Abstract
The paper assesses whether different types of housing assistance–owner-driven in situ or donor-assisted resettlement housing programs—influence perceptions of household recovery by tsunami-affected households. Utilizing data gathered in India 3½ years after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, we compared the perceptions of households provided with either in situ housing assistance or resettlement/relocation housing assistance. The extent to which households have recovered from the disaster was also examined to gauge the importance of housing arrangements in household recovery. We found that the beneficiaries of the resettlement programs generally experienced improvements in basic household amenities, while households provided with financial and material assistance for in situ housing repairs and rebuilding reported better access to essential services. When assessed in terms of perceptions of overall household recovery, the beneficiaries of in situ housing assistance programs fared better than beneficiaries of the resettlement programs despite the former receiving lower monetary assistance. These findings offer new insights to architects, designers, and public officials on what types of housing assistance arrangements expedite the overall recovery process and can help to evaluate and refocus funding towards specific housing recovery programs. The analysis thereby makes it easier to gauge the successes and failures of post disaster housing recovery programs.
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Notes
The term “vernacular structure” refers to housing structures conforming to traditional, local building design, materials, and composition.
Government of Tamil Nadu, on 30 March 2005 issued Government Order G.O. Ms. No. 172 Revenue (NC III). The G.O provides a broad guideline on the implementation of the housing reconstruction program, but is highly specific on how financial compensations should be carried out by state and local agencies.
NGOs with housing proposal will house at least 50 families. The approximated cost is Rs. 150,000 per house (see G.O Ms. 172).
A detailed listing of households was obtained from the most recently revised electoral rolls which had been undertaken just prior to the tsunami and a proportionate random sample of households was drawn from 15 villages. The survey instrument was pre-tested and modified. In 2008, only the sample from seven southern villages was selected (i.e., Akkaraipettai, Seruthur, Kameswaram, Kovilpathu, Vanavanmedevi, Mottandithoppu, and Pushpavanam). The interviews were conducted with the head of each household i.e., male or female. At times, when the households were not located in their original address, efforts were made to locate them in temporary shelters either near the original home or in central locations in or near the village. Up to three visits were made to each selected household to conduct face-to-face interviews.
The Tamil translation of the survey instrument can be provided upon request.
Using the survey response in 2005, we assessed the level of damage to their homes in terms of flooring, walls, and roofing. For each of these structural dimensions, responders were asked to assess the damage on a scale ranging from 0 to 4 (0 being no damage, 4 completely destroyed). The items were aggregated and transformed on to an index ranging from 0 (no damaged) to 1 (completely damaged). The procedure provides a single overall score of damaged home with a Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of 0.96. The higher the index, the more severe is the damages caused by the tsunami to their homes (M = .48, SD = .42).
We identified the beneficiaries of in situ and resettlement programs based on the following criteria: (1) recipient of government financial and technical assistance, (2) not living in temporary housing or sheltering, and (3) original homes were partly or completely damaged by the tsunami.
The responders were asked “What kinds of changes have happened?” in relation to their neighborhood. The response was coded 1 if experienced changes on a list of indicators related to physical environment, 0 otherwise.
The tree-planting policy is controversial, however (Srinivas et al. 2008), especially if alien species such as Casuarina trees were introduced indiscriminately. While trees can provide households with firewood and function as shade and meeting places, there is no evidence to suggest that they can shield coastal villages from storm surges.
The local community uses different words to describe recovered depending on the context. The Tamil translation for households is “Kudumbam”, while the term for “house” or “home saved” or “recovered” is “Meetukapadu”.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS 0523041). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We also wish to thank Drs. Carla Prater, Walter Gillis Peacock, Michael K. Lindell, Himanshu Grover from the USA and Arul Gnana Sekar from Good Hope Foundation, India who were all part of the project and data collection team in 2005.
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Andrew, S.A., Arlikatti, S., Long, L.C. et al. The effect of housing assistance arrangements on household recovery: an empirical test of donor-assisted and owner-driven approaches. J Hous and the Built Environ 28, 17–34 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-012-9266-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-012-9266-9