Haiti's Homeless Languish in Limbo

It's been six months since a powerful earthquake rolled through Haiti, devastating lives and buildings in its path—and the landscape doesn't look much better than in the days after, reports the New York Times in an examination of the stalled recovery effort. Of the 1.5 million people displaced by the quake, a mere 28,000 are in new homes. “Everywhere I go, people ask me, ‘When will we get out of this camp?’ ” says an Oxfam spokeswoman. “And I have no answer."

Some blame a weak government hobbled by the scope of the destruction—the Times notes that President Rene has focused in "granular" detail on one neighborhood of less than 12,000 refugees to little avail. But even as hundreds of thousands languish in tent camps awaiting their turn, one expert hails "what hasn't happened," saying, “We haven’t had a major outbreak of disease. We haven’t had a major breakdown in security.” (More Haiti earthquake stories.)