Haiti is still in misery

It's been six months since the catastrophic earthquake shattered desperately poor and heavily populated Port-au-Prince, and still about 1.6 million, or one of every nine Haitians, are homeless.

What a shame that so many people have turned their attention away from Haiti's terrible pain.

The 7.0-magnitude quake decimated the Haitian capital and nearby towns on Jan. 12. More than 220,000 people were killed and another 300,000 injured, and all this time later, they are still finding bodies in the rubble.

The world centered its attention on Haiti after the initial realization of the severity of the calamity last winter, but the glow of that spotlight has seemingly faded to a penlight.

Only 10 percent of the $5.3 billion pledged for Haiti's reconstruction by governments at a United Nations conference last March has been disbursed to the Haitian government, according to former President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, co-chairmen of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission.

Part of the problem is that 17 percent of the Haitian government's work force was killed in the quake, and all but one government building, along with phones, vehicles and computers, were destroyed in the temblor and aftershocks.

Haiti is a mess.

And its people continue suffering, packed into camps and now worrying about hurricane season and the new havoc that it might unleash.

Rebuilding Haiti is all the more difficult because of where it was before the Jan. 12 quake. Desperately poor, desperately few jobs, little opportunity and inadequate basic services. All of those challenges are even bigger now, huge in fact.

"As co-chairs of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, we are well aware that the scale and urgency of needs on the ground continue to be enormous: millions of people still require shelter; access to basic services like education, water and sanitation, electricity and health care; and the tools to lift themselves from poverty," the co-chairmen wrote in The New York Times on July 9.

Their plea is that the world not forget. That government and nongovernment agencies continue to reach out to help Haiti; and that businesses consider long-term investments in the country.

Not everyone can invest, but they can help to keep the focus on Haiti and trumpet support to fill its needs. The misery there will continue for a long time to come. And it will be even worse if Haiti gets hit by a hurricane.

Keep Haiti in mind. And encourage others to do the same. Don't allow the focus to dim on Port-au-Prince again.