Sean Penn's Haiti charity receives $8.75 million

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — An aid group run by Hollywood actor Sean Penn announced Tuesday it is receiving $8.75 million from the World Bank to help move Haitians off of a golf course where many have been living since the January 2010 earthquake.

A statement from a public relations firm for Penn said that the money will go for rent subsidies or for new housing units.

Some 14,000 people still live at the Petionville Club in plywood shacks still living in the camp. Sixty thousand lived there at one point.

The people are to be moved out by early 2014.

Penn is an ambassador-at-large for Haiti. He uses the post to raise awareness about the nation still struggling to recover from the disaster.

Penn’s J/T Haitian Relief Organization took responsibility for the impromptu settlement a couple of months after the quake, which destroyed thousands of buildings.

The number of people displaced by the quake has dropped from a high of 1.5 million people to more than 347,000 now, according to the International Organization for Migration, an aid group that seeks to help people displaced by disaster and conflict.