By Jacqueline Charles

jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

For Islande Lima, the one-bedroom house that came with indoor plumbing and a second unfinished bedroom was supposed to be a fresh start, a chance to live in dignified housing after losing her home in Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

But soon after she moved into the newly constructed house just days before Christmas 2013, reality began to set in: The house was tiny; the windows easily flew off latches; the doorknobs wobbled.

“The houses weren’t well built,” said Lima, 33. “The doors, the windows — they aren’t good. The slightest wind and the windows fly off.”

The fading pastel-colored homes, inaugurated by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Haiti’s current and immediate past presidents nearly three years ago, were supposed symbolize the new Haiti, the centerpiece of restoration after one of the hemisphere’s worst natural disasters.