Post-Earthquake Housing Recovery in Bachhau,India: The Homeowner,the Renter,and the Squatter

This paper looks at post-earthquake housing recovery in Bachhau, a town close to the epicenter of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake in western India. This research examines the difference in housing recovery outcomes among homeowners, squatters, and renters in Bachhau, in order to understand why single-family homeowners and squatters were able to rebuild and improve their housing conditions whereas low-income renters continued to struggle toward housing recovery. This paper shows that communities in Bachhau did not have the resources or capacities to rebuild themselves and that appropriate public assistance was critical for housing recovery. While public assistance was mainly targeted to meet the needs of homeowners, local government officials in Bachhau pursued a squatter housing recovery program crafted to meet the needs of low-income squatters. In contrast, public policy failed to understand the needs of renter households, resulting in their marginalization from the housing recovery process in Bachhau.