A Citizen’s Voice By LAURA SASS

The Red Cross bleeding

The lines outside the Red Cross have been growing longer and longer since the Sept. 11 tragedy. At first glance, it seems like the expected group of people who have needed help because of the tragedies—the unemployed, the homeless, the families of victims and the injured—all line up to receive help.

Yet, if you look past the people to where the lines of limousines are parked down the block, you begin to realize one needy group of people you may have forgotten to add to the list: them.

As of the end of January, 2,000 to 3,000 limousine drivers have received checks ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. At the absolute minimum, aid given to limousine drivers amounts to $10,000,000.

What do limousine drivers have to do to prove they qualify for such aid? They only have to provide proof that their company had accounts near the World Trade Center and that they lost income as a result of the attacks. Apparently, the amount of money they have lost is not important, just that they no longer have.

With the recent recession, who has not? At least 2,000 drivers already have the tax-free checks in their pockets, and more line up outside the Red Cross every day to steal more money from those who actually need it.

The plan that the Red Cross came up with for the distribution of the money calls for $240 million for financial assistance, $80 million for long-term services and $25 million for immediate disaster relief. The rest of the money must go to people who actually need the aid, right? Not exactly.

Red Cross volunteers have been going door to door, trying to get rid of some of the money. One person whom the Red Cross visited “reluctantly” took $2,000 that she did not really need, after the Red Cross volunteers spent 20 minutes trying to convince her to take it. A spokeswoman for the Red Cross called it a “standard service.”

After the public outcry, when the Red Cross revealed that not all of the money raised for Sept. 11 victims was actually going to them, the Red Cross radically changed its tune. Instead of thoroughly checking out claims for aid, they are just giving money away to anybody who can prove that they were remotely affected by the tragedy. But who hasn’t been affected by Sept. 11?

There is a national recession and everybody needs money. Yet, most of us wouldn’t dream of applying for aid because of it. That money is supposed to be there for people who desperately need it, not just anybody who wants a few extra dollars.

Money has been pouring in from everywhere since the Sept. 11 attacks, so much that the Red Cross had to eventually stop accepting donations. People who could not really afford to donate money did anyway. It was a cause people strongly believed in, and they were willing to sacrifice to give what help they could offer. Look what their hard earned money is paying for now!

The Red Cross has seriously mismanaged this. First, they try to use money raised specifically for the tragedy for other things, and then they start just giving the money away. If they have that much excess money, they should give it to the city for rebuilding, or allot more money for those who actually need it.

No amount of money can replace their loss, but imagine how insulting it must feel, as a person who lost a loved one in the tragedy, to hear that a limousine driver received almost as much aid as you did.

There have been people who, although truly suffering as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks, have refused to take money, preferring to leave it to those in financial need. Then there are those who do not need the money at all, yet are willing to take anything that is offered to them.

It has been said again and again that this tragedy has brought out both the best and the worst Americans. This is certainly true of this issue of aid. How dare somebody who is not in need deprive those who are! How could anybody, after witnessing the horror of the attacks, try to take advantage of those in need? It is despicable.

The Red Cross may have mishandled this, but what they did was done with good intentions and a true zeal to help. At least, there was no greed in their motives. Those who willingly and callously take money that they are not entitled to away from those who are can only be called monsters.

As one gentleman who turned down the money offered to him by the Red Cross so proudly said, “I give money. I don’t take it.”