Complaint Claims Red Cross Changed Sandy Aid Eligibility

New York’s attorney general is investigating a claim that the American Red Cross froze out some potential recipients of Hurricane Sandy housing aid by changing eligibility guidelines midstream, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The Disaster Accountability Project, a Maryland-based charity watchdog, filed the complaint this month about the Red Cross’s Move-In Assistance Program, set up in December to provide repair or relocation grants for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the storm.

The watchdog group said internal Red Cross documents show the charity tightened eligibility rules for the program between January and May, squeezing out as many as 1,000 people who would have qualified previously.

Gail DeNicola, northeast vice president for the Red Cross, said the charity did not change the rules but found in an April review of the program that some caseworkers were incorrectly including people who were not eligible. “It is not that [the applicants] were no longer eligible—they were not eligible in the first place,” she said.