Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water. [...]
The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six.
After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to "develop brand-new communities." None has ever been built.
— propublica.org
22 Comments
Salary of Gail J. McGovern, President and CEO, American Red Cross: $1,037,000 (2010). Plus expenses, no doubt.
Best comment on that article at the PBS site:
P.T. Barnum's image should be on one side of the dollar bill and Eddie Bernays image on the other side.
So I had to look up Edward Bernays. From Wikipedia:
Bernays convinced industries that the news, not advertising, was the best medium to carry their message to an unsuspecting public.
...And now we're subject to "sponsored content" masquerading as news...
Wan't the quake in 2010? It's an absolute shame, it's right in our backyard here in the States, and we're not doing much of anything at all to help. Money without action means nothing, man, we've done nothing constructive (for good) in this world for some time haven't we?
Edit - Bernays was also responsible for the now ubiquitous bacon and eggs breakfast? Dude was scary...
Mr_Wiggin: Yes, the earthquake was in 2010, but Red Cross's initiatives began in 2011.
mmmm, bacon and eggs. The guy can't be all bad.
half a billion, they could have bought that 75000 ft.2 house in Beverly Hills...
Absolutely crazy! Who's accountable for this kind of thing?
Sad reality for architects that a non-profit with no building industry experience can supposedly squander millions as architectural nonprofits fall into bankruptcy (insert Architecture for Humanity - who actually provided a decent amount of service).
Maybe we need more bacon and eggs?
Here are the six houses the Red Cross built:
AFH is filing bankruptcy after raising $50 million.... No chump change there either.... That being said, billions more through other vehicles have been poured into Haiti... What a disgrace... Greed surfaces in the non profit world as rampantly as in the for profit one.
This article is a fucking hatchet job, and a disgrace. It's Glenn Beck journalism.
The only thing the article got right is that Red Cross raised more money than any other charitable organization. You know why? Because Red Cross is *a reputable organization that does good work in horrible circumstances*!
Anyone who has done disaster relief and rebuilding after a catastrophe knows that it's messy and complicated and if not rooted in a real understanding of the culture is likely to make things worse rather than better. It's easy to write a shocking article that misrepresents the facts.
Read this. Yes, six newbuild houses were built. Here is why, and here is what else was accomplished.
http://www.redcross.org/news/article/The-Real-Story-of-the-6-Homes-Answering-Questions-about-Haiti
The Red Cross also understated their director's salary buy 1/2 million. I'd prefer independent investigation over a blurb by the agency accused of malfeasance.
with the red cross, maybe a couple aristocrats making a million dollars could be cut out, and the volunteers who matter, and who make a difference, could get the resources they need to reach their potential.
I can so easily break down how this article is inflammatory and uses vague language to tell the story it wants to tell.
The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six.
"Provided homes" is intentionally misleading. Red Cross provided temporary shelter, rent assistance, and construction materials and training for people so they could live in acceptable shelter, frequently their own damaged home.
After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to "develop brand-new communities.” None has ever been built.
Because of land ownership issues that were nearly impossible to resolve, certainly not by an outside entity, and because Red Cross realized that new communities in far away locations were not what the people who actually live there need or want, they changed their focus from building new communities to providing services that would actually help.
Architects, especially USian architects, tend to think we can swoop in like a white knight on a horse and solve the problems of less-developed communities. It's a dangerously incorrect tactic. It sounds to me like Red Cross learned from mistakes on the ground and readjusted.
Sorry, but one more, as this is especially relevant to architecture:
The Red Cross said settling on a plan early would have been a mistake. “It would be hard to create the perfect plan from the beginning in a complicated place like Haiti,” it said. “But we also need to begin, so we create plans that are continually revised.”
We all know we have to design the building to understand how to design the building. Nothing ever comes out perfectly on the first try. Would it have been better for Red Cross to design a Brasilia-like new town miles outside of Port au Prince then follow through to completion even when they saw that it was a terrible idea? Revision is not failure. Continual revision is the nature of design.
Bernays ....Isn't the guy who also invented, "Flutter Butter" ?
Donna, ProPublica has a very good reputation and their article is backed up with internal emails and documents.
Maybe you would you have preferred a less inflammatory headline, like Red Cross Used Haiti Funds to Reduce Deficit, or Red Cross Refuses to Account for Spending?
NPR has a very good reputation; ProPublica has a definite agenda, one I usually agree with, but nonetheless I'm skeptical.
I'm not saying Red Cross doesn't use funds to support some of its own agendas. But in the scheme of things, Haiti is an incredibly, notoriously difficult place to work; the disaster was enormous, even by other natural disaster metrics; and Red Cross does incredibly helpful work in all kinds of communities all across the globe. One scandalous headline later, Red Cross is suddenly cast as an evil empire. It's blown totally out of proportion and tells less than half of the full story.
If people stop donating to Red Cross because of one poorly-presented case study it would impact thousands of people who need help, and those donors wills tart sending their money to real charlatans like the 40 Worst Charities.
Red Cross is a respectable organization overall.
My issue with charities in general, is that they are continually being relied upon to do the things governments should, and in most cases, are required to do. Our continued reliance on charitable organizations to be the go to, with zero oversight, is a fundamental problem. Fundamental.
Not as fundamental as the overriding problem of government failure to serve all citizens.
Abuse of non-profit's tax exempt status is rampant. Starting with churches.
Absolutely, but at least the power resides with us. Non Profits, power resides with a board of directors.
at least the power resides with us
When money = speech, those with the most money have the loudest voice.
You know that's not completely accurate, but yes, to a large degree.
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