P.E.I. government working with Red Cross to 'expedite' Fiona relief money

Some Islanders have been complaining about the rollout of relief money from the Red Cross due to the impacts of post-tropical storm Fiona.

There are several videos on social media of long lineups at the Red Cross's Charlottetown location — hundreds of people lined up as early as 6 a.m.

Officials with P.E.I.'s Department of Social Development and Housing say they have been talking to Red Cross officials daily to help verify identities of Islanders.

"Over the last number of days and weeks, the department has been working closely with the Red Cross to clear the backlog of applicants who were not able to be immediately verified upon application," officials with the province said in an email.

The reasons for applicants' identities not being verified automatically are because of spelling mistakes in the address, the wrong postal code or for putting down the wrong date of birth, officials with the province said.

"The Province has been working with the Red Cross to expedite the payment for a number of dated applications," the email said.

According to staff with the province, as of Friday morning  Canadian Red Cross had distributed funding to 38,499 households totalling $9,624,750. An additional 12,000 payments were expected to be given out by the end of the day Friday — an expected total of $12.5 million.

"Many options were considered in the rollout this funding, but the Province required a partner to expand the reach as current provincial capacity is roughly 3,000-3,500 payments per week. In addition to this the Red Cross has experience and software used to detect duplicate applications and identify potential fraud," the email said. 

"It would have taken months to distribute the funds to this volume of Islanders and there was more opportunity for human error."

There are 3,300 applications remaining that still need to be reviewed and authenticated, said officials with the province.

"These remaining individuals have a high likelihood of being duplicates or fraudulent and need to be reviewed manually to ensure they are valid," the email said.

The Department of Social Development and Housing is providing additional resources to the Red Cross to review the remaining applications.