San Francisco Relief Survey; the organization and methods of relief used after the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906

Chapter XXIV: Part III: Business Rehabilitation (2)

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[164] In this table data are presented for only the 702 applicants of
the 894 investigated for whom complete information relative to
occupation and business success or failure was secured.

The occupations shown in the table are not necessarily those for which the grants were given, but the occupations in which applicants were found engaged in 1908.

If one thing stands out more clearly than another it is, that following a disaster, persons who seek to re-establish themselves in professional or manufacturing pursuits have a much higher expectation of success than those that seek to re-establish themselves in trade or as proprietors in some branch of personal and domestic service, such as a restaurant or a rooming house.

On an earlier page it has been noted that some applicants were unable to make a start because of lack of capital. Lack of capital was less seriously felt by those having mechanical or professional skill, to whom the amount of capital held appeared to be of slight moment, than by those in the two remaining groups. The relation of capital to success in the trade and in the personal service groups is treated, therefore, at some length in connection with the detailed discussion of these groups.

THE PROFESSIONAL GROUP

Of the 88 members of the professional group re-visited, 79 whose cases furnished data complete on the points to be considered are here studied. As for the grants made, none exceeded $500 and 50 were for $250 or less. Those whose offices, studios, and in many cases, homes also, had been burned, had little left in the way of material possessions. Twenty persons are noted on the visitors’ schedules as having had no resources other than their grants. The amounts with which the members of this group essayed to re-establish themselves were as follows: 34, less than $500; 24, $500 and less than $700; and only 21, $700 or more. The outcome by 1908 was: of the first group 29 were still in business; of the second, 20; and of the third, 19. There were eight who had not started, and three who had started and discontinued.

In the cases of those that did start, the grant was as a rule applied as a cash payment toward equipment. The difference between the amount of capital and the amount of the grant, in general, measures the amount of credit allowed by wholesalers in the purchase of instruments and equipment. The proportion of success is high even among those with least capital at their disposal, and no direct relation is to be discovered between amount of capital and success except in the cases of a dentist and a photographer who were found to be working for wages and to be adding savings to their grants so as to start later with better equipment. Six others, as stated above, also failed to start. A woman pianist married and gave up her profession. A woman physician accepted a position in her alma mater as an instructor. A stenographer took a position on salary instead of opening her own office. An elderly music teacher became a chronic invalid and was admitted to the Relief Home. A man who had wanted to resume his work of giving electric treatments took instead a position with the city board of health and the visitor who saw him thinks he did not intend to resume his old line. Supervision of his grant of $250 would have tested his good faith. Another case which should have been supervised was that of an elderly showman who was given $450 to replace the tent used to house the wax figures of his quaint historical show. He spent most of the business grant for an operation to restore the failing sight of his elderly wife. A supervisor could have arranged for surgical care without interfering with rehabilitation.

Three cases, as noted, started but to discontinue. A physician who had received $450 from the Rehabilitation Committee and $100 from the Physicians’ Fund, opened an office; then, having closed it “on account of dull times,” left the city. A gymnasium director set up his equipment, but found his location a poor one; therefore he stored his apparatus and closed his place until he should find a better. A public stenographer had typist’s cramp from overwork. When able to resume work, he took a salaried position. More careful investigation and supervision of the eleven unsuccessful cases would probably have resulted in withholding the grant from one man, and getting one other into business. But as a group the applicants accomplished all that was possible under the circumstances, and that without the use of large sums of money.

MANUFACTURING AND MECHANICAL GROUP

An almost equally high degree of success attended the efforts of 183 persons engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries.

Hat maker aided by a Rehabilitation Grant

BUSINESS REHABILITATION]

These were largely tailors, dressmakers, shoemakers, painters, and metal workers. In the group of 79 in which capital was under $300, the attempts at rehabilitation of 50, or less than two-thirds, were successful. In the group of 104 with more capital, the showing was higher. The 26 who had $1,000 or more were without exception successful.

There were 23 who started business and discontinued, and 14 who did not start. Among these 37 cases, 10 failures appear to be due principally to lack of capital, but the 27 remaining failures are to be attributed largely to other causes, among which unfortunate choice of location and ill health complicated with old age are uppermost. Two examples must suffice:

A shoemaker, aged sixty-six, presented a plan to Committee VI which definitely called for $400 to buy a half interest in a given shop. He was granted $250, but as he could make no satisfactory arrangements with his proposed partner he began working at wages. A younger man with that amount of cash might have started a shop of his own, but this was too much to expect of one of his age. Another, a much younger man, failed to make a success of his bakeshop. He leased a lot on which to build his shop and invested in equipment his capital of $500. When competition sprang up around him, he could neither afford to move nor to remodel his shop in order to rent it to some one else for another purpose.

Perhaps one-half of the foregoing 37 failures could have been averted or mitigated by intelligent oversight. As a rule, however, it is safe to assume that persons with the skill to do mechanical work require less supervision than do those of the groups we are to discuss in the following sections.

TRANSPORTATION AND MISCELLANEOUS GROUP

Of the 16 members of this group, seven were established in business at the time of the re-visit. Grants were given to 12 men to start as teamsters or draymen. Ten of the 12 men bought teams, but only four were still in business in 1908. The price of hay was high, and work at wages easy to obtain; the two men who made no start became wage-earners. One man who was given money to acquire a messenger service, had been successful. Of the three remaining grantees of this group, one started a chicken farm which was running with fair success; another, a cleaning and dyeing establishment which was successful; and the third, a venture of the last named kind which had failed in the first month. This last proprietor after his failure had left the city.

In considering the relatively small number of successes among the members of this group, it must be remembered that the number of cases is too small for the data to be truly representative.

PERSONAL AND DOMESTIC SERVICE GROUP

Just as a small manufacturing enterprise is the avenue through which skilled artisans seek by becoming small proprietors to reach independence, so rooming and boarding houses, barber shops, restaurants, laundries, and the like are the roads along which individuals of a less skilled class travel to reach the same end. The cheap rooming houses of today are often run by the charwomen of yesterday; the better grade houses, by widowed housewives of somewhat higher station; the barber shops, by erstwhile barber’s helpers; and the small restaurants and lunch counters, by one-time cooks. Competition is extreme because persons accustomed to small earnings are constantly entering these fields with their little hoard of savings, ready to be satisfied with very moderate returns. In the long run, business ability tells in this as in all other lines of enterprise, but to this class adequacy of equipment and suitable location are of relatively more importance than in other forms of enterprise previously discussed.

In a city changing as rapidly as San Francisco changed for the first three years after the fire, the wisest could not tell with certainty how long a certain locality would remain desirable for his purposes. Some persons, in order to avoid prohibitive rents, signed leases for one or two years, which held them in poor locations after their better judgment told them they should move to keep near their shifting patrons. Under such circumstances two or three hundred dollars in the bank, or even less, might mean the difference between success and failure.

Where competition is close it makes a very great difference whether the equipment is owned outright or whether considerable monthly cash instalments must be paid. It is true that in ordinary times clever persons can fit up rooming houses and rent all the rooms at a fair profit. But ordinarily the small house at best offers a woman nothing more than an opportunity to be her own employer at very moderate wages; her fate depending, at each recurring crisis, on a cash reserve sufficient to carry her over a dull period, or to enable her to win in an endurance test with a nearby competitor. Rooming houses are spoken of specifically because more than three-fourths of the grants for personal service enterprises were given for this purpose.

As has been shown by Table 60, of 249 applicants visited in 1908 who had been given aid for personal and domestic service and for whom data have been tabulated, 168, or almost 68 per cent, were still in business at the time of the re-visit.

In this group the tendency of committeemen, already commented on, to make grants about uniform in amount is clearly seen. In fact, 105, or more than two-fifths of the 249 cases discussed in this section, received grants that were $200, and less than $300. It was understood that many of the enterprises required a considerably larger capital, but the business committee had the theory that given a sum of $200 or $250 any normally enterprising person could “raise” the rest. Many applicants did so, but not all. By sub-dividing the 245 cases in which the amount of capital is known into three groups we are able to see the respective parts played by the relief grant and the applicants’ other resources. The figures are given in Table 61.

TABLE 61.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION FOR PERSONAL AND DOMESTIC SERVICE, BY SIZE OF GRANTS AND AMOUNT OF CAPITAL[165]

==============================+===============+=========+======
Business status |CASES IN WHICH |Cases in | Total
|CAPITAL WAS LOW| which |
+-------+-------+ capital |
| Grant | Grant |was high |
| small | large | |
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------
In business at time of revisit| 66 | 41 | 57 | 164
Started and discontinued | 29 | 7 | 9 | 45
Did not start | 27 | 5 | 4 | 36
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------
Total | 122 | 53 | 70 | 245
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------

[165] Information relative to the amount of capital was secured for
only 245 of the 249 applicants receiving business rehabilitation for
personal and domestic service concerning whom data are presented in
Table 60.

The classification of capital as high and low, and of grants as large and small, has been discussed in the preceding chapter. The first group dealt with in the table, which will be called for convenience the small-grant low-capital group, consists of persons whose grant was less than $300 and whose capital available for business, including grant, was less than $700. Their enterprises in general were those of side streets and out-of-the-way locations.

The second group, known as the large-grant low-capital group, is made up of persons whose grant was $300 or more, but whose entire capital was no more than $700. They were largely persons whose previous enterprises had been capitalized at over $700 and to whom the Rehabilitation Committee gave liberal grants with the idea that the applicant would go into debt for the balance needed.

There remains a third group of the high-capital group which was previously capitalized at from $700 up and which expected to go into business in fairly prominent locations, on something like the old scale. As its members had considerable resources, the grant, while it played an important part in the applicant’s rehabilitation, was not the sole factor determining a start. Such was frequently the case in the two low-capital groups. The distinction between large grants and small grants, as it is of much less importance to the members of this group than to the members of the two low-capital groups, has not been indicated in the table.

It will be noted from the table that the proportion of applicants aided who were in business at the time of the re-visit was largest for the high-capital group, and much larger for the large-grant low-capital group than for the small-grant low-capital group. Brief consideration will now be given to each of the three groups.

The small-grant low-capital group has 122 members. Of its members 93 were given aid to open boarding and rooming houses, 15 to open barber or hairdressing establishments, eight to start restaurants, three to start laundries, and three to set up boot-blacking stands. Nearly two-thirds of the group were widows, and 57 were persons or couples living alone.

At the time the grants were made, 93, or more than three-fourths of this group, had no other resources; 27 had savings, collectible insurance, or real estate available for business. Data are lacking as to the resources of the two remaining individuals.

It was the hope of the Rehabilitation Committee that the large proportion of persons who came empty-handed, would, on receipt of a lump sum in itself insufficient to establish a business, develop latent resources. Such was often the result. Of the 93 cases mentioned above as having no before-fire resources, 46 received cash gifts other than the relief grant, negotiated friendly loans, or were allowed credit with former dealers. The manifestly right function of a relief grant of money for business is distribution such as will not supplant aid from other sources. But what of the small grants given to persons who could by neither hook nor crook obtain a supplemental sum? Forty-six of the 93 did succeed in getting help from other sources, and with three exceptions, made a start. Forty-seven did not succeed in getting help from other sources, 19 of whom failed to start. Of this 47, more than one-third were past the age of fifty. It is precisely in the cases of these individuals who have no other resources that supervising visitors would prove useful in devising ways and means to get a venture launched, arranging if necessary for a further committee grant.

An inspection of the case records seems to show that the members of the small-grant low-capital group who increased their resources by borrowing were, on the whole, more successful than those who did not borrow. Of the 50 applicants who went into debt, 34, about two-thirds, were found in business in 1908, while of the 70 who incurred no debt, only 30, considerably less than one-half, were in business. In the two remaining cases of the 122, the data were incomplete. The plan of the Rehabilitation Committee then, which was to have applicants use their grants as the means of a start on a credit basis, seems justified as applied to those individuals who have the courage to assume necessary debts.

The applicants who did not go into debt seem to have been ultra-conservative persons for whom the rehabilitation program was too strenuous. Doubtless for the most part they did well not to go into debt. Most probably these were frugal souls who had never incurred risks but had saved their wages and not made their original start until they could equip a business for cash. Afterwards they had doubtless continued, as they started, paying cash as they went along. It is not to be expected of those who have done business on a cash basis all their lives, that, when the passing years have done their work of lessening initiative, they should cheerfully and confidently assume a burden of debt. It would seem to be the duty of a relief committee to recognize the handicap on those trying to earn their living through business who never possessed the initiative of the typical business man, have been robbed of it by age or ill health, or have been made conservative by domestic responsibilities.

The 122 cases of the small-grant low-capital group comprise one-half of the re-visited persons to whom aid had been given for enterprises in personal or domestic service. In view of the fact that but 66 of the 122, slightly over one-half, were in business in 1908, it seems evident that a considerable number of these families (1) should not have been given money except for household rehabilitation, (2) should have been given sums materially larger in amount, or (3) should have been given the advantage of expert supervision.

Before leaving the subject of rehabilitation in personal service, it will be well to note briefly the remaining 123 cases, which number divide themselves into a large-grant low-capital group of 53 cases and a high-capital group of 70 cases.

The occupations of the members of the large-grant low-capital group were much the same as the foregoing; of the 53 in this group, 40 secured grants for boarding and rooming houses, seven for barber shops, and six for restaurants. As in the case of the preceding group, a number of the applicants went into debt in order to increase their capital available for business; and again the Relief Survey records show that those who incurred debt were, in general, more successful than those who did not. Extreme care must, however, be exercised in formulating conclusions because of the small number of cases involved.

The 70 persons in the high-capital group represent higher standards and more ambitious plans than the members of the preceding groups. The grants were often small in amount because the applicant’s resources were known to be substantial. Capital ranged in this group from $700 to nearly $3,000. Again, rooming houses are in the ascendancy. There were 56 grants for this purpose, seven for restaurants, three for barber shops, two for laundries, one for a towel supply concern, and one for a window-cleaning enterprise. The families were constituted much as in the small-grant low-capital group, over two-fifths being individuals or couples living alone. Among the 175 cases of the two low-capital groups, in which capital was under $700, only one-fifth of the number had savings, insurance, or real estate available for business. In this high-capital group 36, or more than half of the cases, had resources.

Twenty-five out of the 36 who had resources, and every one of the 34 who were without resources, went into debt, and all but four of the 70 started business. In the low-capital groups those who stayed out of debt exceeded those who incurred it. In this group, the great majority had gone into debt, even including the greater number of those who had insurance or savings in addition to their grant.

Of 11 applicants who avoided debt, three did not start in business, but eight who did so remained in business; while of the remaining 59, who borrowed, all but one started, and 49 remained in business. Because of the small number of cases, and particularly of cases in which no debt was assumed, these figures must not be construed as establishing a relationship between success and borrowing or failing to borrow.

Some comparisons between these three groups are suggestive. It seems that the families in the small-grant low-capital group must have needed much more money than they had, or so many would not have failed to get into business as planned. The small grants they received were not enough to encourage them to incur a moderate debt and go ahead. Consequently, only slightly over one-half succeeded in establishing themselves in business.

Persons in the large-grant low-capital group appear not to have needed much additional assistance, for while considerably over half of them got along without incurring debt, over three-fourths were established in business.

Those in the high-capital group needed sums of $700 or more to resume business on anything like the old scale. The grants they received were in many cases actually, and in most cases relatively, small. Even though many had substantial resources, yet nearly all went into debt. That the capital with which members of this group entered business was, in general, sufficient, seems to be indicated by the fact that 57 of the 70 were in business at the time of the re-visit.

TRADE GROUP

The success of small trade enterprises is affected in the confusion of post-disaster conditions and, in the absence of expert supervision, almost as much by the amount of capital available as is personal and domestic service. Like the keeping of rooming houses and other branches of personal service, trade is looked upon by the unskilled as an easy means of earning a livelihood. But the prizes in trade are, as a matter of fact, reserved for those rare few who have the special sense for perceiving the “elusive value that hovers now here and now there.” The average citizen, if he is to make even a modest living by trade, needs certain material advantages to compensate him for the lack of that keen economic sense possessed by the shining few who started with the traditional pack and are now numbered among our merchant princes. When the everyday citizen sets out to peddle, he must have a horse, a place to keep him, hay to feed him while he lives, and money enough to make a payment down on another if he dies. If the business is to be in a shop, it must be fairly well located, and decently equipped with fixtures and stock. He can go into debt for fixtures, but as a rule he can get little credit for stock, especially if it is a mixed stock, like that of a notion store, or perishable stock, such as food stuff. In fact, the only shop keeper sure of holding his own in the face of universal competition is the one who can pay a fair amount of rent from the start, can buy attractive fixtures for cash, pay cash for all goods,--thus avoiding interest charges on deferred payments,--and have enough margin left to extend credit, when necessary, to customers and to carry stock over a dull season. Such business does not from the start necessarily include shelter for the family as is the case with a rooming house. It is often many months before the net income is sufficient adequately to support more than one person.

So much for the average citizen, starting business on his own capital, or given a lump sum by a relief committee and left, without supervision, to run the risk of making costly if not irretrievable mistakes.

It has already been seen that, of the 175 applicants given assistance for trade, 124, or about 71 per cent, were in business at the time of the visit in 1908. In three cases satisfactory data relative to capital could not be secured. The 172 remaining cases have been classified, like the persons aided in personal and domestic service, on the basis of capital and grants. Table 62 shows for the small-grant low-capital group, for the large-grant low-capital group, and for the high-capital group the number of applicants in business at the time of the Relief Survey, those who started but discontinued, and the number who did not start.

TABLE 62.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION FOR TRADE, BY SIZE OF GRANTS AND AMOUNT OF CAPITAL[166]

==============================+===============+========+=====
Business status |CASES IN WHICH |CASES IN|Total
|CAPITAL WAS LOW| WHICH |
+-------+-------+CAPITAL |
|Grant | Grant |WAS HIGH|
|small | large | |
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----
In business at time of revisit| 54 | 20 | 50 | 124
Started and discontinued | 14 | 7 | 4 | 25
Did not start | 19 | 4 | .. | 23
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----
Total | 87 | 31 | 54 | 172
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----

[166] Information relative to amount of capital was secured for only
172 of the 175 applicants receiving business rehabilitation for trade
concerning whom data are presented in Table 60.

It will be seen that the proportion of applicants remaining in business was very high for members of the high-capital group, and only very slightly higher for the members of the large-grant low-capital group than for the members of the small-grant low-capital group.

Of the re-visited applicants who were given rehabilitation for trade, 87, or about one-half, fall within the small-grant low-capital group. Some of the 87 proposed to become peddlers, canvassers, or agents, but the majority planned to be merchants or dealers. Notion stores, branch bakeries, cigar stands, grocery stores, millinery stores, tea and coffee routes, and stationery stores were among the enterprises contemplated. Two-thirds of the families either had no dependents or had wage-earners to supplement the income from the business. The proportion entirely without resources is high, being 62 out of 87. Twenty-six incurred indebtedness in order to engage in business; and of these, 23 were in business in 1908. Of the 61 who did not borrow, only 31 remained in business.

It seems that to start a small enterprise, grants of under $300 to persons who could not bring their capital to a point between $500 and $700 without assuming an unwieldy debt, were too small, in the absence of close supervision, to assure their restoration within a reasonable length of time to a normal standard of living.

The large-grant low-capital trade group had but 31 members. Nearly half of the number were families with dependents and without wage-earners. Their enterprises were of the same character as were those of the small-grant group. Only eight of the 31 went into debt, and the amounts they obtained were in no case as much as the grant. Six of the eight remained in business. Of the 23 that did not borrow, 14 remained in business. Because of the small number of cases involved, no conclusions should be drawn as to the relation between success and borrowing.

There remain of the trade enterprises a high-capital group of 54 persons in half as many different lines of buying and selling. Over half of these families had dependents, most of the families having dependents being couples with from one to five young children. Four-fifths of all the families had before-fire resources. The persons who contracted indebtedness numbered 42, and of these, 39 were in business at the time of the re-visit. Eleven of the 12 families who did not borrow were in business. Because of the similarity of the proportion of successes among those who incurred indebtedness and among those who did not, and because of the small numbers involved, conclusions would be worse than valueless.

2. STUDY OF REFUSALS

One hundred and six persons who had applied for aid for business and had been refused were visited in 1908, and most of them were located and personally interviewed. The visitors had dreaded to meet these disappointed applicants face to face, and were agreeably surprised to find that most of them were quite willing to be interviewed and for the most part bore the Rehabilitation Committee no ill-will. The many who were doing well were proud to have achieved success without aid; and those who had failed to get into business and were doing poorly, were pleased to have some one on whom to lay the blame. Only one man refused point blank to give an interview.

Except for showing a preponderance of married couples, the families to whom aid was refused were constituted about as were those families to whom aid was given. They had in general much more extensive resources than the grantees, though 13 had no resources whatever and 22 others had less than $500.

The reasons for which aid was refused were in general more technical than those for which assistance of a less specialized nature was denied. Six were refused, in fact, because their character and habits were thought to be such as would militate against success; two were remitted to the care of near relatives; and two were found to have rehabilitated themselves unaided. Ten only were refused because they had not been in business before the fire; and 20 because they presented no feasible plan or because they wanted to start saloons, which latter proposal, naturally, the Committee could not approve. Five were refused because they wanted to be re-established on a large scale. The largest grant the Committee could have given them would have been too small for their needs. The remaining 61 were refused because they were judged able to rehabilitate themselves, if not in business, then through wage-earning.

Of the 106 refused grants by the Committee, 42 did not start business, but 62 started without the aid applied for. Two of those refused had died. Of the 62 who entered business, eight failed and the remaining 54 were still in business in 1908. Failure to start was much more general among the candidates for rehabilitation in personal service than among those who sought aid for manufacturing or mechanical enterprises, which serves to emphasize what has been said as to the greater expectation of success in the lines involving mechanical skill.

As was to be expected from the fact that exhaustive investigation was not attempted by the Rehabilitation Committee in 1906, a certain number of the refusals appeared, in the judgment of the reviewer, to have been unjustified. There were 23 such instances. In 12 of them conditions were not without remedy. Reports on seven of the cases were submitted to the Rehabilitation Committee, and grants of from $250 to $350 each were promptly made. Five other families were found in which circumstances had changed so as to make aid advisable. To the 12 families, the sum of $3,090 altogether was distributed in 1908.

3. SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF BUSINESS REHABILITATION

Business rehabilitation was successful, then, to the extent that of the 894 applicants aided who were visited, 683 started in business and 543 were still in business in 1908.[167] Of the 211 applicants who received grants, but did not enter business, 10 are known to have died; 63 abandoned altogether their plans for entering business; 21 modified their plans as stated to the Committee, or substituted other plans; 10 spent their grants for housing, furniture, or living expenses; and one invested the grant in his son’s business. Data as to the 106 remaining cases are lacking.

[167] See Table 57, p. 186.

It seemed to the reviewer unlikely that any of the 63 applicants who had abandoned the idea of going into business at the time of the grant would ever enter business again. Thirty-nine were working for wages, nine were housewives, and nine were dependent. Data concerning six are incomplete.

As to the causes of the breaking down of the plans for rehabilitation presented to the Committee, the amount of capital available appears to have played its part. While for nine of the 63 cases in which the plan broke down utterly, the amount of capital was not known, in only nine of the remaining 54 cases, or about 17 per cent, was the capital as large as $500. Of those, on the other hand, who merely modified their plans, or who substituted others, over half had $500 or more working capital. In 57 cases it is known how the grant was spent: in 20 instances it went for general living expenses; in 11 instances for illness and in six others for funeral expenses; in 11 for household furniture; in three for housing; in two for clothing; in two for old debts; in one for a typewriter; and in one for transportation.

In 42 of the 63 cases of breakdown of the plan, there is strong internal evidence that the grant was either inadequate (23 cases), given too late (eight cases); or given without supervision, of which there was an obvious need (11 cases). In six cases the applicant appears to have been deficient in enterprise, and in 11 cases the applicant’s circumstances changed after receiving the grant. Of the four remaining cases little is known.

Sickness and death and household and personal needs consumed more than three-fifths of the diverted grants. In the summer and fall of 1906 the members of the Rehabilitation Committee often shaved down grants because of a perfectly natural fear of a future shortage of funds. A mental habit of caution was being formed during these months of uncertainty which without doubt affected Committee VI in its later handling of some 1,690 cases. Some of these applications were very properly refused. The 894 re-visited applicants who were aided were given grants averaging $247. With the half million dollars that Committee VI had on hand, the grants could have been made to average $400 for the 1,226 grantees aided by this committee. Doubtless grants of such an amount, augmented when necessary to provide money for furniture and clothing, coupled with more frequent supervision, would have reduced materially the number that failed to re-establish. Failures would then have been largely confined to those few persons who showed themselves deficient in enterprise, or whose circumstances changed so completely after receipt of the grant as to make re-establishment impossible.

PART IV

HOUSING REHABILITATION

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San Francisco Relief Survey; the organization and methods of relief used after the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906Chapter XXIV: Part III: Business Rehabilitation (2)

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