Haiti's homeless get tarps, want tents--could have gotten locally made Down Home tents if only..

The need:

February 14, 2010 02:26 EST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti and the aid agencies trying to help it recover from a devastating earthquake say they're opting for plastic sheets instead of tents to shelter about 1.2 million displaced residents.

That means many homeless Haitians will likely face spring rains and the summer hurricane season camped out under flapping sheets of plastic.

The government and aid agencies say there is no room for family-sized tents with their wide bases and they're opting for plastic sheets.

By May 1, one plastic tarp will be given to each of about 250,000 displaced families.

Transitional shelters of 194 square feet, with corrugated iron roofs, will then be built. They will have earthquake- and storm-resistant frames of timber or steel and are supposed to last for three years.

But getting desperate people who just weeks ago lost their homes to abandon neighborhoods and friends to relocate won't be simple.

Down Home tents were going to be one of the community self-sufficiency products that a new employee owned and run Palco Community Corporation would be making now if the Palco bankruptcy solution had gone to the Heartlands Project's Palco Reorganization Plan. Down Home tents were to be well-built insulated tents good enough for years of service and especially targeted for disaster relief situations. And much cheaper than the World Shelters domes. Another job creation opportunity lost in Humboldt County by politics instead of economics determining economic enterprise in Humboldt County.