Haitians have been flocking to Brazil since February 2010, about a month following the deadly 7.0-magnitude quake.

The influx has been fuelled by demand for manual labour as the country prepares for the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

“The government will not be indifferent to the Haitians’ vulnerable economic situation. But those who don’t have a visa will not be allowed into Brazil,” said Justice Minister Jose Cardozo.

Brazil is also said to be considering granting temporary visas to as many as 100 visiting Haitians per month.

The government said it would step up the policing of the borders with Colombia, Peru and Bolivia that are used to smuggle Haitians into the country.

An unnamed UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official told AFP news agency the influx of Haitian economic migrants into Brazil does not amount to a humanitarian crisis.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff plans to visit Port-au-Prince on February 1 to boost cooperation with Haiti, where the Latin American country leads the UN peacekeeping contingent.

Haitian President Michel Martelly has said that the country is facing a brain drain as many of those who are educated have sought employment elsewhere.

A senior UN official announced Monday that considerable humanitarian needs remain in the impoverished nation where the allocation of resources for earthquake recovery has shifted to reconstruction.

“It has been a major challenge since that we know that Haiti still needs a combination of humanitarian support… but slowly the emphasis and allocation of resources is shifting towards recovery and reconstruction,” said Rebeca Grynspan, the Associate Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

She further stated: “The local Haitian community has played a crucial role in the reconstruction effort and UNDP continues to push for a very participatory approach in its planning to allow Haitians to take control of their country and choose their own future.”

The World Food Programme said yesterday that food prices in the country have risen by 50 per cent since 2010, which means that one out of every two Haitians are experiencing some kind of food shortages

Haitian Migrants Sent Back to Haiti

Director of Immigration Jack Thompson said the 187 men, 54 women and three children did not test positive for cholera.

“They were in good condition from our standpoint. There were one or two persons who were dehydrated but they were overall in good health,” he told the Nassau Guardian newspaper.

Sub-Lieutenant of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Origin Deleveaux, said the number of Haitians seeking to enter the country illegally spikes during December because some believe surveillance is lax during the festive season.

“We step up patrols around this time because this is when a lot of them make that trip and attempt to land in The Bahamas,” he said.

According to statistics, 1,093 Haitian migrants have already been apprehended here for the year.

This compares to 718 caught in 2009, and 1,258 apprehended in 2010.

Haitian President Michel Martelly has asked citizens to “stay off the high seas in boats at risk, thus endangering their lives in the desperate purpose to go illegally to a new home in search of opportunities.”

His appeal came after the bodies of 38 Haitian migrants were found dead just off the eastern tip of Cuba.

Cuban authorities said the boat carrying the migrants began taking in water and got stranded at sea. Another 87 people were rescued.

The turbo prop plane, which was en route to Havana, had a problem with its air conditioning wiring and landed as a safety precaution, said Damian Merlo, a spokesman for Haitian President Michel Martelly. There were no injuries.

The plane was chartered through Aerolineas Mas, based in the Dominican Republic, to carry Haitian officials to Cuba to prepare for this week’s three-day visit by Martelly, his first since he took office in May.

It was the second aviation scare in recent days for Haitian officials. A helicopter carrying the prime minister and two other Cabinet members made an emergency landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday.

Any migrants lacking appropriate documents will be deported immediately, said Immigration Director Jose Ricardo Taveras.

“Starting today, those who come to our country should arrive with a standard visa,” he said.

The proposal was signed by President Leonel Fernandez and aims to document and classify all migrants according to their work and migration status for the first time in the country’s history. It will also afford them proper identification.

Government officials did not provide further details about the plan or say when they would act on it.

Lucien Jura, a spokesman for Haitian President Michel Martelly, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The plan is part of an immigration law approved in 2004 that seeks to establish quotas for foreign workers and reduce the number of Haitian migrants seeking jobs in the construction and agriculture industries.

An estimated 600,000 Haitians live illegally in the Dominican Republic, a group that Dominican authorities say grew by 15 percent after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit neighboring Haiti last year.

Sonia Adames, director of Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Services, criticized the plan and said it will allow the government to continue to target the children of Haitian migrants born in the Dominican Republic.

The migrant advocacy group released a study last week accusing the government of confiscating or annulling nearly 1,600 birth certificates belonging to residents of Haitian descent.

Last year, the government amended the Caribbean country’s constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic to foreign parents.

Taveras, however, said foreigners who prove they have remained at least 10 years in the Dominican Republic can opt for permanent residency.

Earlier this year, the Dominican Republic ousted thousands of illegal immigrants, the majority of them Haitian, citing fears of a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 6,000 people in Haiti.

Visiting from his native Bangladesh, the Nobel peace laureate poured out tale after tale Friday of how his concept of “social business” could apply to Haiti, a nation rife with woes well before last year’s punishing earthquake.

Yunus told how he started his Grameen Foundation by lending $27 each to 42 illiterate women so they could pay off their debts, how a small yogurt business lessened malnutrition in Bangladesh and about the importance of creativity.

“There’s a business world. There’s a charity world,” he told a hotel conference room crowded with college students and development workers. “Why can’t we take those ideas and try to make money and also solve (social) problems?”

It was Yunus’ first trip to Haiti, and he’s certain to make more after he leaves Sunday.

The Grameen Creative Lab based in Germany, which he founded, opened an office in Haiti last year after the earthquake. It gave an $80,000 loan to a new vocational and computer-training school to cover startup costs, and it plans to hand out four more loans before year’s end to other applicants with their own social business ideas.

Yunus, a celebrity in development circles for his ideas on helping the poor, recently joined a board of more than 30 philanthropists, former presidents and executives that seeks to advise Haitian President Michel Martelly on economic matters. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, also the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, is co-chairman.

Martelly and his advisers met with Yunus on Thursday on the grounds of the National Palace, still a crumbled heap of snow-white concrete almost two years after the January 2010 earthquake.

Yunus said the “social business” idea is different from the “microcredit” industry that he pioneered in the 1980s, when he gave tiny loans to poor people to help them start small businesses.

His Grameen Creative Lab focuses on the “social business” approach. It gives out bigger loans, between $10,000 and $100,000. The interest rate and duration of the loan are set according to the risk and type of business.

Whatever profit is earned by a “social business” financed by the lab goes back into expanding the company. The aim is that creation and expansion of businesses will help a society lessen ills like hunger and unemployment.

“This is a new paradigm,” said Kesner Pharel, a Haitian economist who was among a panelists of microcredit experts at the hotel. “This guy can be on the same level as Steve Jobs … This is a new form of capitalism. It’s not only about the bottom line but about how the community is doing.”

Following the conference, Yunus dashed off to talk with students at the vocational and computer-training school that got the Grameen Creative Lab loan. He told several dozen students that they should think of themselves as job givers, not job seekers.

The ideas that Yunus brought were not without skeptics in a struggling Caribbean country where employment has long been elusive. About 72 percent of the population earns less than $2 a day.

“It’s impossible for a young entrepreneur to do social business in Haiti,” said Stanley Pierre, 25, a student at the school. “It’s not until the business is truly successful and we have taken care of families can we then turn around and help the community.”

On Saturday, Yunus and his team planned to travel to Haiti’s Central Plateau to visit an office run by Fonkoze, a microcredit bank, and Partners in Health, a nonprofit group that provides health care to the poor.

He said he wants to encourage health-related “social businesses” in the countryside.

Wildrick Guerrier, 34, was sent back to Haiti on Jan. 20. He became severely ill while being held at a police station as is customary for deportees to Haiti. He died Jan. 29 and was buried in Haiti without an autopsy. Other deportees reported that Guerrier began suffering from diarrhea and vomiting after he tried to help other sick detainees.

After his death, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered a review of his medical care while in U.S. immigration custody.

“This medical records review failed to reveal any underlying abnormalities that may have contributed to his sudden death upon deportation to Haiti,” the review states.

The attorney representing Guerrier’s fiancee said Tuesday that ICE’s conclusion makes his death all the more shocking.

“If Mr. Guerrier was healthy when he was deported, this is definitive proof of the extreme nature of the danger faced by deportees sent back to Haiti. The United States must not deport people back to Haiti when we know that they will be detained in unsanitary conditions that spread cholera and other life-threatening diseases,” said Rebecca Sharpless, director of the immigration clinic at the University of Miami School of Law.

The Associated Press obtained the medical review and other records from Guerrier’s 109 days in immigration custody through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guerrier was among the first Haitians deported by the U.S. since a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti’s capital in January 2010.

ICE has said it expects to deport this year 700 Haitians convicted of crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, embezzlement, money laundering and extortion. Thus far, 228 Haitians with criminal convictions have been deported, in coordination with Haiti’s government and consistent with U.S. policies, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said Tuesday.

According to Homeland Security records, Guerrier was taken into ICE custody Oct. 4 after serving a sentence for a 2009 conviction for a charge of possessing a firearm by a convicted felon.

ICE Health Service Corps officials reviewed Guerrier’s medical records from detention facilities in Florida and Louisiana.

Guerrier’s physical and mental health remained normal throughout his detention, according to the records. A Jan. 20 medical summary showed Guerrier did not suffer from any current medical problems nor required special care while in transit.

The ICE review noted that in the week before his deportation, Guerrier joined 22 Haitian detainees who refused to eat meals served at the Louisiana detention center for six days. The detainees discontinued their protest Jan. 17 and a physician assistant who evaluated Guerrier reported he showed no signs of distress though he refused to have his vital signs monitored.

Immigration rights advocates, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and prominent Roman Catholic bishops have argued that conditions in Haiti, where a cholera outbreak has killed more than 6,200 people since October, make it inhumane and unsafe to deport people there.

Benjamin Krause from Penn’s relief group J/P HRO says the money from the World Bank will be used for rent subsidies, repairs to houses and building new homes and solar-powered water kiosks.

The project is part of a $95 million effort financed by the World Bank and Haiti Reconstruction Fund that is aimed at helping more than 500,000 people move back into redeveloped neighborhoods.

Penn co-founded the relief group shortly after the January 2010 earthquake and has overseen maintenance of a large settlement camp on a golf course. He’s also testified in Washington.

Celso Amorim said Brazil is negotiating with the United Nations to begin the pullback, but will keep troops in Haiti until local forces are ready to take over.

Amorim spoke after lunching with Uruguayan President Jose Mujica in Montevideo, where ministers from the Latin American peacekeeping nations held a long-planned meeting on the future of the U.N. mission in Haiti.

The meeting has been overshadowed by allegations that Uruguayan peacekeepers sexually abused a young Haitian man inside their U.N. base, an event apparently captured on an Uruguayan’s cellphone video.

Demonstrators in Haiti this week have stoked anger over the scandal and called for an immediate pullout of the U.N. force.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, visiting Port-au-Prince on Thursday, told The Associated Press he still supports the U.N. mission, which is known as Minustah. Its mandate expires Oct. 15.

The videotaped episode was “a terrible thing,” said Clinton, who is the U.N. special envoy to Haiti. “The U.N. had to do something, and apparently they have.”

Praising the U.N. mission’s work in Haiti, Clinton added: “I don’t want what happened _ that terrible incident that happened to the young man _ to be put off on all of Minustah, and all of the soldiers, or even all the Uruguayans.”

The alleged abuse by Uruguayan sailors at their base in Port-Salut happened in July but became public last week when two Haitians spotted the video on a sailor’s phone and shared it with a local reporter.

Amorim called it “a lamentable and isolated act.” Brazil leads the peacekeeping mission, so his comments both on the scandal and the mission’s future hold particular weight.

Mujica, who sent a letter of apology to Haitian President Michel Martelly. also has said that he wants a gradual reduction in the U.N. peacekeeping force. “We aren’t in Haiti to retire,” he said Wednesday.

Martelly strongly condemned the alleged sexual assault, but has not joined some of his countrymen in demanding an immediate pullout.

Martelly has called for more economic development work by the U.N. mission following last year’s earthquake, but he also asked peacekeepers to quash gangs in Port-au-Prince slums that have been strongholds for his political opponents. The force also helps bolster Haiti’s weak economy by spending, from buying snacks on the streets to dining at high-end restaurants in the capital.

Peacekeepers arrived in 2004 to help control the chaos that followed the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Since then, the U.N. force has been instrumental in maintaining stability in the coup-prone country, and it has helped allow a democratically elected president serve two full terms for the first time in Haitian history.

But some Haitians see the U.N. troops as an occupying force that has done little to ameliorate the country’s misery. In 2007, almost a tenth of its Sri Lankan battalion was recalled because of a sex-abuse scandal. Last year, a contingent from Nepal was blamed for introducing cholera to Haiti, which caused an outbreak that has killed more than 6,200 people and sickened 439,000, according to Haiti’s health ministry.

Saurel Jacinthe, president of the Chamber of Deputies, told The Associated Press that Haitian President Michel Martelly picked Garry Conille as his third nominee for Haiti’s head of government.

The decision comes more than three months after Martelly took office. The entertainer-turned-president has struggled to install a government because parliament has rejected his first two nominees for prime minister.

Martelly’s first pick, an entrepreneur, was turned down because of questions over his citizenship and taxes. The second pick, a former justice minister, angered some lawmakers because he was accused of prosecuting supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide when he oversaw the judiciary in the middle of the last decade.

The failure to install a prime minister has put reconstruction efforts from last year’s devastating earthquake on hold.

Conille, 45, could meet opposition as he goes before parliament for approval.

Lawmakers are almost certain to raise questions over his eligibility because he has not lived in Haiti for five consecutive years, a constitutional requirement for the post. The Martelly administration will likely argue that he is exempt from the residency requirement because he has been working for the United Nations.

Conille is a seasoned development worker. With a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate from the State University of Haiti, he began his career with the U.N. in 1999 and served in Ethiopia and, until June, in Niger.

After last year’s earthquake, Conille worked as chief of staff for Clinton in his position as U.N. special envoy. The former U.S. leader also is co-chairman of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which is in charge of coordinating earthquake reconstruction efforts.

If approved as prime minister, Conille would assume responsibilities as the other co-chairman on the reconstruction panel, which has drawn heavy criticism for making little visible progress since the January 2010 disaster.

Conille could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday night.

Wyclef

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti _ Musician Wyclef Jean said Sunday that a bullet grazed his hand as he stepped out of a car to make a telephone call, but said he was only slightly injured.

Jean, who has been in Haiti helping the presidential campaign of his friend and fellow musician Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, said the bullet grazed him late Saturday night as he stepped out of his car in the Delmas section of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to make a call on his cellphone.

“The way I can explain it is that the bullet grazed me in my right hand,” Jean told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I heard blow, blow, blow, and I just looked at my hand.”

Jean, who was with a driver and the Haitian hip-hop singer FanFan at the time, said he didn’t know who fired the shots, or whether they were directed at him.

He said he got out of the car to have a private conversation that FanFan would not overhear. He heard the shots and looked down to see blood on his shirt and sneakers.

The Haitian-American performer said he was treated at a local hospital and released. Jean said he took antibiotics and recovered at an “undisclosed location” before going out to vote in Sunday’s presidential election.

Jean did not say what hospital treated him. Later, Garry Andre, who handles security for the musician, said it was City Med, a private clinic, in Petionville. A pharmacist at the facility’s entrance said she saw Jean pass through overnight and later leave.

Haitian police chief Mario Andresol told reporters that he wasn’t sure what happened during the shooting and that Jean didn’t talk to police.

“We can’t tell you if he was injured by a bullet or something else,” Andresol said. “He will have to answer to police no matter what.”

Later, Jean was asked by reporters to comment on rumors that he had been injured by broken glass, not a bullet. “This is Haiti; it’s a city of rumors,” he said as he went to vote in the Delmas section of Port-au-Prince. “There’s another one with me and Busta Rhymes in the car.”

A new elastic bandage covered a portion of Jean’s right hand, which he used to cast his ballot. Sitting in the back of a silver Toyota Prado SUV, he showed the AP his ink-stained thumb on his bandaged hand as evidence that he voted.

Jean, a native of Haiti who rocketed to fame as a member of the hip-hop trio The Fugees, came to Haiti to support Martelly, who faces university administrator and former first lady Mirlande Manigat.

Jean had initially sought to be a candidate in the race but Haiti’s electoral council disqualified him from the ballot because he didn’t meet residency requirements. He has actively campaigned for Martelly, most recently joining him in a concert Thursday in downtown Port-au-Prince that drew thousands of spectators.

“We are happy that Wyclef is OK but we continue to pray for him and for a peaceful and fair election today in Haiti,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has worked with Jean on educational issues and bringing aid to Haiti after the devastating January 2010 earthquake, said in a statement.

The statement also quoted Jimmy Rosemond, a music manager said to be accompanying Jean on his current trip to Haiti.

“It is clear that enemies of progressive change in Haiti are behind the shooting of Wyclef _ those that don’t want to accept that a monumental change is inevitable for the betterment of the Haitian people,” Rosemond said. “This incident will not deter those of us that see the election as crucial to the country’s future.”

“I think his energies, intelligence and passion could be both of service and servicing to him, as it is to all who are touched by the struggle of the Haitian people,” Penn said in a statement Friday.

“Charlie is one of the very few public people who cannot be accused of using the media to his own benefit. I would very much like to show my old friend the world of needs on the ground in Haiti, and introduce him and his tremendous wit to our hard working Haitian staff.”

Penn’s message of support came hours after Sheen told “Access Hollywood” that he and Penn were planning a trip to the Caribbean nation, although no date for their travel has been announced.

“If he chooses to give support, I’ll trust it,” the Academy Award winner said.

Sheen, who has been on a media blitz since Monday, says he would like to bring the attention of the world back to Haiti, where Penn has been a fixture since a January 2010 earthquake destroyed more than 500,000 homes.

“It was a real gruesome race,” Digicel CEO Maarten Boute after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday that his company had won the money for being first to establish cell phone banking in Haiti in less than six months.

The foundation plans to give away a total of $10 million to the first companies that help Haitians with mobile banking. The country has three cell phone companies, and one other also has started offering mobile banking.

In the past 41/2 years, the Gates Foundation has committed nearly $500 million toward helping the poor get mobile access to financial services, mostly in Africa. The foundation has also given $2 million toward relief efforts in Haiti, including shelter, food, sanitation and health.

The Haitian mobile banking prize was announced in June as a way to push the marketplace toward change. Besides death and destruction, the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti also devastated the country’s financial system.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has added another $5 million to the project for technical assistance.

Before the earthquake, fewer than 10 percent of Haitians had ever used a commercial bank, according to USAID. Boute said every Haitian household now has access to a cell phone, either owned or shared, and 37 percent have their own phone.

“That’s quite impressive for a country like Haiti, he said.

Carleene Dei, USAID’s Haiti mission director, said the project already has increased significantly the number of Haitians with access to banking services, and it has the potential to give universal access thanks the penetration of cell phones in the country.

The ability to both get and use money rapidly will help Haitians with both their emergency and long-term needs, Dei said.

The most difficult challenge to meeting the criteria for the Gates prize was getting bank regulator approval, Boute said. Digicel had already been looking into mobile banking and did a soft launch in Fiji before introducing its mobile money service called Tcho Tcho Mobile in Haiti, where it already a mobile phone company.

In just a few months, the company moved from concept to launch in Haiti, thanks to open-minded and flexible bank regulators, Boute said. Once the regulations were in place, the banks followed.

Haitian citizens are quickly adopting mobile banking thanks in part to companies that have started paying their employees by depositing money on their cell phones, instead of making them wait in line on payday to get their cash.

USAID and nongovernment organizations are also adopting cell phone banking as a way to distribute cash grants to the elderly, mothers with small children and others getting financial aid.

The new way of getting paid is growing in popularity because it is safer than carrying around cash and it saves time that may have been spent waiting in line or traveling to bank branches, Boute said.

Digicel plans to use the Gates Foundation money for customer education, he said, adding that the company joined the race for the digital banking prize “not that much for the money but more for the prestige.”

_

His 40-year-old company, Chabuma S.A., sells cement blocks, doors, sand bags and other materials for international companies. But what he wants is a more significant role in his country’s recovery, which is why he says he keeps bidding _ without success _ for U.S. government contracts.

“You can imagine that if we can’t win the contracts ourselves, we become totally dependent on foreign companies and nonprofits, and there is not much hope in that,” he said. “We may not have the extended capacity of a U.S. company, but we are respectable. We keep good books and records, we have foreign suppliers, we have good credit, we pay our taxes and our customs dues.”

Out of every $100 of U.S. contracts now paid out to rebuild Haiti, Haitian firms have successfully won $1.60, The Associated Press has found in a review of contracts since the earthquake on Jan. 12. And the largest initial U.S. contractors hired fewer Haitians than planned.

There are many reasons for the disparity. Among them, US AID is more familiar with some U.S. contractors and gave out some no-bid contracts out of urgency, and fears the corruption that is rife in Haiti. On the Haitian side, there is a limited understanding of U.S. government practices.

But using foreign aid to give local companies contracts is one of the most important aspects of reconstruction, says Clare Lockhart, chief executive officer of the Institute for State Effectiveness.

“You can’t just provide manual jobs. You need to contract with companies so that the middle tier managers and owners of companies have a stake in the legal system and rule of law, and ultimately a stake in the success of their political system and their economy,” she says.

Of the 1,583 U.S. contracts given so far in Haiti totaling $267 million, only 20 _ worth $4.3 million _ are going to Haitian-owned companies. And an audit this fall by US AID’s Inspector General found that more than 70 percent of the funds given to the two largest U.S. contractors for a cash for work project in Haiti was spent on equipment and materials. As a result, just 8,000 Haitians a day were being hired by June, instead of the planned 25,000 a day, according to the IG.

The contractors, Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, Md. and Chemonics International of Washington D.C., which received more than $31 million each in no-bid contracts, responded to AP in an email saying that together with several other contractors, they had employed 25,000 Haitians a day. Now, they said, 10 months after the earthquake, “priorities have evolved beyond a focus on temporary employment,” a program that has paid Haitian workers $18 million in wages.

US AID says it is committed to increasing the amount of contracts going to Haitians.

“We already are engaging with Haitian communities to make them aware of how they can partner with us,” said Janice Laurente, a spokeperson for US AID.

Economists say giving contracts to local businesses creates jobs, which help build the private sector. Also, most donors would rather see local businesses thrive than foreign companies profiting from a disaster.

Harvard Business School economist Eric Werker, who researches foreign aid, says the spillover effects go beyond the aid itself.

“Some are obvious, like salaries and profits that stay in the local economy, but there are also ways to increase capacity of local firms by giving them progressively larger contracts,” says Werker.

But there are many hurdles to signing a contract with Haitians.

The first is a no-bid process: 25 percent of the contracts went directly to U.S. contractors without even giving Haitians a chance to bid on them, sometimes because the needs were so urgent there wasn’t time to go through a formal bidding process. In addition, some government requests for local Haitian subcontractors and expertise are published only in English, limiting access for many Haitians who speak Creole.

Also, at times of catastrophe, it can be easier to use an established contractor with a strong record than a previously unknown local one. The Haitian economy was so decimated by the earthquake that it was hard at first even to get wood or traps for shelters without importing them. Now, even though there are Haitian companies providing many products and services, the pattern of using foreign ones continues.

And finally, it’s more complicated to contract directly in countries like Haiti, where corruption is rife. There has been price-gouging among some would-be Haitian contractors.

The unprecedented promise of $9 billion in aid, with the U.S. as a top giver, at first raised hope of rebuilding and even of a new and brighter future for the tragedy-prone island. But fewer than 10 percent of those funds have made it past the “promise” stage.

While Chemonics and DAI are the largest single recipients, the bulk of the funds have gone to beltway contractors as well: firms in Virginia received the most funds of any state, $45.3 million, followed closely by Maryland, $44.6 million. Another $31.7 million went to companies based in the District of Columbia.

The U.S. foreign aid contracts to Haiti since the earthquake have gone to an array of almost entirely U.S.-based goods and services, from bullet-proof vehicles ordered Nov. 18 by the Centers for Disease Control from a Miami-based firm to $24,000 in dental supplies for US Navy medical providers in June from a Chesapeake, Va. firm. Yet bullet-proof vehicles and dental supplies are available from Haitian companies, according to the nonprofit Peace Dividend Trust.

“Frankly, it’s a shame and a serious opportunity lost,” says Edward Rees of the Peace Dividend Trust. His organization put together a business portal, offering everything from security services to catering, and is training Haitians on how to bid for contracts and grants. “No one is systematically tracking how many contracts have gone to Haitian companies.”

The lack of local spending in Haiti is similar to that in most other countries receiving U.S. aid, although economist Werker said Haiti is likely at the low end of the spectrum. But Rees contrasts Haiti with Afghanistan, where _ backed by Peace Dividend Trust _ U.S. Army General David H. Petraeus ordered his commanders to “Hire Afghans first, buy Afghan products, and build Afghan capacity.”

The results in Afghanistan are encouraging: A recent study found that 37 percent of $2 billion in annual international aid is now being used to buy locally-produced Afghan goods and services, up from 31 percent a few years ago.

The AP review focused on contracts from the U.S. government, which spent an immediate $1.1 billion in U.S. humanitarian assistance after the earthquake, and promised another $1.15 billion for reconstruction. In November, the first $120 million of the pledged reconstruction funds were tranferred to the World Bank-run Haiti Reconstruction Fund, according to the State Department.

In addition to government aid, more than $1 billion has come from nonprofit charities, most of which try to buy local, said Samuel A. Worthington, president of InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international nongovernmental organizations. He represents nonprofits managing about 90 percent of the U.S. donations that were directed to Haiti after the quake.

Worthington says there is no system to count how much has gone to Haitian-owned companies.

“There is a very strong bias to ensure as much local procurement as possible, and as much spending in the local economy,” says Worthington. “Our bottom line is to serve as many people as possible and get the best price, to spread those dollars.”

The U.N. special envoy to Haiti traveled to the troubled country a day after the interim reconstruction commission of which he is co-chairman was forced to hold its meeting in the neighboring Dominican Republic after violence broke out following Haiti’s disputed Nov. 28 presidential election.

Clinton visited a cholera clinic run by Doctors Without Borders that has treated some of the more than 100,000 people sickened in the epidemic that broke out in October. He then went to the main U.N. peacekeeping base for meetings with Haitian and international officials.

The meeting a day before approved some $430 million in projects. But it was more notable for anger over the slow pace of reconstruction and a letter from frustrated Haitian members who said they were left out of decisionmaking and complained approved projects “do not advance the reconstruction of Haiti and long-term development.”

“I share their frustration, but I think they will see a big increase in the pace of movement next year,” Clinton said at a news conference in Port-au-Prince.

He said hundreds of thousands of Haitians would find new permanent housing next year and many more would move out of the tent and tarp camps that have been home to more than 1 million people since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

But such promises have been made before. The house-less believed they would start getting new homes _ or at least sturdier temporary shelters _ months ago. Only $897 million of the more than $5.7 billion pledged for 2010-11 has been delivered.

Clinton also expressed confidence in Haiti’s much-criticized provisional electoral council to find a solution to the electoral crisis.

Three presidential candidates believe they should advance to the two-person runoff set for January, with competition fiercest between the ostensibly eliminated popular singer Michel Martelly, in third place, and second-place candidate Jude Celestin, who is backed by the unpopular President Rene Preval.

Three days of rioting followed announcement of the preliminary results and it is feared more violence will erupt if a solution is not found.

Clinton endorsed the eight-member electoral council’s plan to re-count tally sheets under international observation and hold a more-transparent January runoff, but then said he did not want to involve himself further in Haitian politics.

“I don’t have a candidate _ my candidate is the reconstruction process,” he said. “I want the people to feel good about this and to trust the outcome so that we have peace and order and that encourages the donors to keep investing in Haiti’s future.”

Earlier in the day Clinton went to a cholera clinic off a dirt road in the capital’s Tabarre district, where he and Haiti’s health minister spoke with families under treatment. Speaking through his own cold, he stressed the importance of such clinics, some of which have been opposed by communities afraid they will spread the disease.

More than 2,400 people have died of the disease in Haiti according to official statistics.

Leaving the compound he washed his hands in bleach-treated water and had his orange-trimmed running shoes sprayed.

After leaving Haiti, Clinton headed to his home state of Arkansas.

Nine months after the schoolteacher’s concrete home collapsed in front of his wife and 4-year-old son, the family and three in-laws are stuck under a plastic tarp that pours down water when it rains. All he wants is to move up, to a working man’s apartment in the tree-lined suburb of Petionville. But every place he can even consider costs double or triple the $43 a month he used to pay in rent, even though he and everyone he knows has less money than ever.

Haiti’s brittle housing supply was shattered by the Jan. 12 earthquake, which destroyed an estimated 110,000 homes and apartment buildings. Since then demand has soared, as the more than 1.5 million people who lost their homes compete for new ones at the bottom end of the market, and a rising tide of foreigners from the U.N. and aid groups flood in from the top.

The result: There are not enough houses, and not enough money for people to rent the ones still standing. More than 1.3 million Haitians live in squatter camps, facing disgruntled landowners and violent evictions, with no international or government plan to move or house them. The prices have everyone stuck.

“The type of house most people rented before was not built well. Those houses were destroyed, and the ones that are left are too expensive,” Tombeau explained with the patience of a man used to walking teenagers through French grammar. “When they find a decent camp to live in, they decide they’d rather stay.”

Before the quake, visitors to Haiti who only knew of its poverty and desperation were shocked to see the homes available to those who could afford them. Glass and concrete palaces in pink, peach, yellow and white hang off the mountains above Port-au-Prince like oversized candies on a green fruitcake.

Some fell. The prices on those that survived defy belief. One senator put up his three-bedroom with panoramic views for $15,000 a month. (Its nine Rottweiler guard dogs are free.) Finding anything similar for less than $5,000 is a steal. Want to buy? A three-bedroom with guest apartment lists for $900,000.

With his education and entrepreneurial attitude, Tombeau would be a prime candidate to enter a Haitian middle class. But as things are, he could not afford such a house in a hundred lifetimes. All his income disappeared in a crash of concrete when his school crumbled on top of him and hundreds of students. Some 35 people were killed, and he spent six hours under the rubble with his left arm smashed and pinned to his side.

After days in a Doctors Without Borders clinic, the skinny 35-year-old moved his family to an empty space in front of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive’s office. When officials began discouraging aid from reaching that camp, Tombeau took his $90 worth of donated tarps, wood and corrugated tin to the new camp on the side-street of Delmas 56, a rocky slope above a ravine behind a fast food joint and computer store.

The camp is called “Tet Ansanm” or “heads together,” a Creole phrase for unity that’s also an apt description of how much space people have to sleep.

Next door, behind a wall and guarded gate, is a two-story pink house now being used by the United Nations, which lost scores of buildings in the quake. On the upstairs floor is the five-person office of UN-Habitat, the primary agency tasked with the question of permanent housing.

The country manager, Jean Christophe Adrian, has been in Haiti since March, often working on a balcony looking over the camp. He acknowledges officials have been slow to deal with Port-au-Prince’s most visible problem.

“So far there is no clarity on how to go about it,” Adrian told The Associated Press. “There are a wide range of proposals which are being made but without really a clear direction on how to address the housing issue.”

It was only last week when former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the co-chairs of the reconstruction commission, held a closed meeting on housing at Bellerive’s house. Meeting documents obtained by AP said that 85 percent of people displaced by the quake could be returned to neighborhoods if their homes are repaired or rebuilt. Ten percent would be placed in new homes in the same area, with the remaining 5 percent relocated.

Doing just that, even at a cost of $10,000 per family, would require more than $5 billion _ almost the total currently pledged for everything through next year, without paying for health care, food or job creation, Bellerive told reporters before the meeting.

Meanwhile, of the total pledged, less than 15 percent has been delivered _ and still none from the United States. Piles of rubble fill lots and block construction equipment.

The U.S. and others spent millions in humanitarian aid on home-assessment teams, but most of the properties deemed relatively safe remain empty because people cannot afford them. Little has been spent on new homes, with money going for tarps, tents and the sturdier “t-shelters” _ made with wood and metal to better withstand wind, rain and tremors.

Hardly anyone has credit for a mortgage or construction loan. Building materials are more expensive than ever. And land title is governed by a broken system ripe for exploitation by speculators looking to cash in on reconstruction _ whenever that happens.

Even money does not guarantee a house. A realtor with an office on Route Delmas named Athis Dupre said he lost half his 100 house listings in the quake. Rent is at a premium, with fewer people wanting to buy out of fear that a purchase would just collapse in the next quake. Streetwalking house hunters, who take prospective renters on tours for $12 a pop, say their pickings are expensive and slim.

But there is one group that can still make rent: Foreign non-governmental organizations, aid workers and journalists.

Down the hill from Tombeau’s tent, on the unpaved, easily flooded cross-street numbered Delmas 33, the lower floor of a two-story with dingy, cracked yellow walls and possibly working plumbing rents for $1,250 a month _ payable in a lump-sum of $15,000 for the year. Most Haitians, who live on less than $1 a day, could never afford that. But the Haitian-born owner doesn’t want them.

“The owner isn’t interested in renting to Haitians. He’s always rented to NGOs,” says his agent, Eddy Alexandre.

The Associated Press, whose house was destroyed in the quake, is now renting a three-bedroom home/office for more than three times what it paid before. And the New York-based nonprofit Voices for Haiti has abandoned Port-au-Prince altogether, moving to the sleepier, more remote seaside town of Cabaret to its north.

“I find it more expensive to rent a place in Haiti than in Brooklyn, and it’s not just housing. The entire cost of living is very, very high now,” said the group’s head, Mario Augustaze.

The group had to bail out of a project because it was going to cost too much to house the volunteers, Augustaze said. The project was with Habitat for Humanity _ building homes.

Tombeau is doing his best with what he has. He divided his tarp shack into a bedroom and living room, then put up a door advertising paid use of his $60-a-month wireless modem. He also spread the word that he could design T-shirts. But almost nobody wanted either. Out of cash, he canceled his internet account, and for now has given up on trying to move.

“I just want a house like I had before. I don’t want anything huge, I just want something comfortable,” he said, leaning toward a breeze coming through his stifling shack’s open door. “If I had the money, I would look for one right now.”