HAITI SEISME / CROIX-ROUGE / AIDE

RED CROSS CRITICIZED FOR HAITI RELIEF EFFORTS

Millions Of Dollars Poured Into Red Cross To Help Earthquake Victims; Protesters Say Only A Third Of Money Has Been Spent In Haiti.

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Who can forget the dramatic pictures and sounds of rescue from Haiti? It's been only seven months since the massive earthquake devastated the country. Within hours of the quake, millions of dollars poured in to help. Now, a Chicago group wants to know what happened to all that money.

CBS 2's Jim Williams reports they are very critical of the American Red Cross.

About 25 protesters went right to the Red Cross office in Chicago at 2200 W. Harrison, and draped a sheet over tree branches to symbolize tents, still the only shelter for millions in Haiti.

"We feel this is outrageous," said Toussaint Losier, a Haitian-American leader of the protesters.

They say the Red Cross has collected more than $465 million specifically for earthquake relief in Haiti, but only a third of the money has been spent there.

"This is a humanitarian crisis that's been allowed to continue and allowed to fester because people are not taking the situation seriously," said Losier.

He has been to Haiti since the earthquake and has family there.

"You can hear that folks are not just in desperate, some say inhumane circumstances, but they're really distressed because they don't know what the future for them is," said Losier.

"You have small tents on the ground and when it rains, the people stand up because the water goes under the tent and they get flooded sometimes," said Aline Lauture, a protester.

Some of the criticism Tuesday was especially angry.

"The American Red Cross seems to be much faster in spending money on five figure salaries, hotels, car rentals, air-conditioned offices for its staff, instead of spending the money for real people with real needs on the ground," said Alie Kabba of the United African Organization.

The Chicago Red Cross office did not duck the criticism.

Spokeswoman Martha Carlos came outside and addressed their concerns. She called the spending of only a third of the donations "wise", insisting the Red Cross is trying to make a long-term commitment that will sustain Haiti long after the relief agencies are gone.

"We want to not just give a bottle of water, we want to focus on building water treatment systems," said Carlos.

That kind of effort, she argued, takes time. The Red Cross says it welcomes scrutiny of how it spends money.

The protesters there Tuesday said they plan to sit down with Red Cross officials.

For more information on the Red Cross, and how it spends money for Haiti relief, click here.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/haiti.relief.earthquake.2.1877254.html