This tells you one of two things....

Funds to aid 35W bridge survivors go unclaimed: "Soon after the bridge collapsed in August, more than 1,000 contributors -- from the Minnesota Vikings to an Elks Club in Faribault, Minn. -- donated $1.2 million to a fund created by the Minneapolis Foundation to aid victims. Today, despite an extensive effort to contact the nearly 190 people who were on the bridge when it fell, half the money remains unspent.
Other efforts also have apparently stalled. A $1 million state emergency relief fund, established in November, has given out just $154,000 despite having doubled the amount an individual can obtain."
Either people have learned their lesson from the 9/11 funds that were given out willy-nilly and now are finding other problems years down the road that all that money should have been used for (I'm thinking of the fire-fighters and other civil workers who are suffering the effects of the collapse-site dust) but the funds were given out millions at a time to people.
OR ... MNtans are a hardy bunch who want to stand on their own two feet first before seeking funds from others.

Actually I heard on the radio that the thought is that a lot of people are either caught up in the red-tape or are still awaiting doctor bills.

My other guess is that most people sitting on the bridge at the time were probably employed and had insurance to pick up their medical bills.

Personally --- I'm glad things are going slow .... they can do it right instead of the way they did Katrina & New York with all their fraudulent claims that got green-lighted and then they had to sit back and scratch their heads trying to figure out what to do. Millions of $$ of funds that were meant to help people being scammed by people who didn't deserve it because they rushed it all.

But this doesn't explain why businesses aren't using the special funds set aside by the federal government to help them survive while the new bridge is being built. I would have thought those funds would have been snatched up -- especially in this time of economic crunch.

So what happens to the money if no one claims it? How long do they have to claim it -- I can't see it sitting there for all-time?

Perhaps more is on the second page of the story -- but I can't get my computer to access it...