New Traveler, Please Read - "Tentative"

Here's my dilemma. I decided travelling looked good because I need to raise some quick $$ for my wedding in April. I talked with American Mobile and spoke with a rep from Overlook Hospital in NJ. She said that my start date would be 3 DEC. Talked with my recruiter, who said the same thing and sent me the contract with 3 DEC as the start date. On Friday afternoon, when I'm supposed to start Monday morning, when I quit my full time job so that I could take this travelling job ... well, stories differ. The AM recruiter says she got a call around 3PM on Friday stating that Overlook has no educator available on that day and my start date will have to be delayed.. eight days, to the 11th. Of course, they can't offer me any pay or hours to work, so basically I'm unemployed for a week. Overlook says "We told them from the beginning that the third was tentative. It had to be approved by education and we just found out that day that it wasn't. Further, the eleventh is also "tentative."

I have a signed contract, but I haven't received any money or moved into any housing (was going to take the rent stipend instead). Now this contract appears to be worthless and my recruiter is just shrugging her shoulders and saying "Well, I've never seen this before." What do I do? My scenarios are - shut up and eat the week of no pay to start the contract whenever they decide it's good; or tell my recruiter that I'm uncomfortable with all this "tentativeness" and that my bills don't pay themselves, so I'm cancelling this contract. If I do that, will she likely be interested in helping me get another contract? Should I go with Nurses 24/7, another agency in the area who says they have contracts available that can start quickly? I have a couple per diem jobs, so I'm not going broke while I figure this out, but I'm just not sure where to go from here. Thanks for all who read this.