Patience wears thin with Canadian Red Cross as wait times for appointments and cash rise
The Canadian Red Cross has some Fort McMurray residents seeing red as they face long wait times and delays receiving cash.
"It's just frustrating being here," said Sam, outside the Red Cross's Fort McMurray office.
Sam won't give his last name but said he lost his job before the fire. During the wildfire evacuation he wasn't able to look for a job. Now rent's due and, he says, the Red Cross tells him he won't get any cash until the fall.
"And I know no landlord is going to give me until 20th of September. It's frustrating," he said.
Soukaina Oulfakr's house has smoke damage.
She said more than a month ago, the Red Cross promised her family money to replace mattresses and other furniture.
"We should get this in the first month that we came here. We need this so much," Oulfakr said.
Red Cross response
In an interview with CBC News, the Red Cross said it realizes that in the aftermath of disasters there's a lot of angst and frustration.
After an outpouring of support from around the country and matching donations from the federal government, the Red Cross raised $299 million for the victims of the Fort McMurray wildfire.
Representatives from the aid organization say they can't speak to specific situations, but said its Fort McMurray location is trying its best to deal with the high client volumes while trying not to burn out staff.
"They're hearing very intense stories of families and individuals and their realities," said Jenn McManus, vice president of the Canadian Red Cross in Alberta.
Since its initial response to the wildfire, McManus said her organization has made several changes, and is in the process of making more.
Some of the changes already made include:
- Opening a call centre where clients can book an appointment or highlight emergency housing needs.
- Moving from a first come, first serve system to an appointment system, so people aren't waiting around all day for service.
- "Triaging" or prioritizing the most serious cases.
- Plans to open a second location in Fort McMurray in the fall.
The Red Cross said it has also had some issues with transferring money to clients who didn't provide the correct details.
"We know that individuals and families gave us information under stress and an evacuation order," McManus said.
"We had some families that didn't give us the correct information. We were all working under extremely unprecedented circumstances."
But despite the promises from the Red Cross that they would be available to help those hit hardest by the wildfire rebuild their lives, Sam says he's thinking about leaving Fort McMurray.
"There's always this wall, this bureaucratic foolishness you got to go through or try to get around," he said. "It's hard."
