Following the devastating magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the Red Cross raised $500 million to aid the Haitian people. It promised new homes with bathrooms and running water, new roads, health clinics, schools, you name it. On their website, they claim to have provided homes to over 130,000 people and to have helped 4.5 million people "get back on their feet.' Yet, as NPR is reporting, the Red Cross has actually built just six permanent homes. In fact, the claim that they have aided 4.5 million people is not even possible, according to Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti's former Prime Minister. "No, no, not possible. We don't have that population in the area affected by the earthquake," Bellerive said.
So what happened to the money? According to the Red Cross, the money was divided up among various sectors meant to provide disaster relief to the Haitian people. In actuality, much of the money was given to other, smaller, charities to do the actual hands-on work. Both the Red Cross and these other groups took administrative fees. Then Red Cross took what it called, "program costs incurred in managing." All in all, this wound up accounting for a third of the $500 million they raised.
The Red Cross told NPR that land titles and government requirements in Haiti made it difficult to build there, yet other charities have built 9,000 homes in the country. According to Lee Malany, the head of Red Cross's shelter program in Haiti, much of the leadership of the organization seemed more concerned with spending money on projects the provided good publicity, rather than projects which would have aided the Haitian people. And now, five years and six homes later, the American Red Cross is gearing up to leave the still-struggling country, handing things over to Haiti Red Cross.
