Gimme Shelter

What's most frustrating about the situation in Haiti is the apparent lack of organization.

President Rene Preval and his cabinet are holed up in a police station not far from Port-au-Prince Airport last I heard, but I don't get a clear sense that they're spearheading anything.

Now comes word that some of the nearly 1 million Haitian residents left homeless and sleeping under the open sky might finally be the beneficiaries of temporary tents that will be set up in outlying areas. Accommodations are estimated to target about 400,000 survivors ahead of the forthcoming rainy season. The operative word here though must be "temporary."

An article in the Times outlines a proposal by the Haitian government and international officials for temporary housing to eventually turn into a second phase that would include a sort of Habitat for Humanity model for permanent housing.

All week I've been thinking the upside of such destruction is the potential to eventually create jobs in a country where unemployment typically hovers around 65%. Just trying to think forward.