Rawstory: "Bureaucracy, Frustration, and A Life On Hold"

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http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/barton/bureaucracy_091605.htm

By Melinda Barton | RAW STORY COLUMNIST

Marskville, Louisiana. Garan's evacuee shelter. We are the lost people. The ones seemingly forgotten by the federal/international aid organizations and the media. All time seems distorted as the moments click slowly ever so slowly by. As news from elsewhere trumpets the assistance given to our family and friends in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, etc., we wait for what seems an interminable time for each small step towards reclaiming normal lives.

Information, so desperately needed at a time like this, is rare and usually false. Staff members are seldom able to answer our questions with anything but guesswork or blank stares.

The shelter ran for two weeks on local donations alone until the American Red Cross showed up a few days ago and took over. Most of those donations have been stored away in the back and still not released to the people who need them. Assistance with clothing and other necessities is doled out when and where the staff desires. Much has never been handed out as donor after donor is told to bring it to the back. The ARC brought with them a few bells and whistles, a lot of new regulations, and bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy. The art of doing the least amount possible as inefficiently as possible for the fewest number of people possible. Recently, the American Red Cross released a phone number where evacuees could get "immediate" financial assistance. With only two pay phones active, shelter residents have spent the last 3 days waiting in endless lines for a chance to call. When someone gets through, they pass the phone along. But since it takes about two to three hours to get through and hours more on hold before you can speak to a representative, only a handful of calls are actually going through a day. (The pay phones generally cut off after two people have had the chance to put in their claim.) Although many more phones are set up in the building, these are for staff use only. (Before the ARC, residents had been promised the use of the phones for calls to family and friends.)

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