IN THE past year the population of Haiti's tent cities has fallen from over lm to less than 600,000. Sadly, that reflects official inaction rather than accomplishment. Most of the encampments' residents, who moved in after the January 2010 earthquake, have left because health clinics and water distribution ran out, because landowners and mayors illegally evicted them, or because they gave up hope that aid might reach them. Today, the "people who could get out of the tents [have] already got out of the tents," says Patrick Rouzier, housing adviser to the new president, Michel Martelly. Those who remain are "the most vulnerable, the hard cases, the lost", says Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration.
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