In another manifestation of desperate Haitian people losing hope, earthquake survivors are abandoning their children. Aid workers in Haiti believe that so many children, of all ages, and babies are being found alone outside of clinics, hospitals, orphanages and garbage heaps because hopeless parents believe the only chance for their children is to be "rescued" by aid agencies.

The catastrophic earthquake that left at least 1.3 million of Haiti's 9 million people homeless was the final push over the edge for families that could barely afford to feed their children before. A 4-day-old baby girl was left in a cardboard box outside a hospital. Toddlers are being found alone in hospital waiting rooms. Outside a private clinic, volunteers discovered a 3-year-old holding a bag of carefully-folded underwear.A note pinned to his shirt asked those who found him to look after him. Even before the magnitude-7 quake, poor parents left children at orphanages, where they would at least receive one meal a day.

Now the number of abandoned children has skyrocketed, said 37-year-old Tamara Palinka, who helped coordinate logistics at the University of Miami-run field hospital on the grounds of the airport.

"I personally talked a lot of mothers out of giving up their children," said Palinka, who cordoned off a space inside the field hospital's pediatric tent for abandoned children, including another toddler found crawling on a garbage heap. Source: Desperate parents abandon children in Haiti, Associated Press

Palinka hits at the heart of this crisis: Why is it that with all of the aid pouring in to Haiti, regular people are not seeing enough benefit to even have the hope needed to keep their children with them? Where is all the money going?

And the situation for Haitian earthquake victims is likely about to get worse.

As Wyclef Jean reminds us, Haiti's rainy season is here and about 1 million people are living in "tent cities" made only of cloth and plastic. They cannot keep dry.

"The season will last through July, and we could end up with some serious flooding. Our organization, Yéle Haiti, has been distributing tents, as have other organizations, but no matter how many people we help, some people are still living under sheets or in cardboard boxes. Nobody would really call that "shelter," and for basic human dignity, people need to live in a place that keeps the rain and wind out. They can't survive much longer like this. We have to do something fast." Source: Haiti needs shelter from the storm, Wyclef Jean, CNN via Newsone

Jean lays out Yele Haiti's effort to move earthquake survivors in to solid, temporary housing, but Jean's organization can only help a relatively few people. Unless safe housing is secured for the masses living in tent cities, it is unlikely that child abandonment will decrease anytime soon.