversial, until final solution is selected and implemented.
By splitting research notes by major topic, it makes it simpler to upload download just what
is of interest to individual people, reduce sheer size of info to manage. Previously many of
these research notes documents had their own glossary, which mainly duplicated similar info
in the companion documents. Now they will individually reference this document’s
availability with a very short statement.
Users of my research hold Alister Wm. Macintyre harmless, and also the places I upload my
research to, and agree that my copyright is reserved and that the information is available for
the intended purpose of helping in the recovery of Haiti. Some of my research content is
direct quotes from other sources. I try to give credit every time I do this.
http://haiti.humanitarianresponse.info/
UN cluster primarily in charge of Housing solutions in Haiti, prior to permanent
reconstruction, building back better:
https://sites.google.com/site/shelterhaiti2010/
For people who wish to propose housing solutions for use in Haiti, where does above
cluster want them to go, to offer their solutions?
http://groups.google.com/group/haitisheltersolution
Plan Haiti is where people can design replacement housing transparently, in accordance with
international standards of building protection against earthquakes, hurricanes, and other
natural disasters
Haiti Reconstruction forum with links to World Bank, Haiti Government, Reconstruction
Commission, etc. etc. not individually listed here because the sites are down more often than
they are up.
There is also a problem with the management of statistics. Some figure is stated as official, it
gets copied all over the place, then when the official figures get updated, a lot of the copies
are never corrected.
Example, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is now saying that more than 316,000
people died in the earthquake.2 This is up from the original Gov of Haiti estimate of 250,000
casualties, which gets perpetuated in many reports long after the new GoH estimate.
2 http://www.haitianinternet.com/articles.php/799
3 http://www.katrina.prizm.org/index.html
serious reality that 1 million plus Haitians will continue to reside in tents and shacks
through another Tropical Storm Season, without access to shelters in case of severe
weather.
Version 3.3 shared with www.prizm.org Jan 23 = 80 pages 654 k. Haiti Prizm is an
NGO which has developed some very economical and safe housing solutions to
meet Haiti’s needs.4
Version 3.1 shared with MPHISE Group helping Rolling Stone research Jan 8 = 77
pages 610 k
Version 2.8 posted to HR-Architecture Group Nov 29 = 71 pages 578 k
Version 2.7 posted to Yahoo-HDRR Nov 28-29 wee hours = 70 pages 557 k
Version 2.6 posted to HR-Forum Nov 26-27 wee hours = 70 pages 576 k
Major updates in November = wrap my head around USA Toxic Housing mess
Version 2.2 posted to HR-BHC Nov 17 = 58 pages 485 k
Major updates since version 1.3:
o At the bottom, I added info about USA Housing Market Corruption, which
is very similar to the Haiti Ownership mess, in that the people who live in the
homes are screwed, the judicial system ensures that the alleged crooks make
out like bandits, while the actors in charge of the paperwork explain all
problems as “anyone can make a mistake” and “errors are unavoidable”. A
mess has been created which could take many years or decades to clean up.
If the USA is incapable of rapidly resolving this, what does that say about
how long it will take to clean up the Haiti mess?
o If and when the US scandal diminishes, I may move this to a separate
research notes document. I use same footnote source repeatedly to
document where I got info from, in case later re-write inserts additional text
from some other source in-between.
Version 1.3 posted to HDRR Oct 10 = 32 pages 260 k
Major Haiti updates since version 1.2 = Ideological Divides (new sections), and
Eviction Scandals (new section).
Version 1.2 posted to HR-BHC Oct 09 = 23 pages 210 k
Major updates since Oct 04 = Inserted separate directory of Al Mac research notes
documents relevant to Haiti housing challenges. Also note key resources addition,
up top.
4 http://www.katrina.prizm.org/index.html
Version 1.1 to HDRR Oct 04 = deleted when Nov 28-29 replacement posted
Major updates since Sep 30 = Transitional Challenges (new sections) Terminology
Concepts (e.g. Economy, Redistribution of Wealth) which now have letter break
dates to facilitate future illumination where additions from version to version, and
Suggested Doc (e.g. World Bank newsletter).
Version 1.0 posted to HR-BHC Sep 30 = 17 pages 160 k
Contents of this research document were previously in other research notes which Al
Mac is now restructuring for several reasons.
When we cross post these reports to some public or semi-public site, we should either cut
out all such contact information, and/or include a reminder to people about this courtesy
need. This includes forwarding of e-mail, or cut posting it to some web site.
Please chop out e-mail addresses of the participants, do not invite them to get spam.
Notice I try to give credit to where I find the info, so people can go direct to the source for
the latest story. We should also give credit to sources for other reasons, such as honoring
their intellectual property.
Relief workers on the ground are working 20+ hour days under frenetic conditions. To
interrupt them, with anything other than direct assistance, in my opinion, is treason to their
relief effort. If we are careless about not pointing this out any place we share the info, then
there is a risk we are accessories to other people not being courteous, and this kind of
information may become even more difficult to access in the future.
In addition to the ethics of not disrupting the workers on the ground by contacting them,
there are also ethics that we should do nothing that might put them at additional risk. They
are already conducting their affairs in a manner that places themselves at risk of kidnapping,
ambush, theft, and other serious events. I am still mentally grappling with whether there is
anything I can do about that. Please just give some thought to such issues, when selecting
what info to share in a public forum.
When inside some document, Control A normally copies the entire thing to clipboard.
If you then paste that info to same kind of document, it is often (not always) intelligible, and
the document that you created can be edited by you to remove the data that we think should
not be shared. It probably would be smart to insert a brief statement about what you have
done, including identification of original organization for anyone who has a need to see a
copy of the entire original.
The process is not Star Trek Universal Translator, the quality is flawed, the results
sometimes makes the speaker sound like a brain dead two year old, but it is intelligible.
If the result is totally unintelligible, it probably means we guessed wrong on what 2 languages
to translate between.
I know people in the professional translation business, so let me know if you need those
contacts.
5
UN-HABITAT, Strategic Citywide Spatial Planning: A Situational Analysis of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2009.
6 See Fermage in the Terminology section … a land lease, with title to the home, option to buy the land later.
7 DGI = Direction Générale des Impôts, one of several GoH agencies in the housing area.
8 Elsewhere we are told that of all land owner documentation, 5% is valid and 95% is bogus.
weak institutions and exacerbated the acute challenges facing women and children stemming
from decades of political insecurity and recurrent natural disasters in that country. 9
Prior to the earthquake, 42% of girls in urban areas aged 10-14 years old lived without
parents. The numbers have increased since January leaving girls as young as 10 to provide
for their younger siblings.
According to OCHA10 Oct 12 Humanitarian Bulletin:11
There are 61,121 IDPs in 293 camps and sites in both Léogane and Gressier of
which 53,962 are in Léogane. According to an IOM assessment of 72 of these
camps, the majority of IDPs were renters before the earthquake and thus have no
land to move to or houses which could be repaired or reconstructed. With no
durable solution viable in the immediate term, the continuous presence of these
IDPs living on privately owned land remains a cause for concern. In Gressier, Camp
Shekinah was the most recent camp IDPs vacated following one-week deadline for
camp residents as per the landowner.
Support for 685 families in seven camps under threat of eviction continues in Jacmel,
with negotiations between the international community and landowners and progress
on developing a returnee package. A total of 11 camps have been reported under
threat of eviction in Jacmel.
The CCCM protection unit continues to mediate in eviction cases and is negotiating
time extensions for IDPs in 57 camps. In Port-au-Prince CCCM carried out
assessments on two sites in the commune of Cite Soleil in response to an eviction
case in Delmas.
Epidemiological research and analysis in camps continues, through a referral service
established by the cluster, MSPP and CDC using data collected from hospitals, fixed
and mobile clinics. On a weekly basis data is collected from around 40 camps and
12,000 clinical visits. Acute respiratory infections, suspected Malaria, and watery
diarrhea account for the majority of clinic visits. There have been repeated reports of
bites from animals suspected to have rabies and a supply of immunoglobulin has
been made available at the PROMESS warehouse in Port-au-Prince.
delivered. The UN structure functions on requests for funds for particular goals, whose
implementers never know what money will come.
Nine months after the catastrophic earthquake which killed some 300,000 and left 1.3
million homeless, as reports and articles denounce the terrible conditions in Haiti’s 1,354
squalid refugee camps, Haiti Grassroots Watch decided to look into the issue.
A dozen interviews, scores of documents and many telephone calls later, Haiti Grassroots
Watch discovered there actually does seem to be a plan. However, it is not readily
accessible to the media or the Haitian public, it is so far only very loosely coordinated
and thus far, is not overseen by any Haitian agency or ministry, making accountability
difficult, if not impossible.
This investigation is comprised of three articles and a sidebar, three videos, a radio
documentary and an interview.12
12 http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2010/9/27/what-is-the-plan-for-
haitis-13-million-homeless.html
13 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MDCS-8DYE8N?OpenDocument&clickid=headlines#
(Source: OCHA/Relief Web)
14 OCHA Relief Web summary.
http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MDCS-8DYE8N?OpenDocument&rc=2&cc=hti
15http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/buildinghousingcommunities/forum/topics/demystifying-barriers-to-
haiti
16 I do not know what the tents and tarps delivered to Haitian tent cities cost. I would be interested to see
definitive figures.
17 According to official reports of the UN cluster doing the distributing, they last 3-4 months, then need to be
18 http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-2033-haiti-reconstruction-i-housing-strategic-plan.html
19 Recently explained, among other sources, by Action Aid http://www.actionaid.org/ in Full Report =
http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/VVOS-8CSMN8/$File/full_report.pdf which Al Mac downloaded
a copy of (some relief web links cannot be found months later) with name “Shelter ActionAid 2011 Jan 4”.
(Source: OCHA/Relief Web)
20 http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/talk-tape/2010/12/07/the-new-homes-of-haiti/
The following opinions are from Alister Wm Macintyre, student of Haiti, whose studies and
awakening started when the Jan 2010 earthquake hit. As those studies advance, so may
conclusions and opinions evolve. This info was also posted as Facebook notes, e-mail essay,
other places, often re-written when new sharings.
• Weather monitoring like US NHC (National Hurricane Center) except world wide
partners
When there is a situation which will have a protracted need for aid to the area, such as Haiti
now, Pakistan area now, certain crises in Africa,
• Position a weather satellite over the troubled area, and install other weather forecast
infrastructure, so that the troubled area can get high speed weather forecast information, and
also timely reports of volcanoes going more active, earthquake risk detection, tsunamis,
everything that can threaten the people when normal infrastructure kaput and they are living
in skimpy shelters. Coordinate this with a weather ship which has the full range of weather
science and public broadcasting services.
• Establish a public announcement system which people can subscribe to over a diversity
of consumer electronics, such as weather radios, mobile phones, internet ... this to broadcast
updates of trouble brewing to lower risk of surprises ... transmit this in a diversity of
languages, relevant to the region, and to the personnel providing aid.
For additional information on this topic, see my research notes document “ Weather
Science Haiti” and the Science Maps section of my directory of sources of “ Haiti
Maps.”
UN Clusters have done a good job inspecting buildings to determine which are appropriate
to protect Haitians in the event of a hurricane. They need to go the extra mile of making it
easy for the population to know where they exist, and get to them in an emergency.
Their failure to inform the Haitian public where this protection exists,21 has fueled
conspiracy theory that this failure is deliberate.
The Red Cross has provided a useful service, in providing pouches for tent city occupants to
store personal documents, away from the weather. 22 It might be better if those people could
protect those documents when faced with surprise eviction and gangs, and take them with
them to the Severe Weather Shelters.
the people of Haiti ...land owners, Parliament, President, Prime Minister, displaced, UN,
NGOs, international community (Diaspora, donors, OAS, CARICOM, World Bank) …
they are perfectly capable of coming together and agreeing on what must be done. They did
that March 2010 with scores of meetings of all stakeholders, to decide on the reconstruction
plan, how to finance it, how to manage it. They can do the same thing to solve other
national needs, if they so desire. The fact, that they are not doing so, indicates that the
national will is not there to solve the problems.
After solution selected, through this democratic process of all stakeholders, with mutual
access to all concerns and proposals, which may mean need more than one meeting some
stakeholders, strong leadership is required to get results through parliament (no changes by
parliament contrary to other stakeholder consensus) and implementation, overcoming any
unforeseen stumbling blocks.
A question could be put to candidates, and to their various supporters, in upcoming Haitian
elections:
1. Are you aware of the mess of meetings in March 2010 attended by representatives of
all stakeholders, which led to the reconstruction plan? People from different areas of
Haitian life came with different views, the compromised on a plan that they could
live with, all the people who participated. Several groups did not directly participate,
but provided dissenting opinion reports, whose content was eventually merged into
the main plan.
2. If this model was to be followed to deal with some other Haiti challenge, such as
land ownership security and clear title documentation, rubble debris, early warning
system when bad weather coming, replacing UN military with Haitian doing the job,
21https://sites.google.com/site/ochahaiti24septstormresponse/home/severe-weather-community-shelters-
abris-d-urgence
22 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EDIS-8CJMRR?OpenDocument
improving Haiti economy including agricultural, people getting paid for the work
they do, restructure CEP so people have more confidence in its decisions (such as a
mandate to explain them), and other issues ... would you agree this is a good model
to follow, and would you support such an effort?
Now for some good news, check out the Haiti Emergency Housing Techniques Wiki.23
Among ordinary people who lobby for legislation, we also see it. For example, there are
those who are utterly opposed to both teenage pregnancies, and to providing youngsters
with the kind of education which would help them reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies. I
feel people with that ideology have two contradictory viewpoints, where they refuse to think
through the contradiction, and come up with a better philosophy. When we witness such
contradictions, and try to reason with those people, it is soon evident that they are in denial
that there is anything to talk about.
In my opinion, the Humanitarian relief effort also has far too many people with an ideology,
which has severe consequences, and whose exponents are not interested in finding solutions
to the ideological divides. In the sub-sections of this section on “Ideological Divides” I try
to explain some examples of how I arrive at this conclusion.
There is also baggage from past behaviors of a nation, now criticized by both patriots and
those who are not necessarily our friends. For example, check out the Socialist Worker .org
history of USA Imperialism in Haiti.24
Note my separate research notes document “ Haiti Quake Rubble Debris” which
explores size of challenge, some of the problems, various approaches being implemented,
23 http://heht.wikidot.com/
24 http://www.scribd.com/doc/36327970/Haiti-January-2010
discussed. However, solving this problem, as with many others, can be frustrated when the
people in charge have very different notions on what they are trying to accomplish.
There is a trade-off that many actors struggle with. I happen to favor the first of these two
choices, but leaders of my government’s efforts in Haiti appear to favor the second, and
governments are known to use strong arm tactics to impose their ideological views,
in the absence of encouraging open discussion of alternatives.
1. Is it better to get the rubble debris cleared from potential rebuilding sites as fast as
possible, which means using a machinery solution?
In other words, Haiti will be better served by putting the people in safer homes, with places
where they can have good jobs, in the next few years, instead of waiting decades until the
rubble can be cleared by hand.
This approach is favored by supporters of beltway bandits, meaning sooner profits for
companies from outside of Haiti. It is also supported by people who have no financial stake
here, and are appalled at solution # 2 which says that hundreds of thousands, if
not millions of Haitians must be staked out in tent cities which are bulls eye targets
of hurricane roulette for all of 2010 2011 and perhaps additional hurricane seasons.
Haiti property owners, who want quake survivors kicked off their alleged land, and don't
care where they end up, if they applied their brains to the reality in Haiti, would probably
favor this approach, because it would mean the quake survivors would in fact no longer be
on the same land as the alleged land owners would have any title to, real or imagined, unless
the proved owners were receiving guaranteed income in exchange for their land use, or
eminent domain compensation.
Remember that the total volume of rubble from the Haiti earthquake is astronomical
compared to WTC of 9/11 (as shown by UN debris fact sheet which I have e-mailed various
people), and remember how long it took to clear that by modern construction machinery
and convoy of dump trucks.
Look at Katrina aftermath ... that was 5 years ago, and the job is far from complete. Some
estimate Katrina recovery at current rate would have been 20 years to get done, except Gulf
Oil spill set that effort back. (According to the UN Debris fact sheet, Katrina debris was
worse than Haiti earthquake.)
How long will Haiti reconstruction take by comparison? Haiti reconstruction not being
conducted as efficiently as Katrina recovery.
2. Is it better to get the rubble debris cleared using Haitian laborers via cash-for-work
(CFW) so money flows into the economy?
In other words, revitalizing the economy with stimulus money, bottom up, is more
important than making it practical to rebuild the destroyed buildings, any time in the next
few years, or decades. This approach is favored by many NGOs who would prefer Haiti to
continue to be a Republic of NGOs for another 100 years, and by government
reconstruction development leaders who approve NGO state-of-art.
USA Inspector General did an audit of cash-for-work, in which it was clear that the IG
thought solution # 1 was self-evident, and criticized USAID for taking us down the path of
solution # 2.25 USAID is vehemently fighting this within US government, arguing that the
IG does not understand Haiti reality. This is an ideological divide, where people do not
argue on the merits of their case, but by demonizing the intelligence of their
opponents, a familiar pattern in US politics.
French, Canadian and US governments favor a top-down cadastre of legal tenure partly in
the belief that legally owned land or property assets can facilitate access to credit where they
can be used as collateral. Note that France and Quebec already have such a system.
Opponents argue there is a risk that this approach will be costly, slow and inappropriate,
may reinforce biases towards the most established and powerful formal owners able to
produce documentation.27 They point out that ‘a strict asset-replacement approach to
housing provision and a rush to confirm property rights through rapid adjudication and
systematic titling programmes will not be appropriate to meet the housing needs of the
majority of the affected population who are tenants and squatters rather than owners’.28
The approach so far, by the Humanitarian community, has been to develop beneficiary
agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with municipalities to establish
security of tenure for transitional shelter. From a legal perspective, MoUs and informal
agreements have no official status as public notaries are rarely used. Risks of eviction for
beneficiaries are therefore unclear. Although mayors have signed MoUs, they have no
authority under Haitian law to sign off in relation to land issues, and may have strong
personal or political interests which can bias decisions over land use. Mechanisms for
addressing grievances are not in place and it is unclear whether municipalities can be engaged
as mediators in land disputes. So basically the humanitarian community is using a new
system which may not work, in place of a system which is known not to work, to deal with a
crisis in the short term, which is no final solution .29
According to recent UN and other summary reports, permanent housing won’t start until August
2011. That gives them a year and a ½ after the Jan 2010 earthquake to come up with a workable
solution. I predict failure to meet that scheduled deadline.
When children are carried across borders to another nation, without the proper paperwork,
they become stateless, with no documented citizenship in any nation. This makes them
undocumented illegal immigrants or permanent second class citizens with ruined adult lives.
History is full of stories of children reaching adulthood in some nation, only to find they
have no citizenship rights, and they cannot return to their homeland.
When we review the UN cluster reports on aid to Haiti, as of a year after the disaster, there
are still thousands of children not yet re-united with their families, with the needs of children
in general being largely ignored by policy making, and UN budgeting. They have a plan, but
in the years it takes to implement, for some children the mental health implications are
devastating.
29 Coordination and the tenure puzzle in Haiti by Kate Crawford, Emily Noden and Lizzie Babister,
CARE International UK in
Humanitarian Exchange October 2010.
30 http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-2177-haiti-spain-works-blocked-unacceptable.html
There is an epidemic of rape, where children are among the most vulnerable. This is hitting
both children separated from their families, and children with their families, because during
the day families have to go hunt work, leaving kids in a tent city where there is no security.
At night, most camps are without light, and they are regularly raided by gangs which know
the police patrol schedule, so they skip the few hours when protection visits.
Just because some people are a “church group” does not necessarily mean they are there for
the good of the children. Some are pedophiles, some are missionary tourists ignorant of the
culture they visiting.
Some orphanages have good funding, but that is exception to rule in Haiti. Children have
special nutrition needs according to age, and being malnutritioned for any length of time can
hurt children development far worse than impact on adults.
Most children, in the orphanages of nations in disasters, are not orphans. Some have been
placed there by their parents for a variety of purposes (such as education and security) other
than the traditional purpose of an orphanage.
Many criminal organizations “rescue” children, so they can use them to raise funds, instead
of working on best interests of the children.
One viewpoint says "To hell with the well being of the children", keep them in horrible
conditions, until the nation with the disaster is able to reunite orphans with family, which
could be an eternity to rebuild that capability. Then only those, who cannot be reunited,
become eligible for adoption. They do not actually use the phraseology I employ here,
because they are in denial that their ideology has such consequences.
Here is Save the Children making the case to reunite children with their families. 31
Other viewpoint says "To hell with the children who end up in slavery", let that
abomination slave trade flourish, because we want to rescue a handful of children from the
horrible conditions, and we are utterly opposed to any regulations that get in the way of
ANYONE taking ANY children out of that horrible place. They do not actually use the
phraseology I employ here, because they are in denial that there is such a thing as child
slavery in this day and age, or that it is a big problem.
These two groups periodically fire off PR that the news media picks up on. They never work
together to try to solve the associated problems.
31 Relief Web SC Summary; Full Report on Misguided Kindness. (Source: OCHA/Relief Web) Also here.
back home. The plan all along would be to grant them dual citizenship, return home after
both the disaster recovery has been mitigated to the point that going home is no longer to an
“at risk” environment, and do so between school years, to minimize transition disruption.
Yes, many nations do not recognize dual citizenship. This can be fixed.
For example, arrangements could be made to have government sponsored services that look
in on the welfare of adopted children, do so for foreign adoptees, with copies of the reports
going back to the originating nations. If a family escapes inspection, issue arrest warrants for
suspected kidnapping for the slave trade.
There are additional nuances regarding the challenges of children in disasters in my research
notes document “Haiti Housing (and other) Human Rights” (H3R).
There is a need to help a nation be self-sufficient, feed itself, clothe itself, have a balance of
trade that is healthy.
The ideologies of Haiti debate has been framed that we can have one or the other, but not
both. This means that anyone who tries to explore if it is even possible to have both, gets
demonized by both of the two dominant viewpoints.
This is reminiscent of in the USA where the end goal might be green jobs where we have a
good economy and good environment, at the same time. But the ideological divide was a
leadership who felt that cleaning up the environment was the same as destroying great jobs,
so what we needed to have was a reality where everyone had a great income, but lived in a
hell of pollution, birth defects, everything contaminated.
One group says "To hell with Haiti agriculture", we need to try to feed disaster victims,
because malnutrition is crippling another generation of infants. They really do use this kind
of language because they believe:
This group is in denial that the state-of-art of reacting to serial disasters around the world is
such that for decades, the disaster aid groups have been perpetuating nations in a condition
of dependency upon their aid. If they continue to be in charge of Haiti disaster
recovery, the Haiti of 10 years from now will look just like the Haiti of today .
Other group says "To hell with Haitian disaster victims", we need to rebuild Haitian
agriculture. That philosophy is now responsible for food aid having been cut off from
millions of survivors of the Jan earth quake, but they still not satisfied. There's food aid
going to some 50,000 infants who might otherwise starve to death, or suffer long term
developmental problems due to protracted malnutrition. This group wants that to happen,
because nothing is more important to them than the economic well being of the Haitian
farmers. They do not use the kind of language of my example, because they recognize its
divisive nature, and they are intentionally ignorant of the consequences of having young
children exposed to continuous malnutrition, or they think of those children as being slaves
of the future, who do not need the nutrition needed to grow a brain.
These two groups periodically fire off PR that the news media picks up on. They never work
together to try to solve the associated problems. Mainstream news media never provides a
debate between these two view points, to seek some middle ground.
For example, the NGOs could purchase 100% of the Farmer agricultural output for use in
food distribution to earthquake victims, only import if not enough from that source. Any
excess Haitian output, help Haitian economy export it. If an NGO or whatever says "We
cannot do this because of some law of our host nation" then complain at UN that USA or
whatever nation bans this because of some specified law such as the US Bumpers
Amendment, and keep after that nation until that law is rescinded.
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/69-more-blog-posts-from-
norman-girvan/524-protest-letter-from-haitian-ihrc-members-to-commission-co-chairs
PROTEST LETTER FROM HAITIAN IHRC MEMBERS TO COMMISSION CO-
CHAIRS
Source: Le Matin Newspaper. Unofficial translation from the French by Isabeau Doucet
Santo-Domingo, 14 December, 2010
Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, Co-Chair President William Jefferson Clinton, Co-chair
Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission
alan scouten commented on Derek Xava's group "Architecture of Haiti" on Haiti Rewired
------------
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF HAITIAN MEMBERS’ OF HIRC SPEECH:
The 12 Haitian members present here today feel completely disconnected from the life of
the HIRC. Even in this IT era, there exists a critical deficit of communication and
information flow on the part of the Executive Secretariat and even more so with the
Executive Committee despite our role in the governing structure of this institution, we
have to this day, received no report on the activities of the HIRC.
Contact is established only the day before board meetings. As a result, as members, we
have no time to read, analyze, or digest the information and even less time to react
intelligently to the projects which are being presented to us at the last minute despite all
the official complaints and all the promises made to address this issue.
Mr. Co-Presidents,
No effective functional bond exists between the Executive Secretariat and the Haitian
section of the council, or between the latter and the Executive Committee. Projects are
transmitted to the council in the form of summaries the day before meetings. Procedural
changes to the online submission of bids for projects are changed without any
consultation.
The recruitment of the personnel and the choice of the consulting firms were made
without the knowledge of the Haitian members of the Board of Directors. No documents
were received informing the council of the criteria for recruiting or the profiles for the
candidates. This is also true for the firms which have received contracts, the Haitian
members of the council are unaware of even the name of these firms that work for the
HIRC or their roles.
Taking into account this deficiency, Mr. Co-Presidents, the Haitian members of the HIRC
invited the Executive Director to give a progress report on the status of collaboration
between the two sides (Haitian and foreign). The invitation was ignored.
In reality, the Haitian members of the Council appear to fulfill a puppet role, which is to
rubberstamp the decisions adopted by the Executive Director and the Executive
Committee. The comments of Professor Jean-Marie Bourjolly in his memorandum of
October 4, 2010 summarize the situation well. And we quote: “We must devote the
greatest part of our energies to build a plan with a strategy and tactics that conforms with
the general principles stated in the Action Plan.
Our role was restricted to approving projects, in so far as I can judge, on the basis of first
come, first served. We risk finding ourselves with a panoply of disparate projects,
certainly interesting and useful when considered in isolation, but which collectively do
not respond to the urgency of the situation or provide the foundations for the sustainable
rebuilding of Haiti, much less our long term development.”
Mr. Co-Presidents,
In terms of protocol, the treatment accorded to the Haitian section of the Executive
Committee reveals an effort to minimize this branch of the council. As proof of this
assertion, the unacceptable reception during the September 20, 2010 meeting in New
York where several of the Haitian members of the Commission were omitted from the
seating at the discussion table.
Signatories:
Joseph Bernadel
Lucien Bernard
Jean-Marie Bourjolly
Jean Renald Clerisme
Lucien Francoeur
Claude Jeudy
Gary Lissade
Suze Percu Filippini
Georges Henry, Jr.
Relief Aid … provide the people with essentials for continued survival, until better
arrangements practical
Transitional Planning … lay groundwork to protect the people from additional
disasters, such as hurricanes in Haiti, also related issues that might complicate
permanent solutions
Permanent resolution … quality housing, strong economy with plenty jobs,
environment cleaned up, etc.
In Haiti, as of 8 9 months after the Jan 2010 quake, we are no longer in the rescue phase,
Relief Aid continues, Transitional Planning has now been progressing since around June,
with Permanent resolution still on the horizon, not started yet.
Following the earthquake, extensive rubble and debris prevented Haitians from
rebuilding Port-au-Prince, and other cities, and resuming normal lives. Much of the
rubble remained in place; when people removed rubble, they relocated it to the center or
the sides of roads, making some streets impassable. Meanwhile, many schools,
hospitals, businesses, and homes remained blocked. The debris also created an
environmental and health hazard. Rain leached toxic chemicals and carcinogens from
the debris and sent them into the storm water system and ultimately into drinking water.
Storm drains, blocked by debris, exacerbated flooding after normal weather. Rural
areas also needed rehabilitation.
In the USA, government agencies are subject to periodic audits by Inspectors Generals,
Judge Advocate General (military), and the General Accountability Office. These
inspections generally report to the top of agency, and to Congress and President, with
what they find. Often there is also a report shared with the general public.
The objectives of this audit32 were to determine whether USAID is managing these CFW
programs effectively and whether the programs apply sufficient internal controls to
minimize occurrences of fraud.
32
I am summarizing the audit results here. Check the link to see the full 25 page report. I
also downloaded it with the name “Accountability Audit USAID IG 2010 Sep 24.”
The audit found that USAID’s management of these CFW projects was resulting in
tangible, though limited, contributions to Haiti’s recovery efforts.
High costs for trucks and other heavy equipment, meant less money into the Haitian
economy thru payroll, so volume of Haitians hired fell far short of expectations.
USAID had allowed its implementing partners to adopt different safety policies and
procedures for similar work, and that enforcement of these standards varied from site to
site (page 9). By failing to develop and enforce consistent workplace safety rules and
accident procedures, USAID increased the risk of serious and avoidable workplace
accidents.33
Although sites for rubble removal were to be selected on the basis of their benefit to
entire communities, one implementer was clearing private lots without clear justification
or approval, providing significant benefits to the owners of the lots.
33 In other research (sorry I cannot cite references at this time) I have found a lack of enforcement of safety
standards in cash-for-work. For example: not provide gloves to people handling debris which can include
sharp objects, human remains; no compensation to workers injured on the job – tough, fired because too
injured to continue.
34 The audit gives details on the standards of each of USAID’s CFW partners, then found that actual practices
on-site did not measure up to their official standards, explained how come.
35
Standards exist for minimizing risk of corruption here, which USAID not yet using. Guide
to Cash-for-Work Programming, Mercy Corps, 2007,
<www.mercycorps.org/files/file1179375619.pdf>.
USAID agreed with four of the seven recommendations. The Inspector General has
deadlines for implementation, and resolution on the three where there was
disagreement.
36 Some have had this happen to them multiple times, as they have the misfortune of finding sites that look like
they can camp there, but are in fact under the thumb of alleged land owner with thug gangs soon to drive out
the next bunch of people there.
37 Linked In made what they called an improvement to group discussions. In the process of doing so they
deleted hundreds of thousands of discussions which had not had any postings in a week or so. In the Haiti
discussion lists, those deletions included many threads which had been used to organize links to related topics.
A group of NGOs,38 specializing in justice issues, filed a legal action in early November 2010
through the OAS39 with the IACHR,40 claiming grievous violations of the human rights of
IDPs41 in the tent cities of Haiti.42 In the middle of November, the IACHR ruled that the
GoH43 needed to take immediate action to fix these problems, and keep IACHR informed
on their progress.
38 Non-Government Organizations.
39 Organization of American States.
40 Inter American Commission on Human Rights
41 Internally (within a nation) Displaced Persons = refugees in their own nation.
42 Al Mac has copies of the relevant documents in his “Accountability” collection.
43 Government of Haiti.
44 Brookings Report reviewed by Al Mac on Haiti Rewired Blog and Yahoo Group Haiti Disaster Recovery
Research [HDRR].
45 My document, on what is known about 2010 Presidential election candidates, includes a section on the
People with no legal status: commonly referred to as squatters, for example, ACTED
identified “beach-dwellers” with no legal status but with long term occupancy in the zone. In
reality, the majority of people may have no official legal status, with respect to where they are
living, BUT we can consider squatters as those with the least evidence to show tenure
security. These people existed before and after the Haiti earthquake.
In the Architecture Group of Haiti Rewired,46 several people think “squatters” is a
particularly hostile label for people who are refugees in their own country, and have
suggested that “nomad” is a better term for people who are driven from shelter to shelter
like cattle. I think we need different terminology for people who are voluntarily behaving a
particular way, and people who are in that boat due to some disaster, or abuse by an
undemocratic government.
46 http://haitirewired.wired.com/group/architectureforhaiti
47
80k 2 pages
http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/JARD-8D33LV/$File/full_report.pdf
(Source: OCHA/Relief Web)
For more information on USAID/OFDA shelter and settlements sector activities, please visit:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/sectors/shelter.html
Access to Services Infrastructure48 = World Vision notes that: ‘Efforts to provide basic
services like sanitation and drainage are frequently held up by disputes over land. Planning for
longer-term transitional shelter cannot take place in the absence of land on which the displaced
can be accommodated’.
ACTED = Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (HQ = Paris France) 49
AL MAC = Alister Wm Macintyre
C+ (1 Jan 11)
Cadastral or Cadastre means Land surveying in the Digital Age. Think combination
good geographic map, and clear demarcations of plots of land identified, that link to
ownership records.50 It commonly includes details of land ownership, land tenure, GPS or
other coordinates, dimensions, landmarks. Perhaps include legal use of the land, such as
zoning. Also see Land Register.
CARE = Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere
CARICOM = Caribbean Community
48 Coordination and the tenure puzzle in Haiti by Kate Crawford, Emily Noden and Lizzie Babister,
CARE International UK in
Humanitarian Exchange October 2010.
49 http://www.acted.org
50 Wikipedia; Free Dictionary. How Cadastre system works in France. OAS conference report, indicator
Construction Challenges exist for rebuilding Haiti. There is lack of consensus with
many issues. Haiti is allegedly virtually devoid of local building materials of appropriate
quality for environmental conditions builders must take into account: steep terrain, torrential
rains, heat, and even salt air.52 Deforestation complicates the environmental conditions.
D+ (0 Nov 15)
Debris – what can be in a Disaster Debris Pile?
Dead bodies, and body parts (some contaminated by disease)
E-wastes such as computers, telephones and TVs
E+ (0 Nov 15)
Economy: Before the Jan 2010 earthquake, Haitians had 80% unemployment. Afterwards
it was much worse. Growing the economy is a major priority, since it will make it practical
for Haitians to move into alternative housing as it gets developed. Haitian authorities
announced their version of a stimulus package to boost the Haitian economy.
Election Sham … I have said the Election system in Haiti reminds me of the old
Soviet Union … what I mean by that is that everyone knew in that system, you either
voted for the dictator, or you were dead. In Haiti, you are not allowed to vote for anyone
but a member of the Soviet Party equivalent. The system is rigged to block participation
by parties and leaders whom 90% of the people want as their leaders. Haiti is not a real
democracy, with constitutional government, rule of law. 54
Emergency Shelter = Tents and Tarps protection from ordinary Haiti weather.
Protection from NOTHING ELSE.
Eminent Domain = The right of a government to seize private property for public use,
in exchange for payment of fair market price, to the legal owner of the land.
53 Coordination and the tenure puzzle in Haiti by Kate Crawford, Emily Noden and Lizzie Babister,
CARE International UK in
Humanitarian Exchange October 2010.
54 More info: see my other research document on Haiti 2010 election; Upside Down World on Silent Coup in
Haiti.
55 UN Habitat Agenda.
access to housing, infrastructure, health services, adequate food and water, education and
open spaces.
In addition, such human settlements provide:
equal opportunity for a productive and freely chosen livelihood;
equal access to economic resources, including the right to inheritance, the
ownership of land and other property, credit, natural resources and appropriate
technologies;
equal opportunity for personal, spiritual, religious, cultural and social
development;
equal opportunity for participation in public decision-making;
equal rights and obligations with regard to the conservation and use of natural and
cultural resources;
and equal access to mechanisms to ensure that rights are not violated.
The empowerment of women and their full participation on the basis of equality in all
spheres of society, whether rural or urban, are fundamental to sustainable human
settlements development.
Eviction can be because the lease bans pets in the building, then there is a blind
visitor with a guide dog, and the tenant feels that is an exception to the lease
mandate.
In the developing world, such as Haiti, the court system usually plays no role
whatsoever in evictions. The (alleged) property owner, or agents (typically thug
gangs) of the (alleged) owner, use whatever (often brutal) means they deem
necessary to remove unwanted residents of their property.
All over Haiti, there are thug-gangs driving tent city occupants off the land
claimed by owners, whose documentation of ownership is usually a farce, where
56 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eviction
the evacuees lose their meager possessions when they are driven off brutally,
and need to find some place else to pitch their survival location. More often than
not, it is a space now vacant because some other victims were brutally driven off.
So the cycle continues.
Fermage is a type of land lease combined with full title for a house, sometimes with an
option to buy land in future. It is not strictly formal, but not considered illegal in most cases.
According to some estimates around 80% of residents in Port-au-Prince have a fermage
contract with the option to buy. 58
FY = Fiscal Year
G+ (0 Oct 01)
GCST = The Global Campaign for Secure Tenure, organized thru UN-Habitat advocates
housing rights for everyone
GCST promotes negotiation as an alternative to violent forced eviction,
innovative tenure systems for the urban poor, women’s equal secure tenure, tools
to facilitate collaboration between the urban poor, support NGOs and government
at all levels, slum upgrading frameworks, and legal and regulatory reforms.
57Yes, there are “households” in Haiti with no adults. To locate them, start with the UN “red zones” which
are areas of Haiti which have been designated as “forbidden to help those people” then go looking inside them
for street kids who have no homes, and only get help from each other. I have found only conspiracy theories to
explain the phenomena of the “red zones.”
58
UN-HABITAT, Strategic Citywide Spatial Planning: A Situational Analysis of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2009.
Ronald Baudin, Haiti's Minister of Economy and Finance, talks about this in a Haiti Libre
article needing a better translation.
H+ (0 Nov 14)
HDRR = Haiti Disaster Recovery Research group on Yahoo
HEDR = Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief group on Linked In
Homeless people implies: previously they owned or rented a home which was
subsequently lost, or they were forced to leave against their will. For example, the building
was foreclosed by a financial institution, or the home was destroyed in an earthquake. In
Haiti there were multi-story buildings which collapsed. The people on the ground floor get
to keep the right to be there, even though the building is now gone, while people on higher
floors, which got destroyed, had their corresponding rights also destroyed. 61
Housing Rights: Under International Law, there is a right to have a safe and secure
home, where people can live with dignity, to not be subject to arbitrary or forced eviction.
This s one of the most widely violated human rights. 62
Housing Rights Links:
Homeless International is a charity based in Britain which works with local partner
organizations all over the world, including Latin America.
Shack Dwellers International addresses the needs of Slum dwellers all over the
developing world.
HR = Haiti Rewired
IOM = International Organization for Migration (UN agency in charge of refugees and
displaced persons)
63http://www.facebook.com/notes/haiti-next-door/who-owns-port-au-prince-summary-of-the-economcis-
and-politics-of-housing-from-si/164902446862906
64 The Invisible Line: Land Reform, Land Tenure Security and Land Registration.
65 http://www.just.ee/7881
66 United Nations Human Settlement Program, Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human
MINUSTAH = Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation d’Haïti (United Nations
Stabilization Mission in Haiti) (UN Peacekeepers)
MoUs = Memoranda of Understanding
N+ (0 Dec 26)
NGO = Non-Governmental Organization
Who should be in charge? Minister of Interior? Special Deputy office until the disaster
problems have all been resolved?
Nomad = a term for people with no permanent home, who by choice, or by others
forcing them, are compelled to move from temporary home to temporary home. This term
is considered to be less hostile than calling them “squatters.”
R+ (0 Dec 29)
Real Estate = Real Property owned on land, such as the land itself, and improvements on
it like buildings and agriculture.70
I have seen many variants on what the Reconstruction Commission will be called, or
is named. Here is an official list of the members. It currently has 24 members entitled to vote
(12 Haitian leaders and 12 representatives of nations promising funds) and four members from
other sectors without voting.
Recovery comes after Rescue and Relief. The damaged infrastructure needs to
be rebuilt back better than it was before, so the people are less likely to suffer so
much in the next natural disaster.
Yes, it will take decades to clean all the titles. But legislation enabling an arbitration process,
and an economy which justifies the effort, would get the ball rolling better than trying to do
it all through a central bureaucracy.73 UNQUOTE
Relief typically comes after Rescue but before Recovery. Until damaged infrastructure and
economy can be rebuilt, the people need delivery of essential supplies (medical, food, water,
shelter) in such a way that it does not sabotage recovery (such as killing the local agriculture
by competing with capitalism to its destruction).
Relocation Camps, for Haiti disaster victims, were designated “safer” areas than
where they were found at risk of flooding, mudslides, etc. where the “more risky” areas
could not be mitigated, or repaired. So the people at more risk were given some choices:
Return to wherever they were before, if their homes now designated as safe, and they
were economically able to move there (pay the rent with their livelihoods gone);
Move in with some other host family, such as in rural areas, which were not getting
sufficient aid to displaced victims;
Or move to the “safer” relocation camps.
Rescue typically comes before Relief. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, there are
people at extreme risk of dying, because they are buried by an earthquake, mudslide, etc. or
need to be rapidly moved out of the way of a flood.
S+ (0 Dec 26)
Secure Tenure = Freedom from fear of forced eviction.74 Millions of people live
in constant fear of being forcibly evicted, without any warning, or due process,
without any compensation, alternative housing, or ability to salvage their
SHELTER
When we see the word “Shelter” in UN NGO Gov documents about Haiti, it usually
means “Emergency Shelter” from rains, such as tents tarps etc. ideally on land
not at high risk of flooding or mudslides or landslides.
When we see OTHER folks using the word “Shelter”, they usually mean “Housing”
that meets Building Standards that includes protection from Hurricanes,
Earthquakes, nite rapes, surprise evictions, and other hazards that are normal
reasonable expectations for the people of Haiti.
Sources Referenced, in various documents, can include sources I have not yet located,
but hope to view in the future.77 Apparently some NGOs have independently researched
issues, then shared them with UN clusters. Their documents may or may not be on sites of
NGOs or UN clusters.
Split Ownership is an idea I got from Mike Perrett.78 It may be when trying to settle
ownership disputes in Haiti that two or more competing interests appear to present equally
valid claims. Surely a percentage ownership new agreement can be made, and recorded with
Governments additions attached, such as a time frame during which quake survivors have
guaranteed housing tenancy security at a rental price to be paid or subsidized in such a way
that the owners get predictable income, and the subsidizers have well defined payment
schedule. If and when the tenants get decent jobs, they can take over some of the payments,
and get a longer time period guaranteed tenancy security agreement.
Squatter (see Nomad) = a hostile label for people who have no permanent home.
75 http://ijdh.org/archives/15413
76 Haiti Rewired thread on Forced Evictions of Quake Survivors from Tent City Camps with no advance
notice.
77 CARE; CordAid; informal working group on Land and Space issues; GOAL documents
T+ (0 Oct 01)
T-Shelter = Transitional Shelter (theoretically quake and cyclone proof shelter in
Haiti for people displaced by last such disaster) until Permanent replacements for the
disaster can be resolved. (However, the general public is not being provided with evidence of
quality, we are supposed to take their word for it that they know what they are doing.)
Tenure80
Permission to use or access something, such as land for particular purposes, like
mining or farming. An element of property rights, or contracts.
Employee status, like teacher rights.
Period of time this status to continue.
Tenure Security does not necessarily mean formally registered, legally recognised,
inheritable land ownership forever. It means a transitional agreement or arrangement to
make sure that people can restart their livelihoods and be confident that they will not face
forced or sudden involuntary eviction and loss of livelihood as they recover from the
earthquake and plan their next steps.
“Thug Power” = an excess of physical force available to some alleged land owners, to
enforce their claim to what purposes their land may be used for.
U+ (0 Nov 14)
UN = United Nations
UN Clusters – see Al Mac other document Guide to navigating UN sites.
UNDP = United Nations Development Programme
Unoccupied lands = a reality which occurs when the economic system encourages real
estate owners for owning property, but not use it for anything, and imposes high costs if do
use it, such that they are likely to not use it unless they have an extreme economic value to
do so.
We see this in Haiti, where wealthy families want to own land, do not want to use it
themselves, and do not want quake survivors to use it for tent cities.
80 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tenure
We see this in the USA, where banks foreclose homes whose owners could not pay the
mortgage, the tenants able to keep paying the rent, but the banks evict them, because the
banks would rather have the homes sit empty, inviting squatters and crimes like drug users,
than have some family occupy it, pay rent, and keep the property in good condition.
Consider tax rate systems, where unused or poorly used real estate has next to no taxes, but
productively used space has high taxes. The owner must make enough profits so the tax is
not a problem. Marginal profits + High Taxes and Insurance and other overhead costs can
drive the low income effort out of business.
A partial explanation for this reality is found in Georgist or Georgism Economics, based on
the teachings of Henry George who was a contemporary of Karl Marx (economic theory of
communist nations) and John Maynard Keynes (whose economic policies now rule the
West). These three individuals viewed the same reality, but came up with totally different
theories on what was in the best interests of mankind, the environment, quality of life, a
huge spectrum of issues.
In my opinion, Haiti would be a heck of a lot better off today if they were operating on
Georgist Economics than Keynesian, but with the power structure it is today in the
international community, I cannot see this happening. We can compare the economic
theories to explain how come we have some messes, and activities that appear unwise.
Unowned Land – Is there such a thing as real estate (land on planet Earth, not at
bottom of Ocean) that is not under the jurisdiction of some nation, and for which there is
no owner? When an owner dies, with no heirs, doesn’t the state reclaim their property?
This is an issue in Haiti, because there are people who claim that some land has no owner, so
they will grab it and use for their purposes. Often there are other people who dispute this
interpretation, leading to a Civil War between the competing interests.81
USAID = United States Agency for International Development
WTC = World Trade Center, demolished in 9/11. The amount of rubble debris there
seemed astronomical, but was puny volume compared to what came with Haiti earthquake.
This comparison makes sense for discussing philosophies of what is the best way to handle
the removal of the rubble debris.
81 Ganthier scandal.
82 Coordination and the tenure puzzle in Haiti by Kate Crawford, Emily Noden and Lizzie Babister,
CARE International UK in
Humanitarian Exchange October 2010.
Zone Maps are being issued by the Shelter Cluster through Relief Web. These are for
individual cities or communities showing which organizations are building shelters where.
No numbers are given. Just the actual builder organizations, and the funding or
coordinating agencies.
83 This is one of Al Mac specialized research documents, which typically will be uploaded to same kind of place
as this one on Haiti land ownership challenges.
84 This research document is excessively large due to embedded other documents, so we are more constrained
where it is practical to upload it, until the housing documents restructuring split is completed.
Map Leogane Flood Risk T-Shelters – overlay flood zones with rebuilding zones,
shows that rebuilding coincides with high risk more floods.
85 It is my intention to include links to these documents in: Yahoo HDRR Group; Haiti Rewired threads; Plan
Haiti; and/or my document with UN report navigating tips. They all were in Linked In HEDR group, until a
Linked In “improvement” deleted hundreds of thousands of Haiti how-to references, and other topics.
86http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HaitiDisasterRecoveryResearch/
87 Uploaded to Yahoo Group (HDRR) Haiti Disaster Recovery Research in Files / Haiti Election Info /
Candidate Platforms.
88 This is one of Al Mac specialized research documents, which typically will be uploaded to same kind of place
Map Shelter – Maps where various kinds of shelters are in the works in Haiti.
Map Transitional Shelter PDF 2010 Apr 26: 40 NGOs which plan to implement
Transitional Shelter in Haiti, and are primary starting info for T-shelter research.
PDNA PDF 115 pages Gov of Haiti Plan for the rebuilding of Haiti.
Photos of transitional shelters which have been built in Haiti.
Red X RFA: documents provided by Red Cross in their $ 30 million project to fund
transitional housing in Haiti, where they were seeking expertise to help them.
Reference Directory of UN and NGO documents Al has downloaded while
researching Haiti in 2010.91
Relocation Geography – one of Al Mac research notes documents, by different
housing themes.
Rubble Clearing info from Haiti Recovery Group.
Shelter Transitional standards WORD check list
Shelter Transitional additional documents
https://sites.google.com/site/shelterhaiti2010/twig-1/tshelter
Shelter Weather “maps” where buildings evaluated to identify capacity for Haitians in
case of severe weather, not yet structured to make it possible for them to find these
shelters.
Sitrep (Situation Report) … Al found time to do this back in May 2010, containing
statistics collected so far, showing Haiti big picture.
Situation Report 2010 April 27 IOM (International Organization for Migration) PDF which
says there are 13 sites designated for Transitional Shelters, talks about some of them,
and is a bit vague on the issues.
Situation Report 2010 July 15 Habitat for Humanity 2.2 Meg 5 page PDF shared
the remarkable statistic that “According to U.N. estimates, less than 5 percent of Haiti’s land is
legally registered” (see section on Pathways to Permanence).
Tracking in Haiti April 17 V3 OCHA PDF (SSIDs and P Codes)
Transitional NGOs XL developed as an intermediate aid for T-shelter research.
UN Report Navigation Tips document by Al Mac.
US Inspector General (IG) 25 page report on USAID and partners “Cash for Work” in
Haiti http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-89R45F/$File/full_report.pdf
(Source: OCHA/Relief Web)
Be sure to tell Al Mac if you are looking for any of these, and where you prefer me to upload
them, if you need to see any, that you have been unable to locate.
91Labeled “Al’s docs” for convenience, they are really docs developed by hundreds of organizations working
on rescue, relief, and recovery for Haiti.
http://bit.ly/aXQZru
To support the Government of Haiti's decision-making on the recovery and reconstruction
operations, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) decided to
make available expert advice and global best practices to the Government by mobilizing the
World Bank Global Expert Team (GET) (and also procuring external expertise where in-
house expertise was not available) to prepare Knowledge/Good Practice Notes on ten
identified, 'burning' post-disaster recovery and reconstruction issues in a time-bound
manner.92 These knowledge notes covered a number of key sectors including:
Building Seismic Safety Assessment;
Debris Management;
Environmental and Social Assessment;
Experience with Post Disaster Income Support Programs;
Land Tenure;
Management of Recovery Managing Post-Disaster Aid;
Rebuild or Relocate;
Transitional Shelter,
Helping Women and Children to Recover and
Build Resilient Communities.
92
Relief Web May 2010 overview not published until September 2010 (Source:
OCHA/Relief Web); Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR);
Government of Haiti (Govt. Haiti); The World Bank Group.
was high risk of this happening, but their voices were drowned out by the millions
of investors, bankers, home owners, etc. convinced that financial investment values
could only go in one direction.
We live in a world which is much more complex than our forefathers experienced.
To an extent it is a world of our own making, thanks to how we use technology. No
human can fully comprehend all the complexities, so we delegate decision-making to
that technology. Most of us do not understand how the technology does its thing.
But humans developed the technology, the programs that run on it, often for
purposes other than how it is now being used. I like to give my fellow humans the
benefit of the doubt, most are well meaning, but all make mistakes. When human
mistakes are made into technology, or the rules by which society functions as spelled
out by our legislators, the impact can be millions of other people inconvenienced, or
placed at risk.
We have seen from many recent national and international financial scandals that
there is a disconnect between government regulation and the rapid pace of new
technology and human systems. There is general agreement that certain kinds of
activities ought to have oversight and regulation, but legislators draft laws which
spell out the activities in terms of the current technology and practices. Thanks to
human ingenuity, the power of computers, and technological change, we rapidly find
new things we can do. These new things are outside of the previously drafted laws
which were specific to the old methods and technologies. So the new activities are
conducted without oversight or regulation, until human frailties lead to errors in
judgment and abuses of exactly the reasons why the old activities needed oversight
and regulation. So new laws are drafted to include the latest methods technologies,
which continue to evolve, so that most of the time, the relevant human activity is
outside any laws. This rapid pace of evolution in human affairs also means that the
leaders of business, government, non-profits, also become divorced from a good
understanding of what their enterprises are doing, can do, should do.
93 Wikipedia FAQ
94 It sounds like what is needed is a charity which will teach personal finance and commerce basics to the poor.
95 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGcWWMCR7Kw&feature=autoshare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfPCc4XoOXs&feature=relmfu
Thanks to Peter Burgess for bringing this scandal to my attention.
96 http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/17/how-microfinance-can-work/
Women are treated like first class citizens, compared to how many mainstream banks treat
women in some nations, except when the mafia-high interest rates lead to the borrowers
getting killed.
97 Detailed on page 8 of Ms T’s written testimony to the Senate Banking committee. Her testimony is chock
full of instances of systemic fraud against home owners by the mortgage financing industry,
98 See page 15 of Ms T’s written testimony to the Senate Banking committee. Her testimony has hundreds of
examples like this, showing systemic fraud in the banking industry, which goes beyond occasional innocent
errors.
99 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott US 9th circuit had a judicial conference in Aug 2010, later shown on
them any products, would not work on their property. Boycotts are legal most
everywhere. What is sometimes not legal are secondary boycotts.
Boycott, Secondary: Suppose we the people do not like what some company is doing
in its hiring practices, outsourcing, foreclosing, environmental behavior, etc. We
follow its vehicles around to identify where it is doing business, note where its logo is
posted, then picket those places to tell the customers there what our objections are
to the outfit it is doing business with. This kind of selective consumer buying
decision is illegal some places.
CDO = collateralized debt obligation
CRS = Congressional Research Service
DEED = Document showing who has ownership title to a home, similar to the
pink slip on an automobile. The owner should have this in an important place, like a
safety deposit box. The government should also have a copy of this as a public
record, where the public does not get to see social security # and other personal
confidential info on the home owner. This was the OLD system, until the Banking
Industry came up with the MERS system to keep track of changes in who owns what
property, without going through the Courthouse Records system. Was it legal for
the MERS system to replace the government system? This is now being hotly
disputed in every state of USA, with judges ruling in both directions. It needs to
work its way up to the US Supreme Court. Also see MORTGAGE.
US F+ (0 Nov 24)
FDIC = Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
FFETF = Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force
FHFA = Federal Housing Finance Agency
FinCEN = Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
ForeclosureGate101
101Mother Jones writes on this “The Buck stops nowhere.” Congress holds hearings, we hear the same
horrible stories, and nothing happens, other than the situation getting worse.
Lawyer, right to have one, only exists in Criminal Cases in USA.102 We have
all heard that a person, who represents self in a court case, has a fool for a lawyer. Well,
o 70—80 % of people in US civil cases have no lawyer. Sometimes they can
afford one but cannot find one to represent them. In 35% of these 70-80%
cases, the person without a lawyer is facing a lawyer on the other side. It used to
be that 95% of US home owners could not get a lawyer to protect their interests
when facing foreclosure, but this has recently dropped to 80% now that there has
been discovery of how exposed the financial industry is to risk of being shown to
have engaged in fraud.
o The system of justice in America is a house on fire.
4/5 of poor people have serious unmet legal needs
Bankrupsy
Child Custody
Civil Rights
Divorce
Domestic Dispute
Eviction
Foreclosure
Student Loans
o Pro SE is the legal terminology for a self-represented litigant, or a person in a
civil case who does not have a lawyer.
Ponzi Scheme = The notion that the same mortgages may be sold to more than one
group of investors. This conspiracy theory used to explain the lack of accounting trails of
103
who owns which securities, or has a legal right to which real estate properties.
ROBO-SIGNING is when people are employed for the purpose of signing legal
documents which claim those people can attest to the truth of all claims in the
104
documents, when in fact they have done no such thing.
outright the idea (frequently touted by banks) that robo-signing is a “technical issue”, saying that it is “an
affront to state courts”. Thia Blog went a bit further and said that it is an affront to anyone with a modicum
of respect for the concept of the rule of law. Miller is one of the people who is leading up the joint attorneys
general investigation into foreclosure fraud.
105 Wikipedia on Mortgage Servicers;
decades to clean up. If the USA is incapable of rapidly resolving this, what does that say
about how long it will take to clean up the Haiti mess?
While I believe this latest Housing Scandal in USA has a LOT in common with the Haiti
Corrupt system ... government regulators asleep while corruption-friendly systems run amok,
then no-one held accountable after the scandal breaks, I recognize there are different
audiences seeking mental understanding of the astronomical messes in the two different
nations, so ultimately I will split off the USA info into a separate research notes document.
As usual, lots of people are speculating on what’s going on, and the news media quoting
them. I want to figure out what facts are provable. I also wrote about this in my Facebook
Notes Oct 10, 2010. I am finding out that some foreclosures have multiple errors.
The problem in the Haitian Housing market is that the hand-written documents
showing who owns what, are often contradictory, and difficult to figure out which is valid
and which fraudulent. The Haitian government had totally failed to solve this problem prior
to the Jan 2010 earthquake whose recovery is now blocked by this challenge. The system is
corruption-friendly.
The problem in the American Housing market is that the computerized and/or
voluminous documents showing who owns what, who has what mortgage, are often
fraudulent, and difficult to figure out which are legitimate. The US court system has been
ignoring the problem, until it has reached catastrophic proportions. This is a sub-set of the
Toxic Asset problem apparently started by the Sub-Prime Mortgage melt-down.
If you have title insurance, doesn’t that protect you in case there is later found to be
something wrong with the paperwork declaring what you really have clear title to?
Apparently not, there may also be fraud in that industry. 108
According to Consumer Affairs, companies with the most consumer complaints are:
Chase Mortgage
Chase Credit Cards
Bank of America
University of Phoenix 109
Lending Tree
Quicken Loans
eHarmony.com
108Title Insurances Finally Get Attention Amidst Foreclosure Freezing, Oct 10 2010 Re Journal.
109Many big name universities were found by GAO to be engaging in fraudulent sales of education, designed to
saddle people with student loans they cannot pay, so the taxpayers end up underwriting the fraud.
Samsung TV
JK Harris
Amerisave Mortgage
http://blog.nola.com/crime_impact/print.html?entry=/2010/11/computer_gl
itch_stalls_orleans.html
Bank of America Inc.’s Countrywide Financial unit, acquired by the bank in 2008, was
accused of “massive fraud” in a lawsuit by investors who claim they were misled about
mortgage-backed securities.111
TIAA-CREF Life Insurance Co., New York Life Insurance Co. and Dexia Holdings Inc. are
among a dozen institutional investors who filed the complaint yesterday in New York state
Supreme Court.
The investors claim they bought hundreds of millions of dollars of Countrywide mortgage-
backed securities from 2005 to 2007 because they wanted conservative, low-risk investments.
They said they relied on term sheets, prospectuses and other materials provided by the firm
that were recklessly or knowingly false.
The suit follows other fraud actions against Countrywide related to alleged misstatements to
investors regarding the company’s mortgage-loan underwriting standards.
111http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-24/countrywide-sued-by-investors-in-mortgage-backed-
securities.html
Q. Is this really reasonable human error by big institutions, trying to save money on their
paperwork?
A. There's no reason to be skirting the law and sending in fake documents to courts if you
have any interest in taking good faith measures to avoid a foreclosure and consider loan
modifications like you're supposed to.113
Q. Aren’t errors inevitable when there’s high volume transactions processed by any
organization?114
A. You have to infer some element of intent in not providing adequate staff to keep track of
paperwork. Where you have the kind of very consistent pattern of losing paperwork and
delaying making loan modifications permanent basically forever, there is a pattern there that
I think shows intent not to comply with laws.115
Q. How is the foreclosure process supposed to go, when there’s nothing wrong?
A. In judicial foreclosure states, there are requirements that certain legal papers be in
order, like the party foreclosing has to possess an original note for the loan, and the
mortgage has to be assigned to the party doing the foreclosure, and there ought to be a
law firm that is dealing with actual, physical papers that they get.
In a proper functioning legal system, you'd have local law firm sent all the relevant loan
documents, deals directly with someone who has authority to modify the loan, and makes
critical decisions about loss mitigation issues. That was standard practice 20 years ago in
mortgage foreclosures across country.117
In non-judicial states, law firms conducting private sales are also supposed to be getting all
of the proper loan documents themselves in their office. They would also be in contact with
the people who own the note and mortgage and could make decisions about modifications.
But what you see now is the "foreclosure mill" law firms processing paperwork at a local
level are often two or three levels down from even the major servicer. So say you have a
major servicer like Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo has contracts with different trusts that own
mortgages. What Wells Fargo and other servicers typically do is when loans in their servicing
portfolio fall into default, the information about those loans is transferred to other entities,
error detection and resolution practices, good quality training for the people handling the data, not outsourcing
it to people in another nation who not understand our culture or laws.
115 Knox News Q+A.
116 Evansville Courier and Press editorial Oct 15, on the Foreclosure mess.
117 Knox News Q+A.
like this Lender Processing Services, LPS, and what LPS does is manage data platforms. LPS
has the authority to hire attorneys and firms throughout the country to foreclose on those
Wells Fargo mortgages.118
Q. It seems like homeowner protection depends on where you are geographically.
A. Yes. There are certain states where foreclosures are carried on completely without any
judicial supervision, and they can be carried out in two months, and other states where a
foreclosure can take a year and half.119
Q. What recourse do you have if you are in a state without judicial supervision?
A. Hire a lawyer.120 Homeowners are fortunate enough to get an attorney to represent them.
You have to file a lawsuit in court to stop a foreclosure. It's a type of legal proceeding
that's complicated -- it requires a motion for temporary restraining order or injunction,
and it has to be prepared in a short time frame. It's expensive. There are very few
challenges to foreclosures. In some states, there are very few attorneys that know how to
do that.121
Several non-judicial states have recently enacted statutes that said that before a servicer
can complete a non-judicial foreclosure sale, they have to complete a certification saying
they attempted to contact the homeowner and reviewed loss mitigation options. 122
In the past, when a mortgage was sold, the new owner filed mortgage documents with
county offices showing it now held the lien and paid recording fees. This system’s info
was open to inspection by anyone in the county who had a legal interest in who owns
what property, who holds the mortgage. This old system has now been broken by the
mortgage banking industry, and replaced with a new broken system.
As the volume of refinanced mortgages grew in the late 1990s, the mortgage industry
sought to reduce its fee expenses and speed up the process of re-assigning mortgage liens
as mortgages were being rapidly bought and sold.
bank buildings. Evict them, and legally seize the money in the vault. You could have a problem with the bank
regulators who operate under a different system of justice.
121 Knox News Q+A.
122 But how is this enforced?
123 Fight over MERS’s legal right to foreclose makes mess worse, Oct 11 2010 USA Today.
By having MERS hold mortgage liens for the owners, MERS eliminated the need for
servicers to file paper documents reporting a lien holder change each time a mortgage
was sold. MERS gives loans identification numbers, which are used to track changes in
loans' servicers and owners. 124
Critics, like North Carolina bankruptcy lawyer O. Max Gardner, say the MERS database
isn't always up to date, leading to uncertainty about the lien holder's identity. "Sometimes
MERS members enter the information, and sometimes they don't."
MERS says it has the legal right to foreclose when the owner of the loan chooses to make
MERS the holder of the promissory note and gives it the right to enforce the mortgage if
it goes into default. But lawyers representing homeowners disagree, saying MERS
doesn't have the legal right to foreclose because it doesn't actually own the mortgage
loan. 125
Some states judges have ruled in favor of MERS claims, some have ruled against. The
same kinds of charges that have been leveled against the banks and mortgage companies,
have also been leveled against MERS. There are a series of class action suits and
organized crime charges against MERS.
124 Fight over MERS’s legal right to foreclose makes mess worse, Oct 11 2010 USA Today.
125 Fight over MERS’s legal right to foreclose makes mess worse, Oct 11 2010 USA Today.
126 Foreclosure Errors by Mortgage Companies May Help Troubled Homeowners, Sep 29 2010 Consumer
Affairs.
127 Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge, Sep 30 2010 New York Times.
128 Foreclosure Errors by Mortgage Companies May Help Troubled Homeowners, Sep 29 2010 Consumer
Affairs.
foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home lender and one of
the two big lenders at the center of the current controversy.129
However, there is also speculation that this scandal will force banks to start treating their
customers with more dignity, and take uncertainty back out of the credit market, leading to
more consumers likely to get into home ownership again.
In California, where judges don't handle foreclosures, the housing market appears to have
hit bottom a year ago and has been bouncing back. In Florida, where foreclosures go
through the court system, prices keep falling, and foreclosure inventory continues to rise.130
White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday questioned the need for a moratorium,
saying that valid foreclosures with accurate documents should go ahead. 131 "Our hope is
this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly,'' he said on CBS's
"Face the Nation"132
But Richard Cordray, Ohio's attorney general, said Sunday that as many as 40 state
attorneys general across the country intend to open an investigation of lenders and
servicers to figure out the scope of the problems with foreclosure documents.133
The Last Word on MSNBC Nov 17 had an update on toxic foreclosures, which they say
are placing the USA at risk of another economic melt down.
Fraudulent Mortgages
Banks demonize innocent home owners
Financial System Corrupted to its Core
Mortgage Servicer Fraud
HAMP is a government program where people can get modifications on their mortgage
payment rates. People, who have been paying everything on time, contact their financial
129 Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge, Sep 30 2010 New York Times.
130 Foreclosure Delay Poses Risk, Oct 10 2010 Wall Street Journal.
131 This guy is apparently assuming that many thousands of documents signed without reading by bank
executives were otherwise valid, various injustices found out by investigators were aberrations, and violating the
law is not really that important unless it is a little guy doing it.
132 Foreclosure Delay Poses Risk, Oct 10 2010 Wall Street Journal.
133 Foreclosure Delay Poses Risk, Oct 10 2010 Wall Street Journal.
Attorneys General in 40 States Said to Join on Foreclosures, Oct 09 2010 Bloomberg News.
134 Evansville Courier and Press editorial Oct 15, on the Foreclosure mess.
institutions and ask for this. The mortgage servicer tells them that they are not eligible
for HAMP because they have been paying on time, that what they need to do is stop
paying so as to get qualified for HAMP. If they do so, what happens instead is they get
Foreclosed.
They only break even on servicing a housing loan which is being paid on time, but they
make huge fees associated with a foreclosure.
The lawyers defending the home owners say that they have not yet had to turn away a
case because the banks had done everything correctly. Every home owner, who has gone
to the lawyers for help, has been in the right, with the banking industry in the wrong.
Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, urged all five large mortgage lenders to suspend
foreclosures in Nevada until they have set up systems to make sure homeowners aren't
"improperly directed into foreclosure proceedings".137
Nevada, where home repossessions are among the highest, is not among those 23 states
where foreclosures must be approved by a judge, meaning that the process is relatively
swift.
US Attorney General Eric Holder is joining several state attorneys general in an escalating
legal inquiry over reports of legally dubious foreclosure proceedings initiated by major
lenders.138 Attorneys General in North Carolina, Texas and Connecticut have
called for wholesale moratoriums on foreclosures in their states, while California and
Massachusetts have asked particular lenders to suspend foreclosure activity.
135 California Lawmakers want Foreclosure Investigation, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
136 Senator demands lenders reveal foreclosure errors, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
137 Bank of America stops selling repossessed homes, Oct 08 2010 BBC News.
138 Justice Dept digs into Foreclosure Foibles, Oct 06 2010 New York Observer.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/11/reverse-engineered-securitization-flow-chart/ (Click on it a couple times to alter scale. Thanks to Kathy Gilbeaux for
locating these links for me.
The land recording system that was set up in the USA in the colonial age has only recently
been disrupted by the advent of MERS, the electronic registry which short-circuited that
process and substituted themselves as the mortgagee on official documents, with the
constant trading of mortgages happening on their database. “The use of MERS raises a
number of legal questions,” the report says, “such as whether MERS has the legal standing
to initiate foreclosures in its own name and to what extent recording MERS as mortgagee or
assignee provides sufficient notice to subsequent purchasers under state recording statutes,
which are currently being litigated in many jurisdictions.” 142
There are massive conflicts of interest, in which the federal government is among the actors.
142 http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/11/19/crs-report-details-dangers-of-foreclosure-fraud/
143 Banking.Senate.Gov
144 Attorneys General in 40 States Said to Join on Foreclosures, Oct 09 2010 Bloomberg News.
145 C-Span.org
146http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/11/17/recapping-yesterdays-senate-banking-hearing-on-foreclosure-
fraud/
a responsibility to prevent this from happening, and the need to hold additional hearings
because of problems for which none of the witnesses today are involved in many areas in
need of investigation.
After these two, because of other meetings going on, the plan was to have most of the
Republican Senators ask their questions, then have most of the Democratic Senators ask
their questions. In the middle of this there was a quorum, so they took a vote, and got 16-
yes 7-no.
Multiple Senators shared laundry lists of the kinds of problems happening to their
constituents in large numbers of incidents, which defied reason.
The panelists (in order of appearance) were:
Tom Miller, Attorney General of State of Iowa, leader of the 50 state gang of AGs
seeking redress, and changes to prevent this from ever happening again. (In my
notes I refer to him as AG Tom”.) It is a huge collection of frustrating complexities,
he says.
o Radio Iowa report on AG Tom’s testimony.147
Barbara DeSoer with Bank of America Home Loans (in my notes I refer to her as
“Ms BoA”). She is of the philosophy that errors and mistakes are unavoidable, but
when found, they try to seek redress, improve their practices, train their people. Her
statistics are mind-boggling. Apparent conflict in my notes of Ms BoA testimony:
We are all actors in one box; We cannot solve this because of the other actors
outside our box.
o Here is Ms BoA’s written testimony to the Senate hearing.
o Pro Publica later published a rebuttal to Ms BoA claims about Wall Street
investors blocking resolution.
Mr. Arnold with Mortgage Electronic Services (in my notes I refer to him as “Mr
MERS”). He thinks his system is superior to the nation’s property rights laws, and
blames all errors on banking clerical.
Professor Levitt from Georgetown Law (in my notes I refer to him as “Prof”)
specializing in bankrupsy and mortgage law. He talked about dire consequences to
our economy from MERS and the banks hijacking the nation’s property rights laws,
then screwing them up with astronomical conflicts of interest, where figuring out the
mess is still a big unknown due to legal issues with evidentiary questions.
147 http://www.radioiowa.com/2010/11/17/attorney-general-testifies-before-senate-on-foreclosures/
Mr Loman with Chase Home Lending (he was like a clone of Ms BoA, in my notes I
refer to him as “Mr Chase”). His testimony echoed Ms BoA, except for a YOU LIE
protestor who needed 3 police persons to evict.
Ms Diane Thomson of the National Consumer Law Center (in my notes I refer to
her as “Ms T”). She had testified about related problems in July. She said NONE of
those problems had been fixed. The only change was for the situation to get worse.
There are cascading costs throughout our society which pose both a moral hazard
and threaten our global economic stability. Basically she explained the root of the
problems was that the mortgage companies believe the rules and laws which apply to
everyone else, do not apply to them. She cited egregious examples of screw-ups with
BoA and Chase, which their mouth pieces explained as errors are unavoidable.
Sorry.
o Here is Ms T’s written testimony to the Senate hearing.148
148http://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/foreclosure_mortgage/mortgage_servicing/testimony-senate-banking.pdf
The Prof supported Ms T, citing testimony where Countrywide was doing exactly what Ms T
was accusing the banking industry of doing, and he went on to explain the conflict of
interest where it is in the best interests of the banks, investors, community housing values,
and so forth, to help consumers keep their homes, when they can afford to make the
contractual payments. The problem is that the mortgage service providers, like MERS, make
more money by triggering foreclosures, than helping people keep their homes.
Senator Dodd also cited evidence in support of Ms T.
Senator Jeff Merkey (D-Oregon) described his understanding of the dual process, then asked
if he had stated it correctly.
Mr Chase said yes, while others said mistakes often occur, apparently on purpose, so the
foreclosure does not in fact stop. The Senator has stacks of complaints from constituents
where this has happened.
The banker reps claimed the old process took too long, complicated by documents
problems, which apparently have not been solved by the new process.
I missed who said what, when the lawmakers were asking how come the dual process could
not be stopped, when there is a satisfactory loan modification.
Basically the new system has split property law and contract law, introducing systemic risks
to the banking industry. The money from the home owner payments is going from the
mortgage servicer to the investors in the contract. Only the investors can agree to a change
in the system, and getting them to come to the table is like pulling teeth. Meanwhile the
servicer adds on secret fees, deducts them from the home owner correct payments, so as far
as the investors are concerned, it looks like the home owner is in default.
Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) talked about how the dual process was a major
problem. Constituents come to his office with transcripts of conversations with the
institutions involved, where they are then hit with ambushes and surprise penalties, when
they had done nothing wrong, according to the contracts.
He went on to explain what he thought was the business case that it is in the interests of the
banks, adjacent home owner values, to let a home owner who can afford the payments, to
keep the home, and not foreclose, so why is that not what is happening? Why can’t we align
those interests and save our economy?
The Prof explained two reasons why not.
1. The servicers make more profits through foreclosures than by letting the home
owners continue paying on their contracts.
2. 40% of mortgages in USA have not been securitized, but the value of the properties
is now underwater (value below what is still to be paid) such that the total value of
what is underwater, is more than the total assets of all the banks in the USA. Those
banks try to stretch out into the future how long until they take the loss on their
books.
AG Tom said the quality of decision making smacks of incompetence, combined with the
servicers having been asked to take on a different kind of business, which conflicts with their
traditional culture.
In summary there was a chorus of yes’s but then there were qualifications.
Ms T said the 2 track system needs to be ended; the complicated rules need restructuring,
and the fees conditions need to be regulated.
Senator Daniel Akak (D Hawaii) talked about the national disaster, the disaster in his state,
our business here is legislation, but if the problem is non-compliance with the laws, what
recommendations do you have for this to be fixed?
Ms T said that legal representation for home owners can solve it, but money has not been
appropriated to support the legal services and mediation needed.
AG Tom echoed this. Their investigation unfinished, but they expect it will take months
rather than years. He thinks
The dual track has to be stopped.
The fees need to be regulated.
2nd lien is a major problem.
There is massive insurance fraud and abuse.
The Prof says to take MERS type enterprises out of the picture, have some federal agency
administer this, such as courts already experienced with bankrupsy. Legislate a new type of
bankrupsy law just for mortgage foreclosure threatened. Where loan modification is
affordable to the participants, offer cookie cutter standard solutions.
AG Tom said the new financial reform people have not been helping with this, he would
love to talk with them to find out why not.
Mr Chase says we need to be careful about changing systems. It sounds like he is
disconnected from what they been talking about for the last 2 hours where bankers changing
the old system was how we got into this mess.
Someone else said (again missing from my notes … I think Dodd) that every foreclosure
lowers all properties in the same block by 5% of value.
Ms BoA agrees with Mr Chase. There’s not a damn thing the banks can do to fix this,
because of the contractual obligations with the investors.
There was back and forth about some issues previously discussed, where it was kind of
decided that AG Tom would invite the investors to sit at his table with the AGs from the 50
states, and get their side of the story from the horse’s mouths.
Mr Chase and Ms BoA unsure this would fix the problems.
One senator asked Mr Chase and Ms BoA if they contesting Ms T’s picture.
Ms BoA says her picture not apply to them because for most of their loans they are all the
actors in one box.
The Prof says most servicers are not in Ms BoA situation.
Mr Chase says Ms T’s picture makes no sense. They make money by keeping loans with any
home owner able to pay on contract.
Sen Dodd says there will be another hearing, since many issues left unresolved.
Then there was the question about statistics with non-judicial states vs. judicial states, does
that explain different patterns.
Ms BoA said it coincidental. The issues mainly relate to unemployment and other economic
factors in the various states.
Ms T said there have been studies showing the causative factors are how much time the
accused home owners get to defend themselves.
Someone said that 30% foreclosed sales are cash, not conventional mortgages. What’s going
on there?
Explanation … investor confidence in rental property growth
My notes end there.
One of the people testifying at that hearing was Commissioner Walsh, Comptroller of the
Nation’s Currency.149 This agency is supposed to be supervising the mortgage servicers, and
the largest banks in USA. The Banking Oligarchy has used holes, in the bank examiner
systems, to drive our economy into the toilet.
149 http://www.loansafe.org/comptroller-walsh-testifies-foreclosure-mortgage
150 CBS Investigation, Sep 28 2010.
151 Foreclosure Errors Virtually Guarantee a Double Dip in Housing, October 2010 article on Land Colt
Trading Blog.
152 Evansville Courier and Press editorial Oct 15, on the Foreclosure mess.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has requested several Banks to stop
foreclosures pending further investigation.153
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden and Texas
Attorney General Greg Abbott called on lenders to suspend foreclosure actions until they
can ensure that banks have followed proper procedures. 154
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last week asked a state court to freeze
all home foreclosures for 60 days. 155
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has asked a federal prosecutor to review
thousands of Ohio foreclosures. 156
153 California Lawmakers want Foreclosure Investigation, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
154 California Lawmakers want Foreclosure Investigation, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
155 California Lawmakers want Foreclosure Investigation, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
156 California Lawmakers want Foreclosure Investigation, Oct 05 2010 Associated Press.
157 Mortgage Fraud: New Schemes Emerge; July 26 2010 Bank Info Security.
158 Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons, Aug 4 2010 Mother Jones.
159 Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons, Aug 4 2010 Mother Jones.
160 GMAC Foreclosure Probe Widens, Sep 24 2010 Mother Jones.
Mr. Grodensky said he spent months trying to figure out what happened but said his
questions to Bank of America and to the law firm Florida Default Law Group, which
handled the foreclosure were not answered. Florida Default Law Group could not be
reached for comment, despite several attempts by phone and e-mail. Mr. Grodensky said he
has filed a claim with his title insurance company, but that, too, has not resulted in any
action.
It wasn't until September, when Mr. Grodensky brought his problem to the attention of the
Sun Sentinel, that it began to be resolved.
Bank of America eventually acknowledged they made error(s) and will correct at the bank
expense, said spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens. "It looks like it was a mistake in
communication between us and the attorneys handling the foreclosure," said Ms. Bauwens.
It turns out that it was a mistake by the Bank, and stonewalling of Mr. Grodensky’s efforts
to get this resolved.
Prior to Mr. Grodensky buying the property, a prior owner had had a mortgage with
Countrywide, and in 2008 a foreclosure was filed with the court, then Bank of America took
over Countrywide. In 2009 Grodensky purchased the property with a “short sale” meaning
the lender agrees to accept less money than the mortgage value. The sale was recorded in
161 Bank of America extends Freeze on Foreclosures to all 50 states, Oct 08 2010 Bloomberg News.
Obama will not ban home repossessions ‘fraud’, Oct 12 2010 BBC News.
162 Bank of America extends Freeze on Foreclosures to all 50 states, Oct 08 2010 Bloomberg News.
163 Foreclosure errors the result of a swamped system, Oct 09 2010 Florida Sun Sentinel.
164 Foreclosure errors the result of a swamped system, Oct 09 2010 Florida Sun Sentinel.
Prosecuting attorney: "So other than the due date and the balances due, is it correct that
you do not know whether any other part of the affidavit that you sign is true?"
There's one problem with this: According to federal rules of civil procedure, affidavits like
the kind Stephan was signing "must be made on personal knowledge, set out facts that
would be admissible in evidence, and show that the affiant is competent to testify on the
matters stated." In other words, if you sign a foreclosure affidavit, you have to know what
that document says—indeed, you should be so familiar with it that you could defend its
contents in court. But GMAC's Stephan conceded that he really didn't know what those tens
165 Foreclosure errors the result of a swamped system, Oct 09 2010 Florida Sun Sentinel.
166 Foreclosure errors the result of a swamped system, Oct 09 2010 Florida Sun Sentinel.
167 CBS Investigation, Sep 28 2010.
Obama will not ban home repossessions ‘fraud’, Oct 12 2010 BBC News.
168 Mistakes widespread on foreclosures lawyers say, Sep 27 2010 USA Today.
169 A Crack in Wall Street’s Foreclosure Pipeline, Sep 22 2010 Mother Jones.
In recent years, as the number of foreclosures on banks' books mounted, some came to rely
on what critics call "robo signers"—employees whose job it is to sign countless documents
to keep the foreclosure process chugging along. Since this process is in violation of federal
law, both the employees are crooked, and whoever told them to do this. It may even fall
under the organized crime statutes.
If they been doing this for years, how can bank executives now claim they are ignorant of
the practice? Who hired them? Often the banks sub-contracted to other enterprises to
perform some tasks, and selected the lowest bidder, without looking into how they did the
work. If you pay some person or company to do something, and if what they doing is illegal,
do you share any culpability for those actions?
If they going to ignore the law, why do they use real person names on the documents?
When I worked at a certain company some decades ago, consumers were sent “past due”
notices signed by a non-existent employee name. When consumers called to complain about
any alleged errors in our paperwork, they were told the employee, by that name, had been
fired for being rude to customers, then the system got updated to use a different fraudulent
employee name for subsequent “past due” notices. The purpose of this was to take the wind
out of the sails of irate customers.
“The way the plaintiffs’ lawyers have handled this has corrupted our legal system,” said
Thomas Cox, a Maine lawyer whose deposition of a GMAC executive in June helped
prompt the current disclosures. “They tried to manufacture foreclosures the way you’d
manufacture cars, on an assembly line. It can’t be done that way.170
Iowa and Texas attorneys general have opened investigations into GMAC's mortgage
practices.171
Ohio has filed suit accusing the lender Ally Financial and its GMAC Mortgage division of
fraud in approving scores of foreclosures.172
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray said Ally’s alleged fraud was widespread.
"Everything that we have seen indicates that there may have been thousands of cases where
they systematically defrauded the court by filing affidavits under oath that claimed personal
knowledge where the signer did not have that knowledge. In an individual case, if an
attorney filed a false affidavit, that would result in swift and severe sanctions, disciplinary
misconduct and so forth. The fact that this may have done on a mass scale is pretty
breathtaking to us." 173
170 Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge, Sep 30 2010 New York Times.
171 GMAC Foreclosure Probe Widens, Sep 24 2010 Mother Jones.
172 Ohio AG Sues Ally Financial for Foreclosure Fraud, Oct 07 2010 Democracy Now.
173 Ohio AG Sues Ally Financial for Foreclosure Fraud, Oct 07 2010 Democracy Now.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper also announced Wednesday he’s begun
investigating fifteen lenders, including Ally, and has asked them all to freeze foreclosures
during the probe. 174
US Attorney General Eric Holder meanwhile said the Justice Department is looking into the
improper foreclosures. 175
174 Ohio AG Sues Ally Financial for Foreclosure Fraud, Oct 07 2010 Democracy Now.
175 Ohio AG Sues Ally Financial for Foreclosure Fraud, Oct 07 2010 Democracy Now.
176 Banks Breaking into Homes in Foreclosure to Change Locks, Oct 6 2010 Huffington Post.
177 Obama will not ban home repossessions ‘fraud’, Oct 12 2010 BBC News.
178 CBS Investigation, Sep 28 2010
179 A Crack in Wall Street’s Foreclosure Pipeline, Sep 22 2010 Mother Jones.
180 Biggest Banks Ensnared as Foreclosure Paperwork Problem Broadens, Oct 4 2010 Pro Publica.
181 http://www.housingwire.com/2010/11/19/new-ftc-rule-aimed-at-mortgage-relief-scams