I definitely commend our efforts in aiding Haiti and giving releif in their time of need. There are already a countless numbers of charities and foundations from Hope for Haiti Now (which raised over $50 million last Friday) to Yele Haiti to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

When the earthquake hit on January 12, I was instantly bombarded with text messages telling me to text “Yele10″ to 501501 for $5. Then the day after, we were all told that if we texted “Haiti” to 90999 a $10 donation would go to the Red Cross and the charge would be placed on our next cell phone bills.

I know technology progresses in leaps and bounds each year, so in four years our technological advances have improved light years. In 2005, however, which was when Katrina broke down those levees in New Orleans, if we could text to save our favorite contestant on American Idol (where standard text messaging rates applied), why couldn’t we text to save our brothers and sisters?

This also made me wonder too… We saw the telethon for Katrina (remember Kanye’s famous “George Bush doesn’t care about black people?”), it too raised millions of dollars,  but fast forward to 2010. Things are nowhere near where they need to be.

We didn’t really help our people at all. Yes, people volunteered to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, but what’s the point of building houses when most residents didn’t come back? Housing was torn down but was never built back up in some areas. Schools closed, and hospitals never reopened. Who can live somewhere like that?

Where did the money go?

Now, we can try to make up for the emotional scarring and wrongdoing that was done in the city by helping Haiti, but how far is that money going to go?

Since Haiti was in disarray before the quake, I would have assumed that the donations brought in by Wyclef and his Yele Haiti Fund would have done wonders for the country (but with his funny money, I guess not).

I know things like this take time to rebuild, but with that amount of devastation who knows how long it will take. Will the money really go to good use this time? Or will our history of selfishness be destined to repeat itself?