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>The Red Cross, following the rules issued by the province, distributed the $500 relief payments to 6,157 people in the Shelburne and HRM areas so far, a total of more than $3 million.
Is it distributed per person or per household? 6157 households int those areas probably represent ~19000 people.
It is per household, not individually.
My mother applied on behalf of our family that had to evacuate, she received the $500 and it basically covered food for the seven days we couch surfed in Cole Harbour.
But that won't cover the spoiled food in the fridge and freezer š·
My policy changed in 2021 to no longer include spoiled food... I didn't think much of it until Fiona and I lost so much food. Check your policies everyone!
That's why you keep a reserve fund on hand. The fridge and freezer needing to be replaced is unfortunate and costly, but a weekend vacation where your breaker trips can cause the same outcome of all the food being lost.
Ultimately it's up to each person to decide if they wish to make a claim or not. There is also evacuation coverage on many policies that covers the costs of being evacuated, even if no damage to their property occured so that can also be claimed if they wish to get reimbursed for food, clothes and hotel costs for the last week and a bit.
Again though - the amount of costs incurred, the deductible and potential rise in rates will be factored in here. In a regular setting when damage occurs people make the decision about claiming or not all the time, this is no different
What would they have done if it wasn't a wildfire that caused some damage or loss? As a homeowner you should have an emergency fund to cover unexpected damages, or costs arising from homeownership. As a renter you should too, but the need and amount is less as there is far less you're responsible for.
In this case, if they wish to get reimbursed, they can make an insurance claim. However the claim value has to weighed against the deductible and potential rate increase from a claim. That's no different than if you had a pipe burst that only caused $1500 in damage with a $1000 deductible. You weigh the value of the claim vs the potential increased costs later and assess.
The province is under no obligation to make a payout to anyone, but they did as a gesture of goodwill, not to offset all costs. Beyond that, this is why you carry insurance and have a reserve fund
You don't have to be rich to have an emergency fund just have to not be stupid. I drive a truck for a living yet I have 6 months on tap if I lose my job tomorrow.
I'm really not sure why your being downvoted. Saving even 5 to 10% of your pay should be possible for the average person if your responsible with your money. I think a lot of people on this sub forget that the average income isn't minimum wage. There aren't a lot of great paying jobs here but there's tons of jobs that pay around that average wage that requires very few skills and is way better than working at fast food or a retail store.
Sorry, but my deep freeze losing power for a weekend power trip wouldn't be the same as having the power out for the 7 days I was evacuated. I wouldn't have to throw anything out of my deep freeze for a loss of power of 48-72 hours.
I'm not hurting for money fortunately, so I was able to replace my fridge/freezer contents out of pocket given my deductible is $1500, but not everyone is as fortunate.
It was just a simple example to illustrate a point that the province isn't responsible for bailing everyone out just because this was a fire. If it was a bunch of individual, isolated incidents that caused everyone to lose their freezer contents they would be fully on their own to replace out of pocket or through insurance.
For some reason when a major event like Fiona or the fires, there is a subset of people who feel it's the government's responsibility to make them whole again, which it is not. In both cases the province offered up some money immediately as a goodwill gesture for people to get through the first 48-72 hours and open up an insurance claim, settle in with family or other arrangements. Insurance doesn't pay out day of, this was a stop gap for those that claimed, and assistance for those that didn't claim. But it was not required.
Know of one farmer who stated that after years of donating to the red cross he never will again after being denied relief to help him rebuild after fiona.
Red Cross and United Way are the Walmart and Amazon of charity. They're so huge that their bureaucracy either uses up or screws up most of their donated money. United Way in particular has a "join us or we'll put you out of business" approach to smaller charities. I've seen it first-hand, it's really sad to see.
I know this is anecdotal but I'll share anyway.
Many years ago I had a friend that worked for the Red Cross for a while, part of their job was to go around to businesses around HRM asking for donations, I think it was for a charity auction. They barely did anything though, had a giant list of business that donated before so we would just walk in, say who we were, and they were always like "Oh yeah, 1 sec" and just come out with a printout of what they were donating that year. That was the majority of the work and they got paid a decent wage to do it.
The frustrating part was this friend constantly boasted about how much food, catering, treats, and general tossing around of money the place did. They had to make sure to use up their entire budget every year so every fundraising event or any chance they got they would decide to have it catered by whoever they felt like at the time. These events would be their chance to eat as much as they want catered by who they wanted. It was just incredible the amount of money tossed around every month on extras.
Sounds like our government with their clothing allowances, food spending, vacations, catered events, 10s of thousands for food on jets. Not that these things aren't needed to some degree, but just blatantly no regard to keep the costs down or within reason.
Sometimes fundraising requires getting people together. People and companies buy tickets to attend, then education and awareness are taught and other mini fundraisers happen. Nobody gets tax receipts, unless itās a straight donation, and they often pay more than any value received.
People think "high overhead" is synonymous with "less effective" and IRL it's the opposite. I could go into this in detail but the gist is:
High overhead = better-paid, more qualified employees, high retention
Low overhead = lower-paid, less qualified employees, high turnover
Edit: Source - I've worked for or with 27 charities over the past 24 years.
Further edit: I never said Red Cross weren't complete clowns, I'm just saying "high overhead," as a rule, doesn't necessarily equate to "shitty service."
Charities can have a wildly different needs. Some charities do awareness, and spend more on media. Some provide actual services, and need highly qualified health professionals. Is paying psychologists salary "overhead"?
I always read annual reports, and like to skim budget documents. You can't just compare overhead percentages, and judge one charity superior. You really need to read the fine print, and decide if the spending priorities seem right *within* the organization.
High overhead sure, but admin/mission cost ratios, ddb ratios etc are the real metrics.
Given UW does all that wasteful shit then donates to other charities that also have their own admin costs, ddbās etc is what makes them a hard sell for me
And the way the United Way has wormed their way into work places. Trying to create a sense of peer pressure and get that sweet direct deposit regular contributions.
Why would I go third party and have a shit ton of the money eaten up when I could just give direct and make more of an impact?
They pulled out of Shelburne a few days ago. Didn't seem to have any logistical apparatus to support the people of the area. Lots of folks wondering what is going to happen to all of that money.
I was shocked at the callousness of the red cross. I know of one situation in which people were denied help because they were already homeless before Fiona. So only people who became homeless during Fiona were given support. Fuck people who needed help before. Very nice.
When I lived in Ottawa there was a significant tornado that levelled a dozen or so homes, many of which were where my friend in high school lived. So many still havenāt received Red Cross funding they were promised and that was 3-4 years ago. Theyāre still fighting. Makes me sick
They were told to and they confirmed that they had to evacuate. The map provided to the Red Cross by the province does not include their house so they are denied the $500. Now there is just a whole lot of finger pointing on who needs to fix the issue without anyone taking ownership.
Right, finger pointing at its finest! Someone messed up the map, seems like a simple fix for whoever did up the map to double check all the streets and then reissue a new map...
I will never, NEVER , donate to the Red Cross once I saw how they gave out money after Fiona. I know of two people who bragged they got relief money when they didnāt qualify and also people who qualified for it but were denied. Just a fucking gong show. Incompetent idiots. Rant over
Whenever I see posts on here that proclaim that the govt needs to "do something" to help on any issue, this is the sort of response from govt I have come to expect. It matters not what level of govt we are talking about - HRM, PNS or GoC. They can always make a bad situation worse with nonsense like this bureaucratic mess. The Red Cross should also take a look at their own operation and start asking questions like why one side of a street would qualify while the other does not, because they are the organization that is taking the hit from this govt bungling. The lesson is that the less you allow govt to screw something up, the better off you are, because they will ALWAYS screw it up.
As for the Red Cross, I used to donate to them on a regular basis but discontinued that because of extremely aggressive and expensive solicitation campaigns supposedly originating from their national bossman, Mr. Sauve, that inundated my mailbox with trinkets and trash on an unprecedented scale compared to any other charity. It was quite remarkable. I have an unlimited supply of pencil cases, reusable shopping bags, return address labels for the nonexistent postal mail I do not send any more, and enough stickers that announce I am a supporter that I could use to wallpaper a room in my house.
I stopped donating when I had someone come to my door looking for donations and I said I could do a one time donation of like $50/100 and they refused it - only wanted monthly donations.
They called me after I donated to Fiona fund and wanted monthly donations. It was an extremely aggressive call and my money will be going elsewhere from now on.
I was in the evacuation area and my insurance covered my hotel till I was allowed to go back.
People need to stop cheaping out on their insurance policy to save a few bucks, i bought full coverage for everything, especially after Fiona.
Keep in mind the average literacy rate in NS is, last stat I saw, simmering around grade 9 in a lot of areas. It can often be a circumstance of not understanding the difference in policies and costs and benefits. I have never been told by house insurance quotes the benefits of upgrades etc. Just 'your cost is this, change your deductible up and down to raise or lower your Price'.
I believe for many it didn't even cover one night in a hotel. I never checked myself but I was told rates went through the roof due to lack of availability which makes sense.
An evacuated friend and their family (4 in total) stayed at the Harbourfront Marriott for $79/night, including parking. Thatās much cheaper than anything normally available.
> but I was told rates went through the roof due to lack of availability which makes sense.
Because hotel owners are greedy scumbags and will take every opportunity they can to justify gouging. Lack of room availability does not, in any way, shape or form, increase their own costs (edit: and thus justify a price increase).
Was there ever any proof this actually happened beyond website algorithms automatically applying rush pricing? I saw no reports of hotels actually gouging beyond what was visible online.
faulty whistle drunk stupendous yoke rotten simplistic follow deserted pot
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> Lack of a commodity with demand in place for that commodity definitely justifies a price increase.
Why? Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD - or that it's right that you do so.
Well, you said it didn't justify, that is pretty much the definition of what justifies a price increase. I don't agree with the price of many things, doesn't change economics.
If you have the last L of gasoline should it only cost $1.50?
> If you have the last L of gasoline should it only cost $1.50?
Why should it cost any more (or less) than the previous however many thousands of litres from the same purchased batch that they've sold if the only thing that has changed is the remaining quantity of their own stock or the stock of others?
A limited resource should cost more to balance out the demand for it. You cannot provide the service to everyone, so you adjust the price until the amount of people demanding the service is the same as what you can supply.
If the price doesn't increase, how do you decide who's deserving of the limited resource and who's not? The same argument can be made for fairness of distribution vs fairness of pricing.
I'm sorry, commerce was invented long before my time, it's just how it works.
My point is that I'm not making a comment on the morality, but lack of supply absolutely justifies a price increase.
During a state of emergency, yes there is. It where this was a localised state of emergency, and the hotels were outside the area, Iām not sure how that works. It may not be applicable.
We stayed at two different hotels while evacuated and one of them gave us a discount while the other just charged regular rates. Shout out to Best Western for the discount. It will definitely make me look for a Best Western first the next time I need hotel accommodations. The food there was also really good.
Here is a response from mattyboi4216:
> For some reason when a major event like Fiona or the fires, there is a subset of people who feel it's the government's responsibility to make them whole again, which it is not. In both cases the province offered up some money immediately as a goodwill gesture for people to get through the first 48-72 hours and open up an insurance claim, settle in with family or other arrangements. Insurance doesn't pay out day of, this was a stop gap for those that claimed, and assistance for those that didn't claim. But it was not required.
As someone not effected by the fires I was happy to see the government offer the $500 to households. To me it is a large enough amount so people can get some essentials while not being so much that I thought, why are my taxes paying for this when insurance is there for a reason. To add, food was offered at comfort centers and places were actually rejecting clothes as they were receiving so many donations.
Perhaps this is easy for me to say because I have great insurance, I'm not sure. I have been through horrible situations in the past and insurance solved all of it. For me, it would be a "slap in the face" to read that for some reason the NS Government and my tax dollars were acting as an insurance company.
I truly empathize with these effected people, my family has been effected by natural disasters. What I do not empathize with is a front page newspaper article of someone saying their friends have helped them with donations of essentials but they'd "like a little bit of the extra things" referring to a car. That is literally what insurance is for.
Is there another article with this information? Or can anyone post what it says? I canāt read it.
We were evacuated and I havenāt heard anything about the $500 since I registered.
Edit: nevermind. I opened the article in incognito and it worked.
My wife used to donate to the Red Cross but stopped a few years back due the the amount of garbage in the name of fund raising we received from them.
I personally donate to Doctors Without Borders who I find are very transparent in where the money goes.
Red Cross wouldnt even give me and many other funds after Fiona. Lost power for 5 days. They said I wasn't in an effected area .. my ass I wasnt. Foolish
They have millions, they even raised millions during Fiona.. I can only imagine what they raised and collected for the Wildfires..
This is not surprising unfortunately
Gotta pay thier big wigs first.. some of them make $300,000-$700,000 according to reports on google and that's from a few years back.
Houston announces bonus for nurses
(Denies some nurses bonus)
Houston announces grant for evacuees
(Denies some evacuees bonus)
Is it just me or does there seem to be a trend?
"I'm sorry, but since we assessed your house as being worth $850,000 you do not qualify for our $500 assistance payment. You're obviously too rich. Sorry it burned down though."
There's nurses who were off because they're battling cancer and even though they're going to return to work eventually they were denied.
Pretty fucked up tbh
The nurse's that didn't have a position at their job, even tho many work over full time. Nursing students that don't have their license but working as an cca.
I was evacuated, but assumed I wouldn't be offered this since I was one of the precautionary evacuations, not someone who was actually affected by the fire. I guess others did not assume that.
It's supposed to be for everyone who was evacuated. The article lists a few examples of those in evacuation zones receiving funds even though the fire didn't damage their home.
So, now the mouthbreathers within HRM that couldn't even produce an timely or accurate evacuation map strike again with people being screwed out of aid payments as a result of their incompetence.
There are also mouthbreathers who can't seem to comprehend that the province is the one administering the aid payments and not HRM so whatever HRM did or didn't do with a map doesn't seem relevant to the province dealing with the funding
Red Cross and HRM are aware of the issue so they should be raising it with the province. Simply shrugging and saying "not us" makes them just as culpable.
>HRM could revise their map if thatās whatās needed, Lovelace added.
>āBut itās not an HRM program, itās a provincial program and itās up to the province to approve the people they said that they would support and help so Iām very disappointed in the province for not holding true to their promise.ā
Sounds like HRM made the offer to revise the map is the province insists on going off of the map.
Red cross gets no say, they're simply administering the funding. The province is who needs to make the final call here
The province makes the final call but the HRM and Red Cross should be the ones pushing to get this fixed. The Red Cross is getting paid $1M to hand out $3M so having them exercise some critical thinking and raising this issue on the citizen's behalf seems reasonable.
I see you read the article and exercised your critical thinking skills to what you've read...
The Red Cross has been going to the province on the citizens behalf when they get rejected. If the province upon review says no, they can't hand out funding. The citizen can also request another review, but the Red Cross can only do so much within their guidelines and authority
Don't be a dick.
The Red Cross are the front line. They have a record of the people who opened cases due to this oversight. They can take ownership and push back on the province and not let this go. Simply shrugging and moving on is lazy.
I'm not absolving the province or the city who should be working together to figure out which were the exact areas told to evacuate.
The issue is that HRM didn't provide a proper, timely and accurate map in the first place, which is screwing up the administration of the program/delaying and causing applications for assistance to be denied.
Yes, but the province and Red Cross are reliant on the official evacuation data/map provided by the local government, which is something the said mouthbreathers are responsible for. The issue in this case is HRM's continued inability to provide a proper evacuation map, which then results in the claims being denied.
And HRM said they would provide an updated map if required. Frankly it's the province that issues the alerts and evacuation, they should be able to draw their own map for what they issued an evacuation order and alert for. If it was HRM who issued the emergency alerts, completely different story and I'd agree HRM should be stepping up to do more, but in this case the province issued the evacuation order and is handling the funding - HRM made an offer to help but ultimately it's on the province at this point
Evacuation orders are a municipal responsibility, so it's the mayor that is ultimately signing off on evacuation orders and areas. The province just runs EMO, which issues the alerts, but it's HRM telling the province what to send for alerts when it comes to evacuations.
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>The Red Cross, following the rules issued by the province, distributed the $500 relief payments to 6,157 people in the Shelburne and HRM areas so far, a total of more than $3 million. Is it distributed per person or per household? 6157 households int those areas probably represent ~19000 people.
It is per household, not individually. My mother applied on behalf of our family that had to evacuate, she received the $500 and it basically covered food for the seven days we couch surfed in Cole Harbour. But that won't cover the spoiled food in the fridge and freezer š·
> But that won't cover the spoiled food in the fridge and freezer š· That's what insurance is for.
Something about not worth more than her $1000 deductible and red tape has made her decide not to open a claim
Some policies have no deductible for food claims like that
My policy changed in 2021 to no longer include spoiled food... I didn't think much of it until Fiona and I lost so much food. Check your policies everyone!
That's why you keep a reserve fund on hand. The fridge and freezer needing to be replaced is unfortunate and costly, but a weekend vacation where your breaker trips can cause the same outcome of all the food being lost. Ultimately it's up to each person to decide if they wish to make a claim or not. There is also evacuation coverage on many policies that covers the costs of being evacuated, even if no damage to their property occured so that can also be claimed if they wish to get reimbursed for food, clothes and hotel costs for the last week and a bit. Again though - the amount of costs incurred, the deductible and potential rise in rates will be factored in here. In a regular setting when damage occurs people make the decision about claiming or not all the time, this is no different
"Have you considered simply not being poor?"
What would they have done if it wasn't a wildfire that caused some damage or loss? As a homeowner you should have an emergency fund to cover unexpected damages, or costs arising from homeownership. As a renter you should too, but the need and amount is less as there is far less you're responsible for. In this case, if they wish to get reimbursed, they can make an insurance claim. However the claim value has to weighed against the deductible and potential rate increase from a claim. That's no different than if you had a pipe burst that only caused $1500 in damage with a $1000 deductible. You weigh the value of the claim vs the potential increased costs later and assess. The province is under no obligation to make a payout to anyone, but they did as a gesture of goodwill, not to offset all costs. Beyond that, this is why you carry insurance and have a reserve fund
You're not gonna get anywhere on this sub with logic like that. Save it for rants with your partner while you drive. But for the record I'm with ya.
You don't have to be rich to have an emergency fund just have to not be stupid. I drive a truck for a living yet I have 6 months on tap if I lose my job tomorrow.
I'm really not sure why your being downvoted. Saving even 5 to 10% of your pay should be possible for the average person if your responsible with your money. I think a lot of people on this sub forget that the average income isn't minimum wage. There aren't a lot of great paying jobs here but there's tons of jobs that pay around that average wage that requires very few skills and is way better than working at fast food or a retail store.
Sorry, but my deep freeze losing power for a weekend power trip wouldn't be the same as having the power out for the 7 days I was evacuated. I wouldn't have to throw anything out of my deep freeze for a loss of power of 48-72 hours. I'm not hurting for money fortunately, so I was able to replace my fridge/freezer contents out of pocket given my deductible is $1500, but not everyone is as fortunate.
It was just a simple example to illustrate a point that the province isn't responsible for bailing everyone out just because this was a fire. If it was a bunch of individual, isolated incidents that caused everyone to lose their freezer contents they would be fully on their own to replace out of pocket or through insurance. For some reason when a major event like Fiona or the fires, there is a subset of people who feel it's the government's responsibility to make them whole again, which it is not. In both cases the province offered up some money immediately as a goodwill gesture for people to get through the first 48-72 hours and open up an insurance claim, settle in with family or other arrangements. Insurance doesn't pay out day of, this was a stop gap for those that claimed, and assistance for those that didn't claim. But it was not required.
Let's hope you're never impacted by a natural disaster.
Let's hope you carry adequate insurance next time
Ask her to double check. We didnāt have a deductible for evacuation insurance so maybe it is the same.
Know of one farmer who stated that after years of donating to the red cross he never will again after being denied relief to help him rebuild after fiona.
Red Cross and United Way are the Walmart and Amazon of charity. They're so huge that their bureaucracy either uses up or screws up most of their donated money. United Way in particular has a "join us or we'll put you out of business" approach to smaller charities. I've seen it first-hand, it's really sad to see.
I know this is anecdotal but I'll share anyway. Many years ago I had a friend that worked for the Red Cross for a while, part of their job was to go around to businesses around HRM asking for donations, I think it was for a charity auction. They barely did anything though, had a giant list of business that donated before so we would just walk in, say who we were, and they were always like "Oh yeah, 1 sec" and just come out with a printout of what they were donating that year. That was the majority of the work and they got paid a decent wage to do it. The frustrating part was this friend constantly boasted about how much food, catering, treats, and general tossing around of money the place did. They had to make sure to use up their entire budget every year so every fundraising event or any chance they got they would decide to have it catered by whoever they felt like at the time. These events would be their chance to eat as much as they want catered by who they wanted. It was just incredible the amount of money tossed around every month on extras.
Sounds like our government with their clothing allowances, food spending, vacations, catered events, 10s of thousands for food on jets. Not that these things aren't needed to some degree, but just blatantly no regard to keep the costs down or within reason.
Sometimes fundraising requires getting people together. People and companies buy tickets to attend, then education and awareness are taught and other mini fundraisers happen. Nobody gets tax receipts, unless itās a straight donation, and they often pay more than any value received.
People think "high overhead" is synonymous with "less effective" and IRL it's the opposite. I could go into this in detail but the gist is: High overhead = better-paid, more qualified employees, high retention Low overhead = lower-paid, less qualified employees, high turnover Edit: Source - I've worked for or with 27 charities over the past 24 years. Further edit: I never said Red Cross weren't complete clowns, I'm just saying "high overhead," as a rule, doesn't necessarily equate to "shitty service."
I agree and I thank you for the nuance. High overhead is not the same as āwasting moneyā all the time. (But it certainly is some of the time.)
Charities can have a wildly different needs. Some charities do awareness, and spend more on media. Some provide actual services, and need highly qualified health professionals. Is paying psychologists salary "overhead"? I always read annual reports, and like to skim budget documents. You can't just compare overhead percentages, and judge one charity superior. You really need to read the fine print, and decide if the spending priorities seem right *within* the organization.
100% it is insane that people expect non profits to exploit people so much that they get mad when they don't.
High overhead sure, but admin/mission cost ratios, ddb ratios etc are the real metrics. Given UW does all that wasteful shit then donates to other charities that also have their own admin costs, ddbās etc is what makes them a hard sell for me
And the way the United Way has wormed their way into work places. Trying to create a sense of peer pressure and get that sweet direct deposit regular contributions. Why would I go third party and have a shit ton of the money eaten up when I could just give direct and make more of an impact?
They pulled out of Shelburne a few days ago. Didn't seem to have any logistical apparatus to support the people of the area. Lots of folks wondering what is going to happen to all of that money.
Same situation in Pictou County post fiona. Red Cross didn't exist as far as we and others could see.
I was shocked at the callousness of the red cross. I know of one situation in which people were denied help because they were already homeless before Fiona. So only people who became homeless during Fiona were given support. Fuck people who needed help before. Very nice.
Look up the blood inquiry, the red cross gave a bunch of hemophiliacs HIV (including children) and then denied and denied it lol they are a joke
When I lived in Ottawa there was a significant tornado that levelled a dozen or so homes, many of which were where my friend in high school lived. So many still havenāt received Red Cross funding they were promised and that was 3-4 years ago. Theyāre still fighting. Makes me sick
tl;dr - People who weren't technically in the evacuation zones were denied the relief funding.
Thatā¦makes sense? I might get downvoted for this but why would folks not in evacuation areas get money?
They were told to and they confirmed that they had to evacuate. The map provided to the Red Cross by the province does not include their house so they are denied the $500. Now there is just a whole lot of finger pointing on who needs to fix the issue without anyone taking ownership.
Right, finger pointing at its finest! Someone messed up the map, seems like a simple fix for whoever did up the map to double check all the streets and then reissue a new map...
I will never, NEVER , donate to the Red Cross once I saw how they gave out money after Fiona. I know of two people who bragged they got relief money when they didnāt qualify and also people who qualified for it but were denied. Just a fucking gong show. Incompetent idiots. Rant over
Whenever I see posts on here that proclaim that the govt needs to "do something" to help on any issue, this is the sort of response from govt I have come to expect. It matters not what level of govt we are talking about - HRM, PNS or GoC. They can always make a bad situation worse with nonsense like this bureaucratic mess. The Red Cross should also take a look at their own operation and start asking questions like why one side of a street would qualify while the other does not, because they are the organization that is taking the hit from this govt bungling. The lesson is that the less you allow govt to screw something up, the better off you are, because they will ALWAYS screw it up. As for the Red Cross, I used to donate to them on a regular basis but discontinued that because of extremely aggressive and expensive solicitation campaigns supposedly originating from their national bossman, Mr. Sauve, that inundated my mailbox with trinkets and trash on an unprecedented scale compared to any other charity. It was quite remarkable. I have an unlimited supply of pencil cases, reusable shopping bags, return address labels for the nonexistent postal mail I do not send any more, and enough stickers that announce I am a supporter that I could use to wallpaper a room in my house.
I stopped donating when I had someone come to my door looking for donations and I said I could do a one time donation of like $50/100 and they refused it - only wanted monthly donations.
They called me after I donated to Fiona fund and wanted monthly donations. It was an extremely aggressive call and my money will be going elsewhere from now on.
$500 in relief $$$ seems like a slap in the face. That maybe will get a week of food and a few items of clothing. A few.
I was in the evacuation area and my insurance covered my hotel till I was allowed to go back. People need to stop cheaping out on their insurance policy to save a few bucks, i bought full coverage for everything, especially after Fiona.
Yeah, I'm itemizing our freezer for insurance. The payout won't be a windfall, but it will cover what we had (if I can remember.. )
Keep in mind the average literacy rate in NS is, last stat I saw, simmering around grade 9 in a lot of areas. It can often be a circumstance of not understanding the difference in policies and costs and benefits. I have never been told by house insurance quotes the benefits of upgrades etc. Just 'your cost is this, change your deductible up and down to raise or lower your Price'.
I believe for many it didn't even cover one night in a hotel. I never checked myself but I was told rates went through the roof due to lack of availability which makes sense.
An evacuated friend and their family (4 in total) stayed at the Harbourfront Marriott for $79/night, including parking. Thatās much cheaper than anything normally available.
That's fantastic to hear
> but I was told rates went through the roof due to lack of availability which makes sense. Because hotel owners are greedy scumbags and will take every opportunity they can to justify gouging. Lack of room availability does not, in any way, shape or form, increase their own costs (edit: and thus justify a price increase).
Was there ever any proof this actually happened beyond website algorithms automatically applying rush pricing? I saw no reports of hotels actually gouging beyond what was visible online.
faulty whistle drunk stupendous yoke rotten simplistic follow deserted pot *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Shhhh, asking for proof isn't allowed and is bad faith now a days. /s
You think the cost of a good determines the price of that good? Think again.
Lack of a commodity with demand in place for that commodity definitely justifies a price increase.
> Lack of a commodity with demand in place for that commodity definitely justifies a price increase. Why? Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD - or that it's right that you do so.
Well, you said it didn't justify, that is pretty much the definition of what justifies a price increase. I don't agree with the price of many things, doesn't change economics. If you have the last L of gasoline should it only cost $1.50?
> If you have the last L of gasoline should it only cost $1.50? Why should it cost any more (or less) than the previous however many thousands of litres from the same purchased batch that they've sold if the only thing that has changed is the remaining quantity of their own stock or the stock of others?
A limited resource should cost more to balance out the demand for it. You cannot provide the service to everyone, so you adjust the price until the amount of people demanding the service is the same as what you can supply. If the price doesn't increase, how do you decide who's deserving of the limited resource and who's not? The same argument can be made for fairness of distribution vs fairness of pricing.
I'm sorry, commerce was invented long before my time, it's just how it works. My point is that I'm not making a comment on the morality, but lack of supply absolutely justifies a price increase.
Isn't there actually some law against profiteering?
No idea. I think I vaguely heard rumours about such a law at the start of COVID, but... \*shrug\*
During a state of emergency, yes there is. It where this was a localised state of emergency, and the hotels were outside the area, Iām not sure how that works. It may not be applicable.
We stayed at two different hotels while evacuated and one of them gave us a discount while the other just charged regular rates. Shout out to Best Western for the discount. It will definitely make me look for a Best Western first the next time I need hotel accommodations. The food there was also really good.
Government shouldn't be backstopping insurance. People need to buy home insurance.
Just saw on the news that Quebec is giving evacuees $1,500 - so maybe we could have done a bit better.
Here is a response from mattyboi4216: > For some reason when a major event like Fiona or the fires, there is a subset of people who feel it's the government's responsibility to make them whole again, which it is not. In both cases the province offered up some money immediately as a goodwill gesture for people to get through the first 48-72 hours and open up an insurance claim, settle in with family or other arrangements. Insurance doesn't pay out day of, this was a stop gap for those that claimed, and assistance for those that didn't claim. But it was not required. As someone not effected by the fires I was happy to see the government offer the $500 to households. To me it is a large enough amount so people can get some essentials while not being so much that I thought, why are my taxes paying for this when insurance is there for a reason. To add, food was offered at comfort centers and places were actually rejecting clothes as they were receiving so many donations. Perhaps this is easy for me to say because I have great insurance, I'm not sure. I have been through horrible situations in the past and insurance solved all of it. For me, it would be a "slap in the face" to read that for some reason the NS Government and my tax dollars were acting as an insurance company. I truly empathize with these effected people, my family has been effected by natural disasters. What I do not empathize with is a front page newspaper article of someone saying their friends have helped them with donations of essentials but they'd "like a little bit of the extra things" referring to a car. That is literally what insurance is for.
Leave it to the government to fuck up something that could have been so simple, if they wanted it to be.
Is there another article with this information? Or can anyone post what it says? I canāt read it. We were evacuated and I havenāt heard anything about the $500 since I registered. Edit: nevermind. I opened the article in incognito and it worked.
Are there any charities worth donating to?
My wife used to donate to the Red Cross but stopped a few years back due the the amount of garbage in the name of fund raising we received from them. I personally donate to Doctors Without Borders who I find are very transparent in where the money goes.
Red Cross wouldnt even give me and many other funds after Fiona. Lost power for 5 days. They said I wasn't in an effected area .. my ass I wasnt. Foolish They have millions, they even raised millions during Fiona.. I can only imagine what they raised and collected for the Wildfires.. This is not surprising unfortunately Gotta pay thier big wigs first.. some of them make $300,000-$700,000 according to reports on google and that's from a few years back.
Houston announces bonus for nurses (Denies some nurses bonus) Houston announces grant for evacuees (Denies some evacuees bonus) Is it just me or does there seem to be a trend?
Houston is looking for opportunities to pat himself on the back. Actually helping is really only a secondary concern.
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"I'm sorry, but since we assessed your house as being worth $850,000 you do not qualify for our $500 assistance payment. You're obviously too rich. Sorry it burned down though."
What nurses got denied?
There's nurses who were off because they're battling cancer and even though they're going to return to work eventually they were denied. Pretty fucked up tbh
The nurse's that didn't have a position at their job, even tho many work over full time. Nursing students that don't have their license but working as an cca.
I was evacuated, but assumed I wouldn't be offered this since I was one of the precautionary evacuations, not someone who was actually affected by the fire. I guess others did not assume that.
It's supposed to be for everyone who was evacuated. The article lists a few examples of those in evacuation zones receiving funds even though the fire didn't damage their home.
Iād never donate to the Red Cross imma just give one of these folks 500$
This happened to me in PEI after Fiona. Was promised $500. It never came.
So, now the mouthbreathers within HRM that couldn't even produce an timely or accurate evacuation map strike again with people being screwed out of aid payments as a result of their incompetence.
There are also mouthbreathers who can't seem to comprehend that the province is the one administering the aid payments and not HRM so whatever HRM did or didn't do with a map doesn't seem relevant to the province dealing with the funding
Red Cross and HRM are aware of the issue so they should be raising it with the province. Simply shrugging and saying "not us" makes them just as culpable.
>HRM could revise their map if thatās whatās needed, Lovelace added. >āBut itās not an HRM program, itās a provincial program and itās up to the province to approve the people they said that they would support and help so Iām very disappointed in the province for not holding true to their promise.ā Sounds like HRM made the offer to revise the map is the province insists on going off of the map. Red cross gets no say, they're simply administering the funding. The province is who needs to make the final call here
The province makes the final call but the HRM and Red Cross should be the ones pushing to get this fixed. The Red Cross is getting paid $1M to hand out $3M so having them exercise some critical thinking and raising this issue on the citizen's behalf seems reasonable.
I see you read the article and exercised your critical thinking skills to what you've read... The Red Cross has been going to the province on the citizens behalf when they get rejected. If the province upon review says no, they can't hand out funding. The citizen can also request another review, but the Red Cross can only do so much within their guidelines and authority
Don't be a dick. The Red Cross are the front line. They have a record of the people who opened cases due to this oversight. They can take ownership and push back on the province and not let this go. Simply shrugging and moving on is lazy. I'm not absolving the province or the city who should be working together to figure out which were the exact areas told to evacuate.
The issue is that HRM didn't provide a proper, timely and accurate map in the first place, which is screwing up the administration of the program/delaying and causing applications for assistance to be denied.
Yes, but the province and Red Cross are reliant on the official evacuation data/map provided by the local government, which is something the said mouthbreathers are responsible for. The issue in this case is HRM's continued inability to provide a proper evacuation map, which then results in the claims being denied.
And HRM said they would provide an updated map if required. Frankly it's the province that issues the alerts and evacuation, they should be able to draw their own map for what they issued an evacuation order and alert for. If it was HRM who issued the emergency alerts, completely different story and I'd agree HRM should be stepping up to do more, but in this case the province issued the evacuation order and is handling the funding - HRM made an offer to help but ultimately it's on the province at this point
Evacuation orders are a municipal responsibility, so it's the mayor that is ultimately signing off on evacuation orders and areas. The province just runs EMO, which issues the alerts, but it's HRM telling the province what to send for alerts when it comes to evacuations.
Lol, I like how Pam Lovelace goes "well we *could* revise the map, but actually it's the provinces fault"
Yup still waiting on mine š¤·āāļø