Tragedies of Past Offer a Guide as Newtown Aid Goes Unspent

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/nyregion/views-diverge-on-dispersal-of-newtown-aid.html

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NEWTOWN, Conn. — Almost as soon as the shooting stopped, the aid began. It came from groups large and small, established and impromptu.

Three months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, more than 40 organizations have raised roughly $15 million to help families of the victims, traumatized children and those who were first on the scene, create memorials and even, perhaps, help rebuild the school.

Now, with almost all the money still unspent, sharply differing views are emerging over what exactly should be done with it.

The bulk of the money, $10.2 million, was donated to the United Way of Western Connecticut, and has been transferred to a local foundation that will decide who should receive it and when, and how much should be set aside for community needs like counseling and long-term issues.

But this weekend, 50 parents and family members directly affected by mass tragedies, including those that occurred at Aurora, Columbine, the World Trade Center and Virginia Tech, issued a statement saying that in the past, charities had failed to distribute aid to those most in need, and that, unless donated for specific purposes, funds raised for Newtown should be sent directly to victims and victims’ families. A separate statement, signed by those family members and 14 more from Newtown, said that this should become the national model for future tragedies.

Both United Way and local officials say their mandate is to serve an array of different if unequal needs, from helping families who lost children to providing mental health care for the hundreds of traumatized children who survived.

“From this point on, virtually every substantive decision is guaranteed to displease someone,” said William Rodgers, Newtown’s second selectman and a nonvoting director of the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation, which was set up to disburse the $10.2 million. “That’s the one thing we were uniformly told by people at all the tragedy sites like Columbine and Aurora that we consulted. To a person, they all said, ‘You need thick-skinned people, because this will be a thankless job.’ ”

Some family members said they were concerned that donated money could benefit existing charities and extraneous causes more than victims. Their worries echo those heard after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when the Red Cross, after widespread criticism, announced that it would spend its entire Liberty Disaster Fund, more than $500 million, on people affected by the attacks, rather than keeping some of it in reserve for responding to future attacks and other needs.

Cristina Hassinger, the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal, Dawn Hochsprung, who was one of the 6 educators killed along with 20 children at the school on Dec. 14, said that the donated money was meant for victims and their families and should go directly to them.

“I feel as though the United Way has been kind of stringing us along while they send the money to where they want it to go,” she said. “At first I thought maybe I was a little crazy thinking this, but everything I’ve learned about other tragedies has confirmed that this is a pattern where large nonprofits step up after a tragedy and then take the money and do with it what they please.”

Kim Morgan, chief executive officer of the United Way of Western Connecticut, said donors had the option of contributing to other funds set aside for those who lost family members or for other victims. But she said the main fund was intentionally unrestricted, so that local residents could decide how best to allocate it. She and others involved with relief efforts say a consistent lesson from past disasters has been how long-lived and far-reaching the effects can be.

“The real tension is balancing the time required to be thoughtful and getting the money out as quickly as possible,” said Richard Audsley, a retired United Way executive who has consulted on numerous mass shootings since 1999, including those at Columbine, Virginia Tech and Aurora. He said potential long-term impacts on individuals included substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, depression, divorce and more. He advised Newtown to “stand tall in the face of public and media pressure to distribute the money as quickly as possible.”

In the wake of the tragedy, individuals and groups have stepped forward in so many ways that bringing some coordination to the myriad relief efforts is another challenge.

The Newtown Memorial Fund has raised $1.3 million to assist, over the long term, the 26 families of the dead, the two adults who were wounded, the 12 children who witnessed and escaped the carnage, those who responded first and others directly affected, and to create long-term scholarship and memorial giving. My Sandy Hook Family, another charity, has raised almost $1.5 million solely for the 26 families, and has enlisted a network of volunteers to cook meals, shovel driveways, provide counseling and help families in whatever ways are possible.

The local Rotary and Lions Clubs have raised money for various recovery and mental health needs. The biggest participant is the United Way, which says that the money raised has been deemed exempt from all management expenses.

There are many smaller funds, honoring many of the dead, especially the children, like an animal sanctuary in honor of Catherine Hubbard, a fund promoting acts of kindness in honor of Charlotte Bacon and another supporting children with autism in honor of Dylan Hockley.

Connecticut has created the Sandy Hook Workers Assistance Fund, to be supported through private donations, to help volunteer and professional workers, including those who were first on the scene, suffering from mental health issues resulting from the shootings.

Many families say they are awed by the outpouring of support.

“In a chaotic situation like this, we’re lucky that things are working as well as they are, and I really do believe they’re working,” said David Wheeler, whose son Benjamin was killed at Sandy Hook.

But the welter of different groups can be confusing and redundant.

Rob Accomando, who founded My Sandy Hook Family, said his group had begun distributing checks for roughly $47,000 to each of the 26 families. But he said too many groups stepping on one another’s toes was not the best way to proceed.

“All the funds need to listen to what the families say they need,” he said. “They don’t need 30 people coming to their door. People are well intentioned, but that does not give them a license to be dumb.”

Similarly, Ms. Morgan, of the United Way, said a goal now was to create a structure that ensures that “the puzzle pieces are put together in the best way.”

She said: “Is it ideal to have 40 funds? I don’t think so. I think it’s confusing and difficult to navigate, but that’s what we have at the moment.”

One possible way to improve coordination would be to include some groups under the umbrella of the foundation. She said it would be controlled by local residents, not the United Way. Its board would be composed of five local civic and religious leaders. Spending decisions would be made by appointed distribution committees.

But Mr. Accomando said that after speaking with more than 60 victims’ families across 20 years of mass tragedies he was convinced that the real risk is that money will just trickle through organizations rather than going to families. And Scott Larimer, whose son, John, was killed in the Aurora shootings, said he fears that the structure in place in Newtown will leave families of victims “hat in hand,” standing in line and petitioning for the aid that was meant for them.

He said that future tragedies are inevitable, and the country needs a standard protocol that would encompass everything from who receives aid to whether contributions are tax exempt, considerations that are reinvented with each new disaster.

Still, Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal at Columbine High School during the 1999 shootings and who remains there still, said that however aid is distributed it should be done with the understanding that the needs will stretch out over many years. He said some students who graduated in 1999 have only begun experiencing post-traumatic symptoms over the past two or three years.

“What I’ve learned as time goes by,” he said, “is that there are going to be needs that no one ever anticipates.” He added: “It’s never over. I think people believe that you’re going to wake up some morning and everything is back to normal. But we found we had to redefine what normal is, just like Newtown and Sandy Hook will have to redefine what normal is.”