Desperate Haitians began lining up well before dawn on Sunday for tarpaulins distributed to those left homeless by last month's earthquake, although many said they needed tents instead.
With the coming rainy season threatening to worsen already squalid conditions in makeshift camps across the capital, aid organizations have been seeking to distribute tarps for up to 1,500 families per day.
More than a million Haitians are homeless, but a month after the massive quake, UN officials said only about 50,000 families, or an estimated 272,000 people, have received emergency materials to build their own shelters.
"It's not enough," Germain Jeanscott, a 34-year-old father of two, said of the tarps. "Most families are in difficult situations."
Jeanscott was among the first in line to receive a tarp at a high school near the city center on Sunday, saying he arrived at 3:00 am. The distribution started at around 10:30 am.
Many homeless Haitians have asked for tents, but aid officials have decided to hand out the large water-resistant sheets instead, because they are more flexible and can be distributed more quickly.
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Aid groups are trying to quickly shelter as many people as possible in the wake of the January 12 quake that killed more than 200,000 people.
The UN's International Organization for Migration set up two sites in Port-au-Prince on Sunday to hand out materials to 1,200 families.
They included the distribution point near the city center and another in the Canape Vert neighborhood, both especially hard hit in the quake, with crumbled buildings, rubble covering the streets and families camped out all around.
To better organize the distributions, aid groups are now handing out coupons entitling families to receive the materials, which are guarded by UN troops.
Families are selected through neighborhood organizations and the Port-au-Prince mayor's office, while the items handed out include the tarpaulins, a bucket, kitchen materials and 12 liters of water.
At the city center site, long lines stretched on either side of the school's gate, with a number of people without coupons showing up anyway.
Before the distribution began, there was shouting and pushing at the front of the line, but no serious incidents. The women in line cheered when they were told they would go first.
At Canape Vert, Brice Kesnel, 42, waited in line patiently under the baking sun and explained how he escaped as his house collapsed. He was walking with his three-year-old boy when the quake hit.
"When I went into my bedroom, the earthquake started," he said.
He was able to run out, but rubble struck him on his arm, back and head. His three-year-old was not hurt. Kesnel now sleeps on the ground, as does his family, which also includes two other children aged 10 and 12, he said.
In front a heap of concrete that was once his house, Calixte Wilson, 59, has made a small shelter from a blue tarp and a mattress that sits atop concrete blocks.
In a slightly larger space belonging to a friend, he sat, with the arm he broke during the earthquake bandaged and in a sling.
"I lost four people from my family," he said.
