Thread by @jeffreytran

We have been building homes in rural Haiti over the last year and have completed 8 of 15. In the recent earth quake, these homes survived. I’m just starting a gofundme so we can begin the next 7. I committed myself to share it by EOD. #tweet100 gofund.me/fe3a9846

2/ Check out the link! It’s the first time I’ve ever run such a drive so if anyone has experience or feedback I’d love to hear it. The project origins: At the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns in spring 2020 our family first had to adjust to the shock to our own lives..

3/ but as we adjusted to the change our next thought was our friends at @MPM_Haiti mpmhaiti.org. Years ago, when I was first wondering how to go about charitable giving my friend @matt_belcher said I should talk to his friend Christian, who co-founded the charity..

4/ with a man, Samual, that she and her husband had met when they were in Haiti, in a rural region near Aux Cayes. He is a doctor, and she was studying the language. She tells the story better/more accurately, but from my recollection one of his patients needed help..

5/ for her child to go to school, so they helped her. Other people also needed help and this led to the educational mission of the charity. mpmhaiti.org/educational-sc… . Christian wrote up the story beautifully in a grant proposal that I need to bother her about publishing..

6/ but fast forward, and the critical feature we like about this group is the degree to which needs and execution are done *locally* led by the on the ground director Samual Thidor, who has deep roots in the community. See the team here.. mpmhaiti.org/meet-mpm-haiti… ..

7/ we contacted MPM to see what people needed to help with the pandemic. As is typical, they came back with a specific and careful list which included sanitation supplies, cleaning stations, and money for emergency food aid for stay-at-home. Since time was of the essence..

8/ we funded this and as always they deployed it efficiently and quickly. Scooting forward, we had some money we had set aside for future charitable donations and decided to ask them if there was anything they would want to do if we would accelerate several years..

9/ of donations into one. A few weeks later they came back with a proposal, which is found here. mpmhaiti.org/vulnerable-fam… .. we haven’t updated this page so keep in mind that much of what is proposed has been actually ACCOMPLISHED. Updating the situation is what I am doing here..

10/ in the region in which the group works fifteen families are (now partially were!) living in what qualifies as extreme poverty housing since the destruction of Hurricane Mathew. Places like this..

11/ or this..

12/ or this..

13/ or this..

14/ or this..

15/ or this..

16/ or this..

17/ or this..

18/ or this..

19/ etcetera. Aside, if you are curious what this has to do with Covid a. it doesn't necessarily, people have other needs too and b. #covidisairborne #ventillation #safeindoorair #secondaryattackrate #aerosols #airflow etc, etc. People are much safer in this..

20/ or this..

21/ or this.. (shown in construction, obviously). Eight homes complete (and survived the earthquake undamaged), seven more to go..

22/ By chance we purchased 17k of materials for much of the remaining seven after the assassination of the President (.. what a year) but before the earthquake and will begin construction on the rest when we have raised 10k more on this gofundme. gofund.me/1429f93a ..

23/ all-in cost of a home is coming in at ~8k, all of which is transferred directly to mpm's bank in Haiti and spent entirely locally. (Aside for fans of macro-economics, construction has a great Keynsian multiplier #econtwitter).

24/ So 10k should get us to safely commit to starting three or four new homes as we raise money to complete all of them.

25/ but I digress. @MPM_Haiti proposed that in the area it worked, that the biggest impact would be building permanent, durable, livable homes for these fifteen families at a cost of ~5k a home and total cost of $75,000. We did some research and determined..

26/ that if the project could be done for near that cost that it would qualify as a very effective humanitarian intervention. But the problem is notoriously hard. A lot of funding came into the country after Matthew, but few homes were actually built..

27/ as documented somewhat famously by @propublica @justinelliot @laurasullivannpr propublica.org/article/how-th… ..

28/ and by @KatzOnEarth amazon.com/The-Big-Truck-…

29/ tl;dnr it’s hard to swoop in and ‘help’ people without (for example) knowing their needs, the language, the culture, etc. in short, from outside. It’s a big topic and I’ll leave it to others..

30/ but we felt like MPM was well positioned to actually succeed, most importantly because project needs, direction, and execution comes locally. We didn’t know that houses for these families were what was needed.. that’s what the community felt was the biggest problem..

31/ some due diligence: one big problem is that it can be complex to know who actually owns the land which makes it hard to build. A requirement for this project is that each family actually produce a title. These families do own the land the construction takes place on..

32/ .. so having a home on that land is a a source of durable wealth. Another question we asked was if these homes would be robust to earthquakes. Samual said that the biggest issue is that raw materials are expensive so sometimes concrete is cut with sand..

33/ where these homes would have proper foundation (especially important on sandy soil near the ocean), structural elements, and materials. Concrete Blocks, iron, wood, (and I believe) tin. Plus poured concrete..

33/ Poured concrete in the foundations

34/ in some locations stone..

35/ metal windows and doors are very important for security..

36/ Ultimately, we needed to trust that Samual (an engineer and general contractor) knew what he was doing and had the skill and connections to organize and execute such a problem. Spoiler alert: he does..

37/ by August, eight homes were complete and families had moved in. On August 14th a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southern Haiti, killing hundreds. The epicenter was about 100 km from these communities. nytimes.com/live/2021/08/1…

38/ report from the quake

39/ mercifully, no one was killed in the families the charity works with. The homes built survived without damage and these families were able to help others.

40/ naturally the focus was on immediate recovery and aid. Many people want to know how to help while avoiding some of the problems with big international charities. Independently of this housing project, consider @MPM_Haiti can get help to people who need it pretty directly..

41/ and direct earthquake relief can be done here. mpmhaiti.org .

42/ but Samual is ready to go. Thus far we’ve financed the project ourselves and with the help of people we know directly. But I think it is good to involve others as well from here on out..

43/ we had already discussed if, on completion, if we should keep going to help other families in the community who might benefit from better homes. With the earthquake, the need is much greater. That’s enough for now

44/ I need to work on the gofundme page itself which is a big raw.. but I wanted to get it up. This is a small fraction of the images and videos from this project. If you are able to make a contribution of any amount it is greatly appreciated. gofund.me/a38541ba

45/ you can also help by sharing the link or the thread.. or if you have ideas on how to promote this project, we’d be glad to hear them!

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