The Haitian government has stalled for weeks on plans to identify sites for the 1.2 million people left homeless by the disaster, according to the Associated Press. But the people aren't waiting.Many Haitians who have been left homeless are still able to work and are reluctant to leave areas where they have lived and worked. Rows of makeshift tents -- row upon row of corrugated tin and wood shacks -- have sprouted up in open fields, growing into shanty towns, with bakeries and even lottery stands.

People are staying in dangerous places: at the bottom of hillsides they know will collapse in a heavy rain (the rainy season begins at the end of March) or near riverbeds that are bound to flood. They are overcrowding into polluted areas where sanitation is limited and disease is already starting to spread. Officials will be handing out 250,000 tarps ahead of the rainy season, according to the AP.

Some 27,000 people are living in this new "neighborhood," according to Haitian Red Cross workers.

Is there a better short-term solution for the 1 million survivors left homeless? Better than providing survivors with 250,000 tarps?