Village Dominique

The Village Dominique housing community provides 37 affordable and resource-efficient homes for lower and middle-income residents on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, a city where homeownership is often inaccessible to its residents. Developed by Chabuma/Central Home Consortium, the community consists of two-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom homes.

The Consortium received technical assistance from the USAID Haiti HOME program to incorporate green features into the design to ensure the homes are affordable and resource-efficient. Each home has energy-saving features such as solar panels that provide over 40 percent of each household’s energy needs, allowing residents to save on utility bills and channel more funds into other household needs. With these green features, each household is expected to save up to $144 to 180 in utility bills per year, depending on the type of unit. The homes also comply with high seismic design standards to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Haiti HOME is led by the World Council of Credit Unions in partnership with the Affordable Housing Institute. The program helps make homes accessible to informally employed individuals by providing affordable loans through a special mortgage program developed by Haiti’s Central Bank through the local banking sector. Haiti HOME presents a rare opportunity for Haitian households to achieve the security of homeownership in a country where property rights are difficult to obtain. Village Dominique has received a preliminary EDGE certificate from GBCI.