Hosting Support in Haiti: An Overlooked Humanitarian Shelter Solution

This document by USAID is a two page article about the role of hosting support related to humanitarian shelter needs. Humanitarian community actors have increasingly recognized in recent years the utility and acceptance of hosting as a form of spontaneous sheltering among affected populations. Hosting by family and friends, or even by strangers, is socially defined, self-selected, culturally appropriate and typically provided before humanitarian actors arrive and -importantly- long after they leave.

Hosting has been vital in recent disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake and 2009 conflict in Pakistan. The author asks, "Hosting is, in fact, an effort to help, be it for social, family or even altruistic or nationalistic reasons, so how could it not be considered humanitarian in nature?" Little attention has been given to the important role that hosting support serves in overall humanitarian shelter and settlements sector assistance efforts as it is often considered as not a truly durable option.