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The paper discusses how families affected by Typhoon Haiyan have been involved in housing reconstruction in the Philippines and the potential for the use of medium-rise buildings. Case study methodology was conducted based on data collected three months after Typhoon Haiyan. Reconstruction projects show different degrees of users involvement such as “reparation of previous makeshift shelter,”“shelter as humanitarian assistance,”“expanding people’s opportunities to rebuild,”“users as unskilled labor,” and finally “enhancing users self-construction and self-management capabilities.”“Freedom to rebuild,” a capability approach framework to evaluate users involvement and resilience in postdisaster housing reconstruction, has been developed and applied to a project in Ormoc, Leyte.