Seven months have passed since Superstorm Sandy destroyed homes and shuttered businesses from North Carolina to New Hampshire, and the American Red Cross still has some $110 million of the $303 million it raised in the storm's wake, leaving many to question the organization's strategy and role in disaster relief and recovery efforts, the Associated Press reports.

While more than a few disaster relief experts characterize the Red Cross' deliberate approach as smart, critics of the relief and recovery organization's strategy said that many victims of the storm could have used help this past winter. "People were cold. Homes mildewed. There wasn't enough decent housing," said Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York. "Given the lingering despair, it's hard to understand the argument that 'We are setting the money aside.'"

The Red Cross is not the only disaster relief agency to have done so. The Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, which is led by Mary Pat Christie, wife of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, didn't begin to disperse significant amounts of the $32 million it raised after the storm until April. And the United Way has said that it, too, plans to use much of the $9.7 million it raised for "longer-term strategies."

For its part, the Red Cross said it plans to use funds raised for Sandy relief and recovery efforts to help address needs that might not have been apparent in the immediate wake of the disaster, including providing "move-in assistance" grants to displaced families. The organization also said it is waiting to hear how the hardest-hit states plan to allocate nearly $60 billion in federal relief dollars they've received so it can use the funds it raised to help address gaps in the government effort. Even so, some critics question the actions and role of the organization, which they say "has never been a recovery operation."

The Red Cross, however, remains committed to its strategy, which includes working to identify groups left out by traditional aid programs. "We are waiting to see where the greatest need is going to be over time," said Josh Lockwood, CEO of the Red Cross' Greater New York chapter. "We are more concerned with spending our resources wisely rather than quickly."