The organization says it will spend all the money on the recovery, but others question why it wasn't used earlier.
Seven months after Superstorm Sandy, the Red Cross still hasn’t spent more than a third of the $303 million it raised to assist victims of the storm, a strategy the organization says will help address needs that weren’t immediately apparent in the disaster’s wake.
Some disaster relief experts say that’s smart planning. But others question whether the Red Cross, an organization best known for rushing into disasters to distribute food and get people into shelter, should have acted with more urgency in the weeks after the storm and left long-haul recovery tasks to someone else.
“The Red Cross has never been a recovery operation. Their responsibility has always been mass care,” said Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that monitors aid groups. “Stick with what you’re good at.”
Storm victims could have used more help this past winter, said Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York.
“People were cold. Homes mildewed. There wasn’t enough decent housing,” she said. “Given the lingering despair, it’s hard to understand the argument that ‘We are setting that money aside.’”
As Americans open their wallets to assist tornado victims in Oklahoma, the Red Cross is again emerging as one of the most important relief organizations on the ground and also one of the most prodigious fundraisers for victims. As of Thursday, it had raised approximately $15 million in donations and pledges for the tornado response, including a $1 million gift from NBA star Kevin Durant and numerous $10 donations, pledged via text.
The Red Cross was also the No. 1 recipient of donations after Sandy. As of mid-April, the organization said it still had $110 million remaining from its pool of storm donations.
Red Cross officials pledged that all the money in its Sandy fund will eventually be spent on the storm recovery and not diverted to other disasters or used to support general Red Cross operations.
Move-in expenses to be covered
Over the next few months, the Red Cross expects to spend as much as $27 million of its remaining Sandy donations on a program providing “move-in assistance” grants of up to $10,000 to families displaced by the storm. About 2,000 households have been assisted by the program so far, with an additional 4,000 waiting for an eligibility determination.
Part of the delay in spending, officials said, is to wait to see how the hardest-hit states allocate a $60 billion pot of federal relief dollars and address gaps in the government aid package.
“We are waiting to see where the greatest need is going to be over time,” said Josh Lockwood, CEO of the Red Cross Greater New York Region. “We are more concerned with spending our resources wisely rather than quickly.”