LDS Church aid continues in Haiti

SALT LAKE CITY — Haiti's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010 and a deadly cholera outbreak last month has kept the Caribbean island country a central focal point for LDS Church humanitarian-relief efforts for a year.

Similar to providing ongoing humanitarian assistance in other disaster areas such as Samoa and Indonesia, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is committed to aiding Haiti and its people with long-term assistance.

"Long-term" may be the operative phrase, since the church — like nearly any other international nongovernmental organization (NGO) providing relief aid — still is stymied a year after the Jan. 12 quake by the impeding mountains of concrete rubble, a crippled Third World economy and a worsening government that lacks leadership and stability.

"We're in as good or better of a place as any NGO," said Lynn Samsel, the church's director of humanitarian emergency response and community services.

An example of the slow processes on the island: The church has authorized the building of a bishop's storehouse in Port-au-Prince, used by local LDS leaders to store and distribute food and commodities. Church leaders in Salt Lake City have authorized ground-breaking but are still awaiting final approval from the Haitian government.

After housing more than 1,000 people in tents on its meetinghouse properties in the first weeks after the quake, the church now is hosting only 33 member families, all on property next to one chapel, with sanitation and cooking facilities constructed onsite.

Projected to leave the property by next month, the families will be provided temporary shelters or tents at their new locations.

Following shippings from the United States and the Dominican Republic, food, commodities and supplies used by the church and its members are now being purchased within Haiti, with local bishops using fast offering funds.

The LDS Church had hoped to build several hundred temporary shelters earlier, but efforts were stymied by inaccessibility through the heaps of rubble — an estimated 90 percent of the damage still remains untouched a year later — as well as challenges to verify property rights and ownership before building the shelters.

A handful were built in the first months after the quake. To date, the church has constructed nearly 75 — increasing the size to 12 feet by 12 feet and using plywood instead of tarp for the sides.