One year after Mitch, thousands still homeless in Honduras

By LISA J. ADAMS

The Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras --- The baseball field is green and impeccably groomed, and the "Always Coca-Cola" and "Drink Pepsi" signs are in place to tempt sports fans to the refreshment stand.

But there haven't been any baseball games here since last November, when Hurricane Mitch transformed the stadium into an "emergency" shelter.

A year later, there is no sign of emergency --- or any baseball games. Just clothes hanging from the windows of the announcing booth, children playing on empty cement bleacher seats --- and hundreds of parents wondering when they ever will leave.

"We feel completely abandoned," said Ana Maria Lopez, 34. "No one even comes by to ask us how we are."

A year after Mitch, 20,000 Hondurans --- more than 6,000 in the capital of Tegucigalpa alone --- are still stuck in shelters, waiting to find out when new houses promised by the government, the Red Cross and a variety of international aid groups will be built.

As Mitch swirled off Honduras' coast for a week before making a devastating march across the country, as many as 200,000 people were herded into stadiums, community centers, churches and schools.

Diego Beltrand, head of the International Migration Organization in Honduras, said shelter populations have dropped substantially as people returned to homes not destroyed by the hurricane, moved in with relatives or got new houses. Most of those who remain are among the country's poorest.

In February and March, officials began moving most of the shelter residents into 13 "macroshelters," clusters of small rooms made of wooden frames and wallboard with corrugated tin roofs and common bathrooms.

The macroshelters were built so the 70 schools being used as refuges could reopen and to give victims more dignified housing until their new homes are ready, Beltrand said.

The emergency shelters housed as many as four families to a room, whereas the macroshelters give each family its own room --- as well as access to schools, health services and day care, said Honduras' minister for international cooperation, Moises Starkman Pinel.

The macroshelters aren't much to look at. Trebol II, one of four in Tegucigalpa, is built on a barren dirt hill and looks desolate save for the bright shades of violet and yellow that residents have begun to paint on its facade.

"It's not a very pleasant place, but it's much, much better than how they were in the schools," Starkman said.

About 55,000 new houses are planned for Mitch victims across the country. Some 12,000 have been built, and the rest should be finished by the end of next year, Starkman said.

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