Haitians frustrated by slow quake recovery

Dr. Louis Auguste is angry.

Despite billions of dollars spent and the efforts of hundreds of aid organizations from around the globe, Auguste, a Haitian-American, believes not much has changed since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti two years ago Thursday.

"We've seen multiple efforts led by disparate groups of people who think they know what is best for Haitians," said the surgeon from Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, who has been back to his native country three times since the quake and is planning another trip with other Haitian-American doctors next month. "At the end, we'll end up right where we started and not one inch further."

Long Island is home to about 40,000 people of Haitian descent, and many, like Auguste, keep close ties to the island country where more than 300,000 died and 1.5 million were left homeless after the 2010 quake.

Some, like Auguste, are frustrated by what they see as the snail's pace of progress. Others acknowledge that Haiti, convulsed by political problems and a cholera outbreak that has killed 7,000, is still in precarious condition, but they believe the country has made some tentative steps forward.

"Recovery has been slow but there is a lot of progress in many ways," said Jean-Marie Wolff, who owns a real estate firm in Westbury and property in his native Haiti.

Wolff, who travels to Haiti almost monthly, said his efforts have been focused on Jacmel, a town in southern Haiti where his family was from. There, he said, a new hotel is being built and he has plans to build a gated community.

But, in his introduction to the Report of the United Nations in Haiti 2011, the deputy special representative to the United Nation's secretary-general sounded a cautionary note as he trumpeted successes.

"If the glass is 90 percent empty, it is, conversely, 10 percent full," wrote Nigel Fisher. "Let us recognize the reality of progress and celebrate the achievements -- but not for too long, because the tasks confronting Haiti are enormous and long term"

According to the UN, 520,000 people still live in camps, down from 1.5 million. More than a half million people have suffered from cholera since October 2010, and 200 new cases are reported each day in one of the largest outbreaks ever to afflict a single country, said Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization.

Michel Martelly, inaugurated as president in May, has promised economic reform. But, lacking a legislative majority, he couldn't even form a cabinet until last October and still is locked in political stalemate with the opposition party.

Aid money is also an issue. The UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti said that of the $4.5 billion pledged from countries, only $2.38 billion, or 52.9 percent, has been disbursed -- a fact that has slowed reconstruction, the international aid group Oxfam said in its two-year assessment of Haiti.

That has angered Dr. Lambros George Angus, chief of trauma surgery at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow. "It's all smoke and mirrors," he said. "The money has not been forthcoming."

Angus said he had been back in September and was disappointed by the lack of progress he saw. "You see much that can be done, but you can only care for one person rather than change the process. It's frustrating," he said.

But nurse Marie Boyer, on her fourth trip to Haiti this week with the Haitian-American Nurses Association, while acknowledging the "chaos," sees a brighter side. "There's an optimism, especially among the younger people," she said.

Some Haitian-Americans have focused their efforts on helping Haitians who have moved to Long Island after the quake.

Maryse Emmanuel-Garcy, director of the Haitian American Family of Long Island, said her organization has been helping 28 families that include 118 individuals, 61 of whom are children. Their transition has not always been smooth, she said, and some families have decided to return.

Roseline Felix, a Haitian-American social worker in the Westbury school district, where 6.2 percent of students are of Haitian descent, said she has seen some progress among Haitian students who came to the district after the earthquake. They are speaking English and seem less traumatized than they did two years ago, she said. But even for her the pain remains not much below the surface. "I wasn't there, but somehow I get affected," she said. "I still think about it . . . you feel powerless."

Haiti: progress and problems

Housing:

520,000 remain in camps

100,000 transitional shelters have been built

More than 21,000 permanent homes have been repaired or built.

Jobs:

About 300,000 temporary jobs have been created since the quake, mostly in debris removal, garbage collection and enhancing disaster risk reduction; 40 percent have gone to women.

80 percent of the workforce is in self- or "informal" employment.

Sources: United Nations Development Program, United Nations Office of Special Envoy for Haiti