Did Redcross Throw Away Extra Donation Items During Hurricane Harvey Clean Up

[Editor's note: After this story was first published, ProPublica obtained emails from emergency management officials in Texas criticizing the Red Cantankerous for its response to Hurricane Harvey, alleging that the relief group had failed to communicate well with local officials, not deliver ed promised supplies and resource, and been understaffed and underprepared when they arrived in the state .]

The easiest affair to exercise after a disaster strikes is to make a quick donation to the Red Cross. Millions of the states take washed it: Yous send a text, contribute $10 or $20, and imagine you've washed a proficient human action.

But in an commodity final calendar week for Slate, journalist Jonathan Katz urged readers to end doing that. Katz, who was the Associated Printing's agency main in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake (and later on wrote a volume most it), argued that the Ruby-red Cross "has proven itself unequal to the task of massive disaster relief."

The problem, equally Katz sees it, is that the Red Cross is a dysfunctional organization that excels at raising money only has shown little evidence of its ability to spend that money wisely or meaningfully. The Ruddy Cross takes in close to 3 billion annually, refuses to open its books to the public, and, co-ordinate to Katz, has consistently failed to produce a useful breakdown of its spending after major disaster efforts.

They're also limited in terms of what they can do on the basis. The Blood-red Cross isn't a development organization — they don't rebuild schools or hospitals or infrastructure. They provide curt-term relief — cots for people to sleep on, blankets to go on them warm, hygiene kits, etc. This kind of work is important, Katz says, but it doesn't justify the enormous sums of coin the Cherry Cantankerous solicits from the public.

I reached out to Katz and asked him why we should exist more skeptical most the Cerise Cantankerous, why the model of disaster relief they represent is broken, and what individual citizens can do if they actually desire to help.

He told me that Blood-red Cross perpetuates a tendency nosotros all have to encounter disasters every bit opportunities for charity. Every bit a event, we spend far less fourth dimension thinking virtually how to prevent disasters in the first place. "Information technology's always about relief, ever about helping people later on it's too late," Katz said.

"No one makes the world a worse place when they donate to the Red Cantankerous," Katz told me, "simply if they do donate and presume that's plenty, we'll keep repeating this cycle over and over once more."

Soon later this slice was published, the Red Cross responded with a statement that said, in role, that information technology had received "the highest ratings for accountability and transparency from contained non-profit watchdogs like Clemency Navigator and the BBB Wise Giving Alliance." The organization added that "Disasters by their nature are chaotic, and that means there always will be bug and some things that go wrong. That'due south the reality in a disaster zone — not failure." Their full response is below.

My conversation with Katz, lightly edited for clarity, follows.

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Sean Illing

It'south not everyday someone makes the case against the Ruby-red Cantankerous. Have you received a lot of blowback?

Jonathan Katz

Emotionally, this is powerful stuff. We're talking almost life and decease. Disasters present a unique opportunity for people to demonstrate virtue — it'due south an opportunity to exist dauntless, to be charitable, to be empathetic. Giving coin to disaster relief organization like the Ruddy Cross is an emotional human activity, which is asymmetric to the amount of money you give. You ship over your $x and information technology feels like a significant deed. And I can chronicle to that. I'm sure you can, too.

Only that'due south all the more reason to be thoughtful about what we do and why. We shouldn't reflexively ship $ten to the Cerise Cross and and then walk away feeling as though we've made a difference. The truth is that we probably didn't, and it helps no i to imagine otherwise.

Sean Illing

You used the phrase "make a departure," and that'due south exactly what the Red Cantankerous website tells people who visit it: Click here to donate to Hurricane Harvey victims and you tin "make a difference." Is that true? Does donating to the Red Cross in moments like this make a deviation?

Jonathan Katz

Not really. Their use of language like that is role of the problem. What other financial transactions promise you that you lot're "making a departure" or irresolute the world? Simply that's a large part of their sell. There are two bug hither. I is that the Crimson Cantankerous is a dysfunctional arrangement. The 2d problem is that disaster relief in general is a much bigger and a much different problem than the one people are solving when they transport a single donation in the wake of a detail disaster.

Sean Illing

Can yous expound a chip on that 2nd trouble?

Jonathan Katz

Sure. A question similar "Does it make a difference?" is hard to answer. I of the things I've learned in roofing disasters for more than a decade is that y'all have to take this conversation out of the realm of vaguely saving lives or vaguely making a difference. And we can't talk about good intentions either, because intentions don't amount to much. Instead, we accept to exist very practical about what is needed, what is existence proposed, what is beingness done with the resources available, and who'due south being held accountable for all of information technology.

So a lot depends on what yous're trying to exercise. If the departure you're trying to make is to pay for cots, then you demand to suspension down what the most constructive way to do that is. The same is true of brusk-term food relief. In some cases, the Red Cross is fairly good at these sorts of things. They're very skillful at handing out blankets. They're very adept at getting their logo in the middle of every shot of a disaster scene.

Simply there are many, many other things that have to exist washed, both afterward a disaster strikes and before it strikes in terms of run a risk prevention, and the Red Cross doesn't assist with that.

Evacuees make full up cots at the George Chocolate-brown Convention Middle that has been turned into a shelter run by the American Red Cross to firm victims of the high water from Hurricane Harvey on August 28, 2017 in Houston, Texas.

Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images

Sean Illing

Well allow'south become specific. What is that the Ruddy Cross doesn't practice well? Why should people think twice before sending their money?

Jonathan Katz

What the Crimson Cross does well is position very brusk-term relief in certain kinds of situations. They're ameliorate at information technology in a very pocket-size disaster, where basic logistical networks aren't being affected. So if there'due south a single business firm fire or something like that, they can be effective. But in terms of broader disaster relief, they really don't practice much apart from raising money.

So in Haiti, for example, where I worked, this was a big outcome. The Cerise Cantankerous raised tons of coin but had no idea what to exercise with it, or how to go far work for the people who needed it. They raised something like one-half a billion dollars and they had no way to spend it. They did not accept half a billion dollars' worth of things to do. And then in a situation like that, specially in an overseas disaster, all of that was a complete waste. Almost all of that money could have been better spent somewhere else.

Sean Illing

So what happened to all that money?

Jonathan Katz

It still hasn't been spent. After all these years, they still don't know what to do with it. They spent some of it on brusque-term relief, and they basically regifted information technology to other organizations — after taking their nine percent cut, of course. The much bigger result is that this is merely a terrible fashion to exercise disaster relief in general. The entire system is cleaved, and the American Blood-red Cantankerous specifically just happens to exist the biggest make name in that mess.

But when you tell people not to transport their money to the Cerise Cross, they get frustrated considering there isn't an obvious culling. It'due south non entirely clear what the best thing to exercise is.

Sean Illing

That's definitely part of the problem here. You lot argue that we're framing this issue in the wrong manner, that we've got to think differently about disaster relief. Considering the truth is that we should be thinking almost how to prevent disasters or virtually how to mitigate their effects, every bit opposed to waiting for something terrible to happen and then throwing money at it.

Jonathan Katz

That'due south right. The fact is, there'south very niggling that we can actually practice from the sidelines. You tin can't brand the rain go abroad, you can't make the water go away, yous can't bring back the people who accept died, you lot can't bring back the things that have been lost.

Part of the problem with the model that the Red Cross perpetuates is that information technology gets people in the habit of seeing disasters as opportunities for charity, and as unavoidable acts of God or something similar that. So these awful things happen, no could accept seen it coming, and now we all get to be proficient people by contributing a few bucks from afar.

This is a terrible way to remember about disaster. It has resulted in untold tragedy all over the globe, and we have to break that wheel. It's a very difficult thing to practise considering it requires that nosotros recall about something in an entirely different way.

Jamaal Crocket, 2 years old, waits in line with others to enter a Ruddy Cantankerous supply center November 23, 2005, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Sean Illing

What does that hateful? How should we think about this?

Jonathan Katz

We don't spend nearly plenty fourth dimension worrying nearly disaster prevention. It's always about relief, ever about helping people after it's besides late.

All those millions of dollars given to the Red Cross after a disaster strikes could have been spent on the structure of improve, safer buildings that are less likely to exist destroyed in a storm or an earthquake. It could've been spent on better flood protection, on better levees. Information technology could've been spent on creating better systems and infrastructure and grooming more start responders then that we're more prepared. It could've been spent on building an environment less decumbent to disaster in the first place.

None of this is the Red Cross'south mistake. They heighten coin, and they're very expert at it. That's what they do. As long as people give them money they volition keep to be good at that. It's not like the American Red Cross is putting a gun to people's heads and saying, "Don't ready for disasters so that you can keep giving united states of america money whenever they strike."

Only they happen to exist the biggest brand name in this world, and people turn to them when in that location aren't enough of these systems in place, so they give a little coin and feel expert about themselves and get back to not caring virtually their ain communities or the community they're helping. That has to stop. If we care about actually reducing suffering, this has to terminate.

Sean Illing

I accept all those points, but where does that go out united states of america? What can or should the average person practise if they want to help? Should they ship fabric goods like food or clothes to local organizations instead? Should they volunteer or send cash?

Jonathan Katz

I of the worst things you lot can do is just send stuff into a disaster zone. This is another thing we see in disaster after disaster: people hurriedly send old apparel, canned food, and toys, and no one has any idea what happens to that stuff. If you're compelled to give, ever requite greenbacks.

Sean Illing

Requite cash to who? Not the Red Cross, obviously.

Jonathan Katz

No, definitely not the Red Cross. Ultimately, you want this coin to end up in the hands of the people who virtually need it. How to do that is going to vary from disaster to disaster, location to location. But more often than not speaking, working with people rooted in these communities is a much more constructive fashion to get.

The Red Cross can do a lot of things, but they won't aid the people in Houston who are going to need coin to restart their lives, their businesses, their incomes. That is not a state of affairs that a cot or a hygiene kit or a nice volunteer with a warm cup of coffee can set. Those people are going to demand money. A lot of that is going to take to come up through alluvion insurance, a lot of that is going to accept to come from the federal government, or the state regime. That is an opportunity for people to give.

What won't do much adept is having millions of individuals scattered across the country brand individual contributions to the nigh visible organization they know: the Blood-red Cross. Because in 3 months or six months or a year, we'll first seeing all these stories asking where they money went? And no one will have whatever idea. I've been roofing disasters for a long fourth dimension, and information technology almost always plays out that way. And we'll realize, even so again, that our good intentions and our coin was largely squandered.

Sean Illing

Six months from at present, when we're writing and reading stories most Houston after Harvey, is this what you expect to see?

Jonathan Katz

I promise non, merely yeah. The chat volition be about how we got into this mess and what nosotros can practise side by side time to forestall it. And the answer will be what it always is: "Prepare well in advance. Think most these things well in advance, and when the disaster strikes, have a consummate unlike style of doing it." Then we don't modify, and then disaster strikes once again and the whole bicycle starts over once more.

All you have to do is only look at the after-activeness stories from Hurricane Sandy, from Hurricane Katrina, from the floods in Louisiana last yr and see. Yous tin basically take those, change the particulars of the disaster zone that you lot're talking about, and utilise the same story to describe Houston.

Haitian Scarlet Cross workers make clean out latrines in the Route de Piste army camp, a former landing strip that has become a tent village, February 19, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Republic of haiti.

Photo past Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sean Illing

You suggested before that the Red Cross is not simply limited in terms of what information technology can practise on the ground but that it's also a dysfunctional organization. How so?

Jonathan Katz

If y'all read the investigative work that Pro Publica has washed nigh the Red Cross and their actions after the Haitian earthquake, after Hurricane Sandy, later the Louisiana floods last twelvemonth, and many other disasters, y'all see the same design. The Red Cantankerous leadership has misled Congress and resisted oversight at every step. They don't open up their books, they're not transparent, and they only release details afterward they've been publicly shamed.

Sean Illing

The Red Cross generates more than $ii.half dozen billion every year. Do we have any idea what they exercise with that money?

Jonathan Katz

No. And considering their brand name is so potent, they get away with information technology.

Sean Illing

The recovery effort is simply showtime in Texas. We're facing potentially some other catastrophic storm afterward this week. If people desire to donate strategically, who should they listen to? How will they know where to turn if not the Ruddy Cross?

Jonathan Katz

It's an important question. The all-time thing to do is to listen to people who are actually living there. Especially the voices of people who we might not otherwise listen to. Not simply what the mayor has to say, but what the people from the poorer part of towns who are getting pushed out of their homes, or who have been through repeated disasters at present, and can't take one more. Pay attention to what they're proverb and think strategically about how best to help them.

Texting Red Cantankerous is easy and quick but it won't accomplish much. There are plenty of people who can't help or who don't want to aid, simply if you actually care about making a deviation, realize first that there are limitations and then consider carefully your options. No one makes the world a worse place when they donate to the Crimson Cross, but if they do donate and assume that'southward plenty, we'll continue repeating this bicycle over and over over again.

Below is the full statement we received from the Cherry-red Cross in response to this article:

First, permit me say that the American Red Cross agrees that disaster mitigation and preparedness play incredibly important roles in alleviating homo suffering. Disaster preparedness is central to keeping people safe and mitigating the effects of weather and health emergencies. That's why nosotros teach people outset aid across the United states, invest in disaster preparedness tools similar Red Cross mobile apps—which sent more than xx million hurricane and inundation alerts the terminal week of August—establish mangrove and casuarina trees to mitigate the effects of storm surges in Indonesia, and dig drainage ditches in Haiti to forestall flooding. Nosotros make investments in disaster mitigation, only know from experience that donations in the midst of disaster are critical, besides. People forced to leave their homes need help immediately—similar a roof over their heads, a meal in the easily, and a nurse to address medical needs.

The American Cherry-red Cross has well over a century of experience responding to large scale disasters. Whether responding to the 1889 Johnstown flood or last year's massive flooding in Louisiana, the American Crimson Cross has the expertise, systems, logistics, and both human and fiscal resources to rapidly scale up and provide needed assist to hundreds of thousands of people. Disaster relief and recovery is a team effort. Massive disasters like Hurricane Harvey create more needs than any one organization can handle. Some organizations—like the Cherry Cantankerous—are able to help shelter tens of thousands of people because of our size and scale. Other assistance agencies are best suited to focus more on individual needs in specific areas. We work with various non-profits—big and small—during disasters to avoid duplication of effort and ensure that gaps are filled. We encourage people to donate to the charity of their selection—but please do donate considering the need is great.

People give to the Red Cantankerous in the midst of disasters to convalesce suffering and that'southward exactly what their donations take washed. The Cerise Cross and our donors should be proud of how their donations have been utilized to help save lives and back up people during large-scale disasters. In the instance of Hurricane Harvey, this includes sheltering, feeding, and tending to the mental health and health needs of tens of thousands of people.

Americans work hard for their coin, and we believe they deserve a detailed accounting of how their donations are being used. In the midst of disasters, we keep the media and donors up-to-date via our website, social media accounts, and by giving interviews to news outlets. In one case the immediate disaster is over, we e'er publish detailed updates on redcross.org about how the funds are spent and committed. We are yet in the midst of Hurricane Harvey relief and our first priority is getting people the assist they demand—right at present—like shelter and food. Donation totals are literally changing past the hour, but we programme on releasing preliminary figures this week.

We receive the highest ratings for accountability and transparency from contained non-profit watchdogs similar Charity Navigator and the BBB Wise Giving Brotherhood. In fact, we believe we prepare a new standard for transparency for the non-profit sector when we released a consummate financial breakdown of the $488 million we received for Haiti convulsion relief, hither:http://www.redcross.org/nearly-u.s.a./our-work/international-services/haiti-assistance-plan/donations-at-work. This stands in stark contrast to the statement in the Slate commodity that, "[The American Cherry Cross] has never produced a meaningful breakdown of its spending after the Haiti earthquake." Donors should be incredibly proud of our work in Haiti, which includes investing in more than 50 hospitals and clinics, helping more than 143,000 people through safe housing and neighborhood recovery, and even helping to construct the state's first wastewater handling constitute. While your piece and the Slate article imply that we only handed out tarps and hygiene kits, information technology fails to account for our incredible accomplishments, like providing 70% of the funds needed for the Republic of haiti's offset cholera vaccine; investing $5.5 million to help construct Mirebalais University Hospital; or the $10 meg nosotros provided to help build the new hospital in Jacmel. These interventions salvage lives and they're a direct result of Americans' generosity in the backwash of the convulse.

Disasters past their nature are cluttered, and that ways in that location e'er will be issues and some things that go wrong. That's reality in a disaster zone – non failure. But we work to fulfill our mission no matter the challenges, and we e'er strive to exercise the right thing.

Source: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/9/6/16255044/red-cross-houston-hurricane-harvey-irma-interview

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