A harsh Balkan winter looms in the next few weeks, but U.S. relief officials now say the displaced population will have adequate shelter. By the first of December, people who lived in those repairable houses, those families, will have a warm, dry place to live for the winter. With an average family size of six in Kosovo, Parmer says that components of the emergency shelter program account for housing for almost 460,000 people. Relief agencies are offering roofing materials to homeowners whose houses are damaged but inhabitable. In exchange for materials to expand the habitable area of their houses, Parmer says the agencies are asking the homeowners for a commitment to provide shelter for Kosovars for people who have nowhere to go.
People are more than eager to get the harder roof fixtures and they're willing to take in people.
Frankly a lot of them are willing to take in people because they're taking in members of their extended families. During the summer when humanitarian organizations began to plan this effort, there were serious concerns about the logistical task of transporting large amounts of construction materials into the province. Parmer says those problems have been surmounted and fears about roving bands of hoodlums terrorizing or blockading supply shipments never materialized. We are not attempting to rebuild everyone's house in Kosovo to a pre-war standard. This is an emergency winterization, and an emergency shelter program.