Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and Miyamoto International today announced a new partnership to combine their housing, finance, and engineering expertise to create more resilient housing for low-income households. Globally, the number of people living in substandard housing is expected to more than double over the next 15 years, and reach three billion people, according to United Nations.
With the supply of formal, affordable, and safe housing unable to keep pace with unprecedented urbanization rates; many households build their own homes—often in perilous locations under threat from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other disasters—with inadequate construction practices.
Haiti’s earthquake was more than just a natural disaster, it was an engineering disaster. It is estimated that more than half of the destruction could have been avoided by employing basic earthquake-resilient construction methods.
“The Terwilliger Center’s partnership with Miyamoto International aims to make more cost-effective solutions available to vulnerable households so that they are able to attain resilient housing before disaster strikes,” Kelley said. “By applying expertise on human-centered design to support key stakeholders in the housing ecosystem, the teams will design financial products bundled with resilient engineering assistance, to make safer housing available to those most in need.”
“As a global structural engineering and disaster-risk reduction firm having responded to over 100 earthquakes and hurricane events, we at Miyamoto have provided resiliency expertise that sustains industries and safeguards communities around the world. This partnership with Habitat’s Terwilliger Center takes a joint approach to tackling the global housing challenge, where market-based initiatives can address pressing concerns around construction quality,” said Dr. H. Kit Miyamoto, CEO of Miyamoto International. “Programmatic interventions co-designed by the two organizations will act as a catalyst to support low-income households and businesses prone to climate change and natural disasters by positively impacting economies and saving lives.”
The Terwilliger Center has worked with over 100 financial institutions in 58 countries through MicroBuild— the center’s $US 100 million housing-focused, blended finance fund—and through its advisory services on product design. Miyamoto International is a global, multi-hazard engineering and disaster management firm specialized in resilient engineering that reduces damage and facilitates recovery. Miymoto has over 25 offices strategically located in disaster-prone regions worldwide.
