DUTCH QUARTER--Teams from Red Cross St. Maarten will be in Dutch Quarter this week to inspect homes of residents who were visited between March and August and who have qualified for the Home Repair Programme. The project is part of Red Cross’ Hurricane Irma Recovery Mission to restore homes that were damaged in the 2017 hurricane and to provide money to the local economy.
Red Cross already has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to St. Maarten residents who need to repair or replace roofs, walls and other parts of their homes. Two-person teams will visit the homes of 88 people in Dutch Quarter who have already received vouchers to buy materials for their repairs.
It will be an intensive three-day campaign during which Red Cross teams will be in the district Monday between 10:30am and 5:00pm, and Tuesday and Wednesday between 9:00am and 5:00pm, to see the quality of ongoing work and to determine whether the Red Cross would need to provide more support, according to Head of Mission Fanny de Swarte.
“The goal of the project is to ensure that people in St. Maarten are building safe homes,” said the disaster-management expert.
Red Cross is asking residents to be home throughout those hours, if possible, or to allow someone who knows about the progress of ongoing works to be available throughout the day.
Red Cross has lists of the 97 addresses to be visited, according to Home Repair Programme Manager Birgit Vaes.
“We need to evaluate on how the project can be brought to the next level by increasing the speed, as many more families need to be assisted within this project within a limited timeframe,” said architect Vaes, who comes to St. Maarten from a year-long recovery project with Red Cross in Dominica.
The Red Cross teams will walk from door to door in various areas in Dutch Quarter to find and inspect the homes that were first visited in August. While in the area, the teams will also be accepting new registrations for people whose homes were damaged, and will conduct assessments for people who have already registered for the programme but have not yet been visited. Residents are welcome to approach the teams to ask about the programme.
Red Cross has already scheduled and conducted more than 400 home assessments. The process is simple: a team poses questions to homeowners/tenants about their living situation and finances while inspecting the damage to their homes. After collecting the information, Red Cross uses a computer programme to determine whether the family or individual qualifies and how much help the household will receive.
Everyone who qualifies is invited to a Saturday workshop where they learn how to build safer, more resilient homes. At the end of each workshop Red Cross provides vouchers valid at Kooyman and Ace hardware stores to buy materials for walls and roofs.
Dutch citizens donated to the Netherlands Red Cross for St. Maarten following the devastation of Irma in September 2017. Those donations help pay for the Hurricane Recovery Mission, which earlier this year provided free daily meals for primary school pupils and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of supermarket vouchers to eligible residents.
The mission includes international experts in home design and construction who will advise on ways to build safer homes. The next stage of the mission will be Livelihoods, an economic recovery and redevelopment programme that is still being created.
Residents can still register for the Home Repair Programme. However, it only supports people who live in and around Cay Bay, Cay Hill, Cole Bay, Dutch Quarter, Fort Willem, Over the Bank, St. Peters and Sucker Garden.
People who need help can call tel. 545-2333 to register for an assessment. Residents in Dutch Quarter who have already received vouchers after visits between March and August can call the same number on Monday or Tuesday to schedule an inspection from Red Cross teams this week.
“We as Red Cross want St. Maarten to be able to be better prepared for future hurricanes by building back better and safer,” De Swarte said.
