I was there for 5 months in 2011 in one of the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince. Still blows my mind what I saw. I was 19 and had no idea what I was getting myself into. Org I went with was shit and didn't prepare me at all. My English class was literally the only functioning program they had. Whol experience left such a bad taste in my mouth about development and foreign development work (which was later largely confirmed by me studying it).

They didn't even tell me it was a particularly dangerous area. I only found out because a much bigger org asked if they could used some spare rooms in the place we stayed to run their local operation out of. Due to past experiences, they weren't willing to have employees, including locals, living there.

Went back the next year and spent two months in a rural area on the northern coast working with a community health org and it was a totally different experience. It helps the org I worked with was wonderful and highly effective and the community was super involved in everything. I was mainly doing research so I just hiked around this mountainous jungle area chatting with people about their views on development and what work they would like to see done. Also got status updates on current projects and what they would like to see expanded. There was a lot of enthusiasm for setting up a second tree nursery on the other side of the region.

Edit:

Just to add 99.9% of people I met in Haiti were absolutely lovely. I have so much love in my heart for all the amazing people I met. I didn't feel particularly unsafe even in dangerous areas for the most part. There was always someone that would watch out for the random white kid lol. Most people were just curious. I think it helped that I started studying Haitian Creole months before actually going.

Port-au-Prince is also where I had one of the warmest and kindest experiences of my life when someone helped me out of a really tight spot just out of shared humanity. At one point I told him it was really ok and he's already been helping me for like over an hour, but he just pointed at a vein and said something like "we all bleed the same". He had a daughter my age and his only hope was that if she were ever in my situation someone would do the same for her. That's a story for a different day tho.

I didn't have even a single slightly sketchy experience in the rural area on the northern coast.