Distribution of Aid to Attack Victims Delayed

Less than 15% of the more than $1 billion sent to relief organizations after the World Trade Center attacks has been given to victims, and it could be months before the lion’s share is distributed, according to officials coordinating the work of more than 200 charities.

A key reason for the delay is that government and charitable organizations are struggling to construct a database listing thousands of victims and their needs, so relief agencies can pinpoint them and avoid duplicating efforts. There are also lingering disagreements over how to best distribute the money and speed up the application process.

Although work on the database is expected to be finished this year, it has raised troubling issues. Protecting victims’ privacy is a major concern, because many people may not want government or charities prying into their lives.

“If I’m Mr. Smith, I might want relief groups to know that I need help with my mortgage,” said Scott Gold, a spokesman for New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, who spearheaded the effort to create the database. “But I may not want them to know that I have a need for mental health counseling.”

Other victims may be reluctant to register with such a database, fearing their undocumented status might be discovered and used against them by law enforcement. “It’s a very sensitive process we’re going through, but without it you’d have chaos,” Gold said.

Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, there has been mounting pressure to speed up distribution of the charitable donations to victims. Relief organizations have defined victims in the broadest sense, including those who lost loved ones as well as those who lost jobs and housing or were traumatized.

About $1.4 billion has been raised overall. Of the 29 most prominent organizations, only 11 have given money to victims, amounting to $204 million, according to a survey released last week by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication that tracks charitable donations. The two largest distributions have been made by the American Red Cross ($153.8 million) and the Sept. 11 Fund ($34.4 million), which is an amalgam of the United Way of New York City and the New York Community Trust, according to the weekly report.

Critics have pointed to the experience of Oklahoma City, which quickly distributed $45 million to the families of 168 victims six years ago. Key players in the New York relief effort say they are grappling with a problem of far greater scale. And they suggest the issue is not how fast the money gets distributed, but whether charities pinpoint long-term needs of families and reserve funds to deal with them later.

There are three categories of relief money available for World Trade Center victims. They include funds from existing government and private-sector programs, such as workers’ compensation and insurance funds; a $15-billion fund created by Congress to compensate victims of the terrorist attacks; and the money received in private charitable donations.

All of this dwarfs the funds that poured in after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, but that city offers an important lesson for New York: Six years later, a specially created agency coordinating charitable relief there is providing mental health counseling services for victims.

“Here in New York, we have more charitable organizations offering money than there were victims in Oklahoma City,” said Joshua Gotbaum, chief executive of the Sept. 11 Fund. “We have to worry about people’s long-term and short-term needs. And that’s just one more reason why it’s crucial to have a database that identifies thousands of people and how we can meet their needs.”

Spitzer, who regulates all charities doing business in New York state, began pushing to create the database soon after the attacks. He pledged his office would not have access to the data, hoping to allay concerns that law enforcement might use the information to harass recipients. He also said the task of creating the huge information bank would be handled pro bono by several computer firms, including McKinsey & Co., IBM, SilverStream Software, Qwest Communications and KPMG.

The need for the database was underscored during recent congressional hearings, when Russa Steiner--a New Hope, Pa., widow of a World Trade Center victim--told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee about her experiences attempting to get financial relief. She traveled to a New York relief center and spent much of one day going from one organization to the next, filling out complicated forms, explaining what had happened to her husband and asking for help.

“She was escorted from trailer to trailer where she would wait in line to talk to someone to schedule an appointment,” said her attorney, Robert Baldi. “She then went to the next trailer to wait in line to talk to someone to schedule another appointment, and ultimately returned to various trailers to meet with representatives and retell the story over and over again.”

It has been an infuriating experience for many victims, and Gotbaum said a key goal of the database will be to establish a universal application form. If the information bank is properly designed, he said, the charities would be contacting people and offering them aid.

“They’d call up an applicant and say, ‘We understand you have children who will be going to college and we want to offer them scholarships, so how can we help you?’ ” Gold said. “This is the goal we’re all working toward.”

But bureaucratic obstacles remain. Fourteen large charities have formed a group to create the database. Most believe in the concept of a universal application form, yet they are not close to agreeing on a format, said a computer expert who has been working with them to get the database up and running.

“It is not a very efficient process,” said the expert, who asked not to be identified. “We could move quickly and respond to political pressure and create something, but the charities might not buy into it. So you’d still have a problem with distributing money and it would be a waste of time.”

Moreover, there are concerns that some companies might improperly gain access to the data. If a brokerage firm learned the identity of victims who got large payments, and then approached them with investment deals, “that would be a real violation,” said historian Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Philanthropy Center at City University of New York.

“There has never been anything quite like this in American history, and we can’t begin to know what New York’s long-term needs are going to be,” she said. “We want to give out the money quickly, but also responsibly.”