Insight: Red Cross response to Sandy fails to meet expectations

[xchrom]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/14/us-storm-sandy-redcross-idUSBRE8AD08E20121114


(Reuters) - Noreen Ellis begged the American Red Cross for help a few days after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the U.S. East Coast.

A 90-year-old bedbound woman living on Ellis's block needed to be moved from the Rockaways, an eight-mile long, narrow spit of land in New York City, to a shelter with heat and electricity.

"I said, 'This woman needs to be transported. Can you help?' And the Red Cross said, 'We don't do that,'" Ellis said.

She shot back: "What does the Red Cross do?"

[customerserviceguy]

1. I see a lot of post-Sandy related coverage on my local news

But I don't remember any stories involving anything the Red Cross has done. All I've heard of them in this time is that they're raising money with it.

[AsahinaKimi]

2. During the Tsunami and Earthquake in Japan

Many on DU suggested not to donate to the Red Cross.. I took that advice and donated to another organization. It seems that the majority of the funds collected by the Red Cross was not going to the people who needed help, but to those who run the organization. Another words, Salaries.

[lumpy]

3. The people that run Red Cross are paid quite well. This has been a problem with RC

for many years. For example, my sister had a small one person RC office in a small Calif. community in the 1950s. She was paid $400 month for approx. 80hrs work a month; the case load was practically nil; the only cases she handled were mostly military related and they were few and far between. I spent time with her often when she was at the office and never witnessed one client applying for help; the job primarily consisted of making weekly reports to RC. She admitted that there was no need for having a RC office in that community. Bear in mind in the 1950s I made a salary of $300 a month as a full time dental assistant.
The money donated to the Red Cross doesn't always get to the people who need it the most.