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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Haiti's Slow Recovery; Hungry in Haiti; Rebuilding Haiti; Reuniting Fathers with their Families
Aired July 13, 2010 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight, we're live in Port-au- Prince "Keeping Them Honest."
Thousands of people behind me are spending yet another night in darkness in plastic, tarp-covered shelters, more permanent, but very much like they were six months ago. We're still trying to understand why exactly that is, why more than 1.5 million people are living this way after so many people, so many organizations and governments either rushed to help or promised to.
We're following the money tonight, $5.3 billion promised by countries around the world for rebuilding, just $89 million received so far.
We're trying to find out where things are working here, where they're not, and why in some places even the slightest hint of organization or common sense just doesn't seem to exist -- "Keeping Them Honest" tonight.
According to the U.N., 24 percent of the buildings here in Haiti were destroyed in the quake; the rubble still, as you see, everywhere. By some estimates, it would take 1,000 trucks three years to collect it all. Yet, there are less than 300 trucks running right now and only one landfill approved for rubble.
Tonight, you are going to meet an American contractor who has equipment and expertise, but none of it being used right now, his equipment literally growing weeds around it. You see it right there.
The U.N. says 916,000 vaccines have been given, keeping the camps from turning into incubators for epidemic and disease. And that's true. Yet kids still die in hospitals.
This little girl is going to die, a death that could have been prevented. They didn't have the antibiotics she needed months ago.
Today, 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta made a startling discovery, some of the life-saving drugs and other food and vital supplies just sitting on shelves and warehouses, tied up in red tape, misplaced, unaccounted for. Aid groups aren't coordinating with each other. The right hand and the left hand often don't know what the other is doing.
And then there's the money, the money problems, deadbeat donors, countries that pledged to help rebuild Haiti six months ago or at the U.N. in March, and only Australia, Brazil, Norway, and Estonia have actually ponied up, leaving dozens more that haven't. We're keeping them all honest tonight.
But we begin here with the red tape and the rubble. There's no approved master plan for what to do with all this rubble, where to put it, how to collect it.
Plans are being talked about and in the works. Plans are being discussed, approvals waited for. But it has been six months and nothing else can happen until that rubble is removed. People can't move back to their neighborhoods. They can't rebuild.
And even if there were a plan, no one has agreed to pay for it. And the cost of removing it could be about $1 billion.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Scavengers pick through the debris in a Port-au-Prince dump. This is where Haiti's wreckage ends up, the one and only landfill approved to receive rubble.
Each day, about 220 trucks of rubble arrive, a tiny amount of the debris that still buries much of this city.
(on camera): Everywhere you go in Port-au-Prince, you find huge piles of rubble like this on just about every street in just about every single neighborhood. Haitians are paid $5 a day, groups of them, to break up the rubble with pickaxes and shovels. And some of that rubble gets carted away, but a lot of it just ends up being dumped here in the street, where you can see it can clog traffic.
It prevents homes from being rebuilt on streets and it prevents some businesses from reopening because people simply can't get to those areas. They have to kind of maneuver their way through the rubble.
What Haiti needs right now, six months after the earthquake, is a plan to deal with this rubble. And they need heavy equipment to do it.
RANDY PERKINS, HAITI RECOVERY GROUP: Nothing is going to happen in this country from a recovery standpoint until you clear up -- clear the debris, demolish the buildings, clear the roads, get the landfills fixed, deal with the sanitation problem, which is a tremendous, tremendous problem.
COOPER (voice-over): Randy Perkins' company, Haiti Recovery Group, is part of AshBritt, one of the largest disaster recovery contractors in America. He says he spent some $25 million to get dozens of trucks and heavy excavation equipment here, but, so far, none of it is being used. He hasn't been able to get a contract for work.
PERKINS: There's $1 billion worth of debris and wreckage cleanup that needs to be done in Haiti. Now, whether it takes 20 years or it takes three years is the ultimate -- is going to be the ultimate question. If this is coordinated properly -- our contract in Katrina, we removed 28 million yards of debris in Mississippi for the Corps of Engineers, close to a $1 billion. Ok? It took 18 months.
Now, Mississippi and Haiti are two different animals. If this thing is coordinated properly, you cut the red tape, get the bureaucracy worked out, everybody put their egos aside at the highest levels all the way down, you could have this debris and wreckage cleaned up in three years.
COOPER: The problem, he says, is there there's no approved master plan for debris, though the Haitian governments say it's developing one. Amazingly, after six months and hundreds of millions spent by foreign governments, the U.N. and NGOs, there's still no dedicated funding for rubble removal with heavy equipment.
(on camera): So, who's making decisions?
PERKINS: Nobody is making any decisions right now.
COOPER (voice-over): Outside Perkins' compound, we found dozens of trained Haitians lined up looking for work.
(on camera): Do you come here every day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day.
COOPER: Every day looking for a job?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking for a job.
COOPER: Yes. But, Right now, they're not hiring, no?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no.
COOPER: No.
Randy Perkins says he would like to hire a lot of these people. He says a lot of them are very qualified. In fact, he want his work force to be at least 85 percent Haitian personnel in all positions across the board.
But the problem is, without a contract, he can't hire more people. They have been able to hire a few people so far, but they're waiting for a contract so they can hire more.
(voice-over): Perkins' company is not a charity. He's here to make a profit. But they insist that, unless experienced disaster recovery companies are employed, progress here will continue to be barely visible.
PERKINS: Nothing is going to change tomorrow, six months now, or six years from now, unless equipment gets to work, coordination and planning happen, and the debris wreckage and all this rubble is taken care of. I mean, it's nothing. You are going to be at a standstill six months, on the year anniversary, and when you come back and do your five-year anniversary, it will be the same thing. Nothing is going to change.
COOPER: Change is hard to see in Haiti today. So, unfortunately, is hope. There's been months of talk and meetings, promises and pledges, but until money is spent and action taken, the rebuilding of Haiti cannot really begin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's interesting. I mean, he basically -- his company took a big gamble. They have spent $25 million to build this facility, to get the equipment down here. So, they're good and ready to go.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
COOPER: The question is, will they actually get hired to do the job. There are obviously other companies that might be qualified and there's going to be some sort of bidding process for it, but it's not even clear at this point who is going to make the decision, whether it's USAID or whether it's the Clinton commission or whether it's the Haitian government.
They had a lot of meetings with the Haitian government. They had a lot of buy-in. But, at this point, I mean, they have -- their equipment is literally growing weeds underneath it just sitting there.
GUPTA: How hard it was to for them to get the equipment in here? Because you were talking about just getting simple equipment in being such a challenge.
COOPER: Right.
I mean what we were talking about last night was customs problems that NGOs are facing getting emergency equipment in, getting building supplies in. This is a company which wants -- plans to make a profit.
And they say, look, it's normal to have customs taxes. That's understandable. They pay those taxes. So, for them, that's not really an issue. It's a process like it is in any other country.
And the Haiti customs people contacted us today and said, look, we're no longer in emergency mode. We have -- we have instituted regular customs procedures. But what the NGOs are telling us, these charities are saying is, look, that's fine for for-profit companies who are bringing in things to sell or to make money, but for companies that are bringing in building supplies to help Haitians, they shouldn't be taxed 20 percent on that.
GUPTA: Yes. I remember you asked former President Clinton about it, and he said as long as it had been pre-approved.
But when you were talking to him, did you get the sense that he was in charge, this idea of someone providing direction? COOPER: Well, no. I mean, he said he's been trying to get the Haiti government to stop charging NGOs and people bringing in emergency supplies 20 percent or charging them thousands of dollars in storage fees.
So far, they haven't been willing to do that. They are insisting, look, this is what countries do. And it takes a week, if they have the proper paperwork, to get these things out of customs. A lot of NGOs are saying, look, these things get stored for weeks at a time. They get charged thousands of dollars in storage fees.
GUPTA: Right. It's so infuriating.
And we came across something today that really will make people angry. I think the idea that there are supplies that people need that we talked about last night, potentially lifesaving things, located literally just down the road from people who need it -- you talk about lack of communication. People who need it can't get in touch with people who want it. And, as a result, you get these absurd situations, like the one you're about to see now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): It is so striking in orphanages, smiles amid squalor, 350,000 orphans in Haiti, best guess, and many, like this little guy, don't even have a name.
(on camera): Don't know how old he is. He's an orphan in this orphanage, among lots of other children, 40 to 50 at any given time. That's who many kids they're taking care of.
And let me show you something else as well. Take a look at this particular building. You just look at the floor over here. That's where they sleep. There are no bedrooms. Find a place and sleep for the night.
(voice-over): This is the kitchen for all those children. This pot of beans is their food for the entire day, simply not enough.
(on camera): And take a look. They have to, obviously, have food. And they have to store it in some way. This is the storeroom. It used to be completely filled with food. This is all they have left.
(voice-over): I decided to call a contact of mine.
(on camera): Eric, it's Sanjay.
ERIC KLEIN, CAN-DO.ORG: Hey, Sanjay, how are you?
GUPTA: I'm doing phone. I'm actually on speakerphone with you, and our film crew is filming. We have just come outside this orphanage. And it's one of these crazy situations that you and I have been talking about.
They have about 50 kids here, literally, from a couple months old to 18, and they have three stacks of tomato soup, a handful of beans, and a little bit of rice.
That's all they have really to feed these children, you know, for the foreseeable future. And I just thought I would give you a call and see if you might be able to help out.
KLEIN: Wow. Yes, absolutely. Let me make a couple of calls. I'm going to organize a truck -- yes, let me make a couple calls right now. And I will get back to you in maybe about 20 minutes.
Hey, we're outside of the gate with the truck.
GUPTA (voice-over): We got the call. Eric, with CAN-DO.org, found a warehouse full of supplies willing to stock the truck.
According to the Global Disaster Immediate Response Team, right now, there are at least 50 warehouses, football field in size, full of supplies just sitting there, some dating back to January, never distributed since the earthquake.
And this is going to make you mad.
(on camera): Take a look at this. They have got 50 starving kids in an orphanage. We drove three miles down the street.
KLEIN: Now, this stuff came in from Asia.
Is there a date on that?
GUPTA: May 27. It's been sitting here a couple of months.
At the orphanage, they have literally had half a bucket of beans, half a bucket of beans, and that was going to feed 50 kids for an entire day. All of this is beans over here.
And you're not paid to do this, and your -- your guys are not paid to do this.
KLEIN: We're not paid. We don't even get paid for our organization. Our organization is (INAUDIBLE)
GUPTA: So, I mean, people are donating lots of supplies and then lots of money to buy those supplies. But in order to actually get it distributed, it's counting on the goodwill of people like you to do it.
KLEIN: Absolutely, absolutely, which I like -- going back to, like I said, showing results is the key thing. I mean, that's what's missing. That's the element that is missing in disasters.
GUPTA (voice-over): Driving back, I couldn't help but think of so much food, and yet hundreds of thousands of Haitian children are malnourished.
(on camera): Going to have some happy kids.
KLEIN: Hey, hey, how are you? GUPTA: So, that was not that far away at all.
KLEIN: No, not at all.
GUPTA: Which is still mind-boggling how close this stuff is.
KLEIN: Yes. It was.
GUPTA: We can hear the kids literally -- there's just joyous laughter inside there. I think they know what's coming.
KLEIN: They know what's coming. Yes, they do.
GUPTA (voice-over): It is true that other organizations like World Vision, Save the children, UNICEF, had been helping orphanages here in Haiti long before the earthquake. But I can tell you, there are hospitals, camps, and orphanages that fall through the cracks sometimes. At least on this day, one of those cracks gets to be filled in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: First of all, that that child doesn't have a name -- he's 2 years old, doesn't have a name -- is so heartbreaking.
GUPTA: And you saw how malnourished he was. He doesn't walk. He's so small. I mean, I have a 2-year-old at home. And that's a very, very malnourished child.
COOPER: But, I mean, again and again -- and we heard this from President Clinton yesterday, former President Clinton, that a lot of these aid organizations -- and they're all doing good work, and they have their hearts in the right place, but they don't coordinate and communicate with each other.
GUPTA: Right.
COOPER: And they don't tell the -- President Clinton's committee where they're doing work and what kind of work they're doing.
There's a Web site they're supposed to communicate with, so that all this stuff can be coordinated. The fact that there's a warehouse of food three miles away from an orphanage who is desperate for food, I mean, it's infuriating.
GUPTA: It really is. And when you talk about accountability, it's interesting, because a lot of people gave money. They saw the images on television.
I think the right question to ask, what I have learned, is that, did the supplies get to Haiti or even to Port-au-Prince is not the complete question. You have really got to have the accountability, is it getting into the hands of people who need it? Stuff has been in those warehouses since the earthquake. It just never got distributed.
And that's just, you know, laziness, inefficiency, ineptitude, whatever it is.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: It's not getting --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: And NGOs have a lot of money in some cases that they haven't distributed because they have long-term projects they want to do.
But, at this point now, I mean, this is a turning point, say a lot of people we talk to. Decisions need to be made and actions need to be taken to see change on the ground. I mean, it's that debris that we talked about before. They have got to decide what the plan is. It's got to be approved. There's a plan circulating. It has got to be approved.
It's got to -- and they have got to move forward. And someone has got to start to pay for it and start spending some of this money. Whether it's these NGOs who have the money or whether it's these governments who have pledged the money, nothing's going to change unless decisions are made and money is spent.
GUPTA: No question. And that 2-year-old --
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: -- that's the bottom line.
COOPER: Right.
GUPTA: That's the real-life outcome.
COOPER: Again, a 2-year-old who doesn't have a name, I mean, it's -- we spoke with Haiti's president, Rene Preval, yesterday, and we asked him about the problem that we had discovered about supplies for charity groups, NGOs, being held up at airports and ports, being charged thousands of dollars.
You know, we brought in $5,000 worth of relief supplies for one organization that had asked us to, some saws and stuff like that. We were charged -- $5,000 worth -- we were charged $1,000 at the airport to bring that to that relief organization.
We -- we haven't paid. It was sitting -- it's been sitting in the customs. I'm not sure if we have been able to get it out at this point or not.
But here's what the president told us about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RENE PREVAL, HAITIAN PRESIDENT: That's true we have problems. But we can solve them. (through translator): I invite the international community to come sit with me every day to tell me, here are the papers. It's stuck in customs. I will do everything necessary. I will call the director of customs and we get it out. I want to help them.
This is also possible that some employees of the state make people pay for things to get them out of customs. This is petty corruption, which we have to fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He insists there is no corruption within his government, although certainly in past governments we have seen great amounts of corruption. Transparency International, among others, say, you know, Haiti has a long problem of this. It's pretty obvious to anybody who has been on the ground here.
The Haitian government, though, is not getting much money at all from international donors at this point. I mean, they don't have much money that they are distributing. In fact, they don't really have money they're distributing at all. All the money is going to NGOs or is going through President Clinton's commission, which is also co- chaired by the prime minister of Haiti. That's where money is going through.
But the situation at customs, they say, look, we -- in fact, we got, a short time ago, an e-mail from Alice Blanchet, an adviser to Haiti's prime minister. And she wrote to us.
And she says -- quote -- "Now that most services are back in operation and returned to normalcy, NGOs, including the U.N., the Haitian diaspora aid shipments, must go through the proper channels." She goes on to say the process -- quote -- "takes less than a week when the paperwork is in compliance with Haitian customs procedures."
As we mentioned, the fact is, we know of examples where this simply is not happening. Well-known NGOs that fill out the proper paperwork, that are well-known, they have their goods held for longer than a week, weeks at times, charged thousands of dollars either in taxes or in storage fees. We will keep following this story.
Haiti's president -- let us know what you think, the live chat up and running at AC360.com.
Up next: following the money, the money that isn't flowing into Haiti, even though dozens of countries and aid organizations promised more than $5 billion worth. Well, the countries promised $5.3 billion. The aid organizations have their own set of money. You will to be surprised at who came through and who, right now, is a deadbeat donor.
Later: a relocation camp that was supposed to be better than the rest, why it turned into a nightmare instead.
And remember Bea. She was buried alive. The first time we saw her, it was our first day here. Hours after we arrived, we saw her being rescued -- how her life has changed since then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER (voice-over): This is one of the first things we saw when we arrived in Port-au-Prince six months ago, about 17 hours after the quake. A young girl trapped under the roof of a collapsed building. The only things visible were her ankles and feet. She cried out in pain and desperation.
But neighbors cut out a small opening and pulled her out. We learned her name was Bea, 15 years old. She had a deep cut to her leg, but through the pain, told us about how her family had died in the same building.
This is the site today, a simple outdoor market. When we looked around, we saw someone we knew.
It was Bea. She's selling shoes across the street from the very building where she was saved. She showed us her leg that's now healed and says she feels good. She's moved in with her aunt and uncle and told us she's mostly happy, though she will never forget the family she's lost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Beautiful little girl, incredibly strong. We will continue to follow Bea's story in the weeks and months ahead, as we continue to follow what is happening here.
Tonight: following the money, $5.3 billion for rebuilding, to be exact, over the next 18 months. That's what was pledged. Much of that -- much was made of that amount of money at that time, less so in the months since then.
Forgetting Haiti is our theme tonight. This involves some of the wealthiest countries in the world, America included, not living up so far to the promises they have made.
President Clinton chairs the organization managing the money, the money that is -- that actually arrives. We spoke to him yesterday about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to call all those governments and say, the ones who said they will give money to support the Haitian government, I want to try to get them to give the money. And I'm going to try to get the others to give me a schedule for when they will release it.
And then we will either work our issues out with the World Bank or they can just release the money on schedule as the projects are ready.
COOPER: What do you think is the holdup on the part of these governments not giving the money?
CLINTON: I think that they're all having economic trouble and they want to hold their money as long as possible. And they can earn interest on that.
And I think they want to know that we're open for business. And I think that, when I call them and then when we have our meeting, we start approving projects, they will see that.
I haven't had any donor tell me that they have decided not to do it. And I wanted to say today on the record that, so far, the Haitian government and the Haitian members of this commission have not turned down any requests I have made for greater transparency and accountability, independent audit, the whole nine yards. So, I think this is going to be a very good process, just as it was in Indonesia after the tsunami.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: An optimistic-sounding former President Clinton, but, as you will see, he's got a lot of deadbeat donors to deal with at this point.
"Keeping Them Honest" for us tonight is Joe Johns -- Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we're talking about the big money promised to help rebuild Haiti, $5.3 billion. A promise to give Haiti more money came in March, just two months after the quake, when 150 countries and international organizations met at the U.N. All committed to funding what they called a new future for Haiti, $5.3 billion.
Sounds great, right? But, right now, three months later, that future is not so rosy at all, only a fraction of that $5.3 billion, in fact, less than 2 percent, has actually been delivered.
"Keeping Them Honest," we have been asking about the pledges. And it's not that any of the countries are now saying they won't keep their promises and give Haiti the money. Instead, they offer a lot of explanations for, well, slow payments.
For example, starting with the United States, they have pledged $1.15 billion, but, after the quake, that meeting in March, they made that specific promise. None of it has been delivered so far. Why not? Slow pace of Congress. That pledge money is tied up in a supplemental appropriations bill that Congress has yet to approve.
The United States is not the only deadbeat donor. Venezuela, for example, pledged $1.32 billion. So far, they have given nada. They have given us a meandering explanation which touched on Venezuela's forgiving Haitian debt and how the two countries have ties going all the way back to the 1800s, but no specifics on when they're going to make good on this $1.32 million pledge.
Canada, also a deadbeat; it pledged $378 million to the reconstruction fund. So far, they have given zero as well, and no word on when that money is coming. Same with France, $170.9 million pledged, nothing given. They didn't even give us a call back to explain.
And while we're at it, let's talk about the World Bank. This is the organization that is the depository for the $5.3 billion itself. They have actually promised $266 million on their own, but add the World Bank to the deadbeat category.
Now, there is some good news on keeping promises to Haiti. We talked to Australia today. They pledged $8.64 million. They have given a check, $8.64 million. They said they gave the money now because Haiti needs it now.
Brazil hasn't done quite as good as that. They have pledged $163.5 million and given about $45 million. Norway pledged $107 million, and, so far, they have given $31.2 million, so, about a third of it, Anderson. It's a mixed bag.
COOPER: Yes. I mean, it's pretty incredible, six months after the quake, billions in these pledges from countries, so far, little has actually gotten to Haiti.
JOHNS: Yes, that's right. Only a fraction of the pledges for reconstruction in Haiti's future has been paid.
But we want to say again, the U.S. and other countries have pumped a lot of money into Haiti outside of the reconstruction commitment.
There is, though, Anderson, a question about nonprofit relief. And we will just give you a real taste very quickly about what the nonprofits are doing.
Red Cross, donations received $468 million, given $148 million. Doctors without Borders, $66 million; now, they have of course almost given all of what they got. Doctors without Borders is a little different from the Red Cross, because they have different missions. Red Cross does long-term. Doctors without Borders is much more immediate -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Joe, appreciate it, "Keeping Them Honest" tonight. Thanks very much.
Just ahead: a picture of what was supposed to be the new Haiti, a better place for people to live. It hasn't turned out that way. You're going to see why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, exactly six months to the day after the earthquake, a pretty scary moment here in Haiti: a summer storm ripped through the primary relocation camp set up by the government. More than 300 tents collapsed, injuring at least six people.
It all played out in a very remote area where there are hardly any jobs, no schools, and no hospitals. It's where Haiti's government plans to build a model community that's going to be a blueprint for future rebuilding. So far, it's not going all that well.
Here's Ivan Watson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tempers flaring at what is supposed to be a model camp for earthquake survivors. An angry resident accusing the camp's British director of corruption and theft, charges he quickly denies.
RICHARD POOLE, CAMP CORAIL DIRECTOR: The people are desperate, they're hungry. We know that because of the lack of economic activity here that we've given some food distributions, but these run out very quickly. The people are traumatized. The people are anxious about their future.
WATSON: Tensions made worse by the fact that a powerful storm just ripped through the camp, destroying hundreds of tents.
POOLE: I've never seen anything like it, because people were screaming and panicking and praying.
WATSON: This wasn't supposed to happen at Camp Corail. After all, so far, it's the only so-called planned camp for the homeless in the entire country.
POOLE: The hope of Corail and the hope of the future is that this is an economic model that will bring people out of Port-au-Prince that can be replicated in another part of the country. So this is -- this is hope for a future. You know?
WATSON: Organizers built the camp on a scorching hot plain, 10 miles out of Port-au-Prince. It was supposed to help reduce overcrowding in a city bursting with slums due to decades of uncontrolled growth.
(on camera): How are the conditions here?
BANAVE SUPRIN, CAMP CORAIL RESIDENT: Bad. Bad.
WATSON (voice-over): The camp's remote location left people economically stranded, miles away from any real source of employment.
(on camera): And this is the only job?
SUPRIN: Only job here in this camp. Only. Nothing better than that. Nothing. No more money, $5 a day.
WATSON (voice-over): Five dollars a day. And even payment of some of these salaries is behind schedule. And so is construction of the temporary shelters which were supposed to replace these tents.
(on camera): And there was, until Monday, a prefabricated temporary model house here on display for locals to see where they'd eventually end up living. The storm hit. The winds blew it over, ripped the walls off, and it ended up all the way over here. And one of the guards who was inside at the time has been hospitalized because his shoulder was broken in the storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not ok to live with the kids, family.
WATSON (on camera): You don't -- you don't think this house is safe for you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's not safe.
WATSON: If it looks like what's supposed to be a model camp is poorly planned, look what's happening right next door. This is an entire squatters' colony with more than 40,000 residents, very little humanitarian support, and it continues to grow out of control.
Is the government helping you at all?
JUNIOR METAYAR, COMMUNITY RESIDENT: Nothing. We don't get no help. No light, no water, no sleep (ph), nothing.
WATSON (voice-over): People have been grabbing land here first come, first serve. This could be the beginning of yet another slum.
(on camera): What do you think this is going to look like in two years?
BEAUDELAIRE CAESAR, COMMUNITY RESIDENT: It's going to be a mess. It's going to be a mess, because there's going to be so many people living on top of each other.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And this is a huge concern because basically there's two plans kind of simultaneously that people talk about. Getting rubble removed from the city of Port-au-Prince, getting people moving back into their old neighborhoods. But a lot of people, a lot of groups and the government, want people outside of Port-au-Prince.
If another earthquake ever hits, they don't want people rebuilding poorly-built houses here. So the hope was build a model community outside. And that's where you were. And clearly, it's not really model of anything.
WATSON: No. And the idea, they call it decentralization. And they have these lofty ideas to create these economic zones outside. And you know, this is a crammed city.
COOPER: Right. I mean, it's a good idea to try to get people outside of the city, but they need jobs out there. They need reason to be out there.
WATSON: These people are totally economically stranded. And there's no medical care there either. So, when -- at least six people were wounded in this storm, the first of the season. That really -- this is the nightmare that the aid organizations are talking about. There was no medical care there. They had to rush people miles and miles, and they don't have transport, to hospitals to treat people. One woman was hit by a lightning bolt, for instance. COOPER: So what's the hope for it? I mean, what -- is there -- is there a plan to make it better or --
WATSON: They're even behind on building the temporary housing that's supposed to go up there. And that is not even protected against storms. That's the big scenario people are --
COOPER: Clearly from what we saw.
WATSON: -- afraid of right now. And the big hurricanes, so far, haven't even hit yet.
COOPER: Yes. Ivan, appreciate it as always. Good reporting. Thank you very much.
Still ahead, a detective mission in the middle of a disaster zone: a 4-year-old boy, Jean -- Jean. He's one of more than 2,000 Haitian kids who may have a parent still alive. But trying to reunite the families is a huge challenge. Gary Tuchman shows us what is being done to help him and others like him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: More than 800,000 kids have been affected by the earthquake. A lot of them were orphaned. But there are others whose parents may be alive. Twenty five hundred boys and girls are registered with international aid groups who are searching the country to try and reunite these kids with their families.
Gary Tuchman is following the story of one young boy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four-year-old Jean lost his mother in the Haiti earthquake. His father is also gone, but no one seems to know if he's dead or alive.
For now, Jean lives in a tent in a homeless camp with a family who lived near his mother. Supplies are short. Providing food and water for the little boy is difficult enough. But these two workers with the International Rescue Committee are looking to see if his father is somewhere out there.
They are among dozens of caseworkers from international aid groups who look for parents and children separated by the earthquake.
(on camera): So, they're basically doing the work of detectives. They're pounding the crumbling pavement, looking for any clues about the whereabouts of Jean's father.
(voice-over): They have an image of the boy in a camera, in the neighborhood where his father might have recently been seen. But this man doesn't recognize the boy's face or the father's name. And that's the same response they keep getting over and over and over again. But the aid group says this search will continue indefinitely.
JENNIFER MORGAN, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: We're certainly going to do everything that we can to trace his father.
TUCHMAN (on camera): Today, six months after the quake, nearly one out of five Haitians are homeless. There are roughly 9 million people who live in this nation. The U.N. says 1.6 million don't have a home.
(voice-over): And half of the homeless, about 800,000, are kids. Officially 2,500 of those kids are registered as separated from their parents since the quake. But there are likely thousands more.
MORGAN: Our first priority is to give them a chance to be reunified with their -- with their family. If the children's parents are dead, they may have extended family members that they can be reunified with, so we first want to exhaust every -- every option before we would consider adoption.
TUCHMAN: Despite the very difficult task, aid groups say they have reunited about 430 children with their parents since the quake. But so far, no luck for Jean.
(on camera): Do you like girls?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking French)
TUCHMAN: No. That's our first answer from this shy little guy.
(voice-over): While we're on the air tonight, he's asleep. Another night in the tent, a 4-year-old who still has no family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's so sad. But they know for a fact that his mom -- his mom perished?
TUCHMAN: They know his mom perished. The dad they're not sure about.
A lot of people are wondering, aren't the parents looking for the kids if they're alive? Most cases they are, but the problem is, most of these people have no money. They don't have Internet. They don't have TV. They don't have a car. They don't have the resources. They can't figure out how to find their own kids.
COOPER: Right.
TUCHMAN: Of course, in this case it may be possible -- the parents were separated -- that maybe the father doesn't want to find his son. That's very sad, too.
COOPER: We're going to have some final thoughts from Gary, Sanjay Gupta and Ivan Watson after the break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We're back with Gary Tuchman, Ivan Watson, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Gary, one of the most dramatic reports you did six months ago was in an elderly home where people were literally just completely abandoned. And I mean it was one of the most horrific things I'd seen.
You've gone back there. How is it now?
TUCHMAN: Nursing home destroyed; more than 60 senior citizens, many with dementia sitting outside, no food, no water, no medicine, with their adult diapers, no one changing them.
We went back six months later. Now there's been money donated to fix up their nursing home. They're back inside the nursing home. They have food. They have water. They have medicine. Still a very sad place.
COOPER: Right.
TUCHMAN: These are indigent people but drastic improvement; we're very happy to see that.
COOPER: Well, that's good news.
Ivan, one of the things -- you know, you did this report tonight on this model community, so-called, outside Port-au-Prince, which is the hope to try to get people out of this city.
But I mean, it's a lot more complicated getting people out of these -- these makeshift camps. It's a lot more complicated, maybe, than many of us realize. I mean, there's the question of not just the rubble and removing that and clearing building sites, but also trying to figure out who owns the land has turned out to be incredibly complicated.
WATSON: Yes. A lot of the land ownership deeds disappeared in the earthquake.
Also, we can see here these camps are getting more permanent. And a lot of them sprang up on either private land or government-owned land. And this is a country with a long history of squatting and uncontrolled growth. So, people are kind of worried that some of these camps are going to become permanent.
COOPER: And there's -- I think, though -- I think it's the spot of land you were out at, that model community, was actually taken by eminent domain by the Haitian government. I'm not sure if it's that one, but I know there was one plot of land. That was the one you went to?
WATSON: It was.
COOPER: That's the only one they've grabbed -- that they've taken by eminent domain?
WATSON: Right. And a sign there -- there's a bigger issue there. The Associated Press had a great report about how the land that was given for some of these people, where all these squatters were coming up, was actually owned in part by one of the people on the commission actually assigning the land. And he stood to profit considerably from that. So there is some land speculation allegations going on, as well. Money getting involved with the resettlement issue here.
COOPER: It's amazing, sort of so many people here have fingers in many different pies. It's a very complex situation. I mean, in the time you've been here, you've really been looking at the lack at times of organization. And it's just incredibly frustrating to see.
GUPTA: You know, you take it for granted that a certain number of supplies come into a country, that there's a plan for those supplies. And maybe it's just what we're used to. You know, you assume it's going to go to a particular warehouse and then it's going to go to a hospital --
COOPER: Right. We all assume that there's some sort of, like, computer guy just tracking all this stuff coming in and knowing what all these NGOs are doing. It's not the case at all.
GUPTA: Not at all. And in fact, when -- when his organization showed up with this truck to this warehouse, he didn't do anything illegal. He literally just went in there and said, "We need these supplies." And the guy went into the warehouse and said, "Yes, we have those. Here, just take them."
There was no money that exchanged hands or anything. They knew it had to get out there. They just had no distribution plan.
And you saw those warehouses. I mean football-size field warehouses.
COOPER: They need some really smart guys from Google to just, you know, spend a few days coming up with some sort of a program or come down here for a few days and just figure out a way to collate all this information.
Because, I mean, I'm sure there's some U.N. compound where, you know, there's some map with little dots on a map, but it's got to be done electronically. It's got to be done so that everybody has a printout and everybody has instant access to where information is, where medicine is and what's happening.
GUPTA: Maybe they're listening and maybe they'll do something like that.
But one thing I should point out, as well. And I don't know if you noticed in the piece that it was all local Haitians who actually were moving those boxes. This organization hires local folks. It's just literally one guy who's going around --
COOPER: And this is Can-Do.org.
GUPTA: This is Can-Do.org. And they -- and they really incorporate those people. And it helps, because they speak the language. They know the community. They often know where these things are necessary.
COOPER: There's got to be buy-in -- and I've heard this over and over again from every group and everybody who knows anything about what's going on. There's got to be buy-in from the local population and the local government. You can't just have this permanent class of foreign, you know, international development people and NGOs driving around in new, white shiny vehicles.
They've got to be integrated into the community, because I mean, unless there's buy-in by local people here and local people running the thing, it's not going to really be effective at all.
We've got to go.
Up next, "Building up America". We're going to take you inside a special program to help ex-cons turn their lives around and become better dads.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Joe Johns joins us again with the "360 News and Business Bulletin" -- Joe.
JOHNS: Anderson, four New Orleans police officers were charged today by federal prosecutors. They're linked to the shooting deaths of two people on the Danzinger Bridge six days after Katrina hit the city. The officers say they opened fire in self-defense. Two of their supervisors were also indicted on charges of obstructing justice.
In the Bahamas a guilty plea by the barefoot bandit; that's Colton Harris-Moore being led into court today. He paid a $300 fine for illegally landing a plane on the island. But that's the least of his worries. The 19-year-old is now in Miami where he'll face various theft and burglary charges in federal court. He's been on the run since escaping a juvenile halfway house in Washington State two years ago.
On Wall Street shares of Toyota Motor rise after a government report suggests some of the accidents that triggered massive recalls were actually due to drivers hitting the accelerator, not the brakes. Toyota is still on the hook for sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats that can trap the same pedal.
And Yankee nation is remembering George Steinbrenner. The New York Yankees owner has died after a heart attack. Steinbrenner was 80 years old. And there will never be another one like him -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. And what a career, what a life. Joe thanks.
$38,000 -- that's roughly what it costs New Jersey to keep a man in prison for a year. Obviously, keeping men out of prison not only benefit them and their families, they also save the state money.
In "Building up America" tonight a program that is designed to help men at risk turn their lives around. Here's Deb Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 57-year-old Dawud Ward is the first to admit he wasted 30 years of his life on drugs and in jail.
DAWUD WARD, PARTICIPANT, FATHERS NOW: I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn to.
FEYERICK: Two years ago he hit bottom.
(on camera): At that moment, if somebody had come to you and leaned over and said, you're going to be a teacher, a couple of years you're going to be a teacher, what would you have said at that moment?
WARD: No, I wouldn't have believed it.
FEYERICK: Now, you light up when you talk about being a teacher.
WARD: It's possible. Yes, I'm able to dream again.
FEYERICK (voice-over): It was one of those moments fate plays a hand. He saw a sign for Father's Now, a nonprofit group in New Jersey helping men turn around their lives, teaching them how to get jobs and be good parents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's one of our best graduates, in fact.
FEYERICK: Program case manager John Leslie can relate to his students. Drugs, prison, the hope of redemption.
(on camera): Is this about giving people another chance? Is this about giving people a first chance? Or is this about what that sign says? We want our men back.
JOHN LESLIE, CASE MANAGER, FATHERS NOW: It's basically that. It's basically about family reunification because we want our men back.
FEYERICK: Ninety percent of those in the Fathers Now program are ex-cons; not a requirement, just a reality.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So now you've got the registration done?
FEYERICK: Out of the 110 guys who applied last semester, only 32 graduated; the majority quit even before classes started.
(on camera): At what point does a man decide, enough. I want to start living my life in a positive way. The way you do, the way these other men are doing.
LESLIE: It's a different point for every person. You know every has -- hits bottom. And you have to know when your bottom comes. FEYERICK: For 23-year-old Steven Ziemlinski, an ex-Marine and now aspiring tattoo artist, it was when he found himself fleeing from police over what he thought was a suspended driver's license.
The course was a condition of probation.
STEVEN ZIEMLINSKI, PARTICIPANT, FATHERS NOW: It made me realize that a lot of people have -- are a lot worse off than I imagine myself having because I mean -- you put it in perspective.
FEYERICK: Steve's daughter became a star of the class, filled with men like Keith Harrell. After 30 years as a self described street thug, he now has a part-time job and is trying to be more of a dad to his 6 dads. Inspired by son Shaquan, now a college junior.
KEITH HARRELL, PARTICIPANT, FATHERS NOW: They're my reason for wanting to do better or focusing on doing better.
FEYERICK (on camera): Do you judge your dad for the kind of life he lived?
SHAQUAN BAKER, KEITH HARRELL'S SON: Not at all. I like to think that every mistake kind of makes you stronger.
FEYERICK: Do you ever see yourself going back to the life you were living?
HARRELL: No.
FEYERICK: Because why?
HARRELL: I have too much to lose.
FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Newark, New Jersey.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That does it for 360. Thanks for watching.
"LARRY KING" starts now.
