“It’s the project syndrome — one neighborhood gets incredible resources, the next is in total limbo, or one camp gets rental subsidies, the next gets nothing,” said Maggie Stephenson, a senior technical adviser to U.N.-Habitat in Haiti. “We have to spread the remaining resources more equitably. Equity is essential, and so are durable solutions.”

A World Bank document estimates that more than $400 million in “large-scale permanent solutions” — new houses, home repairs and infrastructure reconstruction — are planned, under way and in a few cases completed.

To date, though, small-scale temporary solutions — transitional shelters, mostly in the countryside, and yearlong rental subsidies in the city — have soaked up a lot of the shelter reconstruction budget.

One-room transitional shelters dominated the international effort initially. T-shelters, as they are called, were intended to move people out of the camps while permanent housing was being built. But they took much longer to erect and cost far more than anticipated: at least $500 million for 125,000 shelters not built to last, said Priscilla M. Phelps, housing adviser to the now-defunct Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.

“They are mainly made up of wood, and, in this climate, they will be eaten by termites and rot in three to five years,” said H. Kit Miyamoto, a seismic engineer working in Haiti since the earthquake. “All the money spent on T-shelters will be melted away.”

At the same time, while more than 200,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, international aid has led to an estimated 15,000 repairs and 5,700 new, permanent homes so far. Most of the new houses are outside greater Port-au-Prince, where it was easier to obtain land, and some have yet to be occupied.

A high-profile project of 400 new houses in Zoranje, for instance, is still largely empty five months after President Michel Martelly cut the ribbon on it. About 25 families — all of government workers — had moved in by the end of July; the rest were delayed because the complex had not yet been connected to water.