People News

Sean Penn gets millions to help homeless Haitians

Mar 13, 2013, 11:01 GMT

Sean Penn

Sean Penn's charity is to receive $8.75 million to help survivors of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The actor has agreed a deal with the Haitian government and the World Bank to get cash to fund a 16-month relief project to move approximately 14,000 homeless victims of the natural disaster off of private golf course Petionville country club, which they have been occupying for the past three years.

Penn will use the money to build 45 new housing units in the Delmas 32 neighbourhood and also to subsidise rent costs. If everything goes to schedule then the first people could be in the new properties by early 2014.

As well as the new housing, the grant will also be used by his J/P Haitian Relief Organization (J/P HRO) to support his 'Protection' team which aims to provide assistance to vulnerable families and prevent domestic abuse in the local community.

The 'Gangster Squad' star's spokeswoman insists Penn is more committed than ever to 'support the residents of Delmas 32 to demonstrate that something fundamentally different can come from a 'slum' in one of the poorest cities in the world'.

Penn, 52, started his charity in March 2010, just two months after the earthquake left the Caribbean country completely ravaged.

He has done so much to help the Haitian people he has been recognised for his humanitarian work with the 2012 Peace Summit Award and was also named 'ambassador at large' for the nation by the country's foreign minister.