Five years ago today, a horrific humanitarian disaster unfolded in Haiti

[Recursion]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/what-does-haiti-have-show-13-billion-earthquake-aid-n281661

The USAID list of expenditures includes: emergency food for 4 million, temporary shelter for 1.5 million, 2.7 million cubic meters of rubble removed, 600 classrooms created, construction of a power plant for a new U.S.-brokered factory park, support for 160 health clinics, funding to arrest a cholera outbreak that killed nearly 9,000, better technology for farmers, and the creation of permanent housing.

The housing program can hardly be branded a success, though. A government audit in 2013 found that USAID underestimated how much would be needed for settlements, ballooned the budget from $59 million to $97 million while cutting its goal from 15,000 houses to 2,649. It's put up about 900 so far.

"We realized we are not going to come anywhere close to building the kind of housing stock Haiti requires," said Hogan, saying the focus has shifted to financing so Haitians can build or improve homes themselves.

In the meantime, there are still 85,000 people in displacement camps — half of which did not have latrines, according to a 2014 UN report. Development plans for Port-au-Prince meant some downtown renters were evicted, their buildings demolished, earlier this year.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article6031617.html

The rubble from collapsed buildings and homes that could have filled 4,000 Olympic-size swimming pools is gone. So are the tarps and tin shacks in public spaces, replaced by million dollar facelifts and towering construction cranes.

“There are things I am seeing that I never used to see,” said Jackison Marcellus, 23, looking out across the Champ de Mars, a group of public squares near downtown where he lived for three years under a tent after the Jan. 12, 2010.

Five years after the world’s worst natural disaster left more than 300,000 dead and an equal number injured, this shattered nation appears to be in recovery mode: a new Supreme Court is almost finished; new roads and hotels have been built; security and health statistics have improved, and thanks to a generous amount of humanitarian aid from foreign donors, the deluge of people living in tent cities has dropped dramatically.

But for all the appearance of change, the vexing politics remain the same. On the eve of Monday’s fifth anniversary, Haitian politicians were scrambling to avert a deepening crisis by voting on a four-month extension for a second tier of the Senate, and the entire lower Chamber of Deputies. While two former chamber presidents and a presidential adviser said the terms expired at midnight, others insisted they had until the end of Monday. A tentative political agreement reached between Martelly and four political parties would prolong lawmakers’ terms but only if the parliament voted an amendment to the electoral law - before midnight Monday - to allow elections to be held. Martelly would rule by decree if there is no vote. “They need to understand that everyone has given up something, and everyone has lost something,” Martelly said about those in the streets who were not part of the accord.

[jwirr]

1. Thank you. I have often wondered what the aftermath was. We heard a lot about the actual

event but little about what was being done about it.

[csziggy]

2. In five years they've only built 900 houses? With a budget of $97 million?

Whose pockets is that money going into instead of building shelters for people?