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

Chapter XXVIII: Part V: Relief Work of the Associated Charities From June, 1907, to June, 1909 (1)

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I. THE NATURE OF THE CASES 281

1. Introductory 281
2. Nature of the Dependency 282
3. Social Character of the Cases 286
4. Occupations of Applicants 294

II. THE METHODS OF RELIEF EMPLOYED 298

1. Reapplications 298
2. Emergent Relief 299
3. Permanent Relief 305
4. Relief Refused 310
5. Conclusions 314
6. The Associated Charities Since the Fire 317

THE NATURE OF THE CASES

1. INTRODUCTORY

In Parts I and II frequent mention has been made of the important rehabilitation rôle played by the Associated Charities. In this fifth part of the Relief Survey, measure is taken of the burden carried by the Associated Charities for the two years after it resigned as an investigating agent of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds and took up, with the financial aid of the funds, its independent work of caring for the remnant. The remnant was composed of the people who had suffered from the earthquake and fire but had asked for no help until more than a year had elapsed; of those who continued to need aid because of the extraordinary vicissitudes of their life; of others who had formed the habit of turning to a relief agency for assistance; and of those who required further succor because that given by the Corporation had been inadequate.

The Associated Charities was selected for special study, not only because it had been continuously the agent of the Corporation, but because its work promised to give the fullest answer to the question: To what extent has the San Francisco problem of dependency deepened? This study is, then, in a sense, an exhibition of the aftermath of the great disaster.

The range of the inquiry involved the asking of three questions: First, what was the character of the rehabilitation? Second, how was it done? Third,--a quadruple question,--how much was induced by the disaster itself, how much by the fact of the existence of relief measures the year after the disaster, how much by the administration of these measures, and how much by conditions that tend at all times to produce dependency?

The field of investigation plainly defines itself as: first, to know the number and character of the persons that remained dependent after the fifteen months of conscientious rehabilitation work, and to compare them in regard to number and character with the lesser number of persons that for two years before the disaster were under the care of the Associated Charities; second, to learn what methods of relief were used to render these persons once more effective members of the community; and third, to measure in some degree the efficiency of these methods.

The primary purpose of this study was to learn as far as possible the psychological effects of the disaster by studying a group of refugees who continued to draw on the relief funds after the general public had fallen out of the bread line. It has been impossible, however, to hold strictly to the purpose, because the Associated Charities,[225] in resuming its normal place in the community, aimed rightly to administer to the needs of the city’s poor whether or not the individual applicant could show a relation between his necessity and the disaster. From the point of view of the Associated Charities, all persons applying for aid from June, 1907, to June, 1909, had an equal claim on its funds. Its power of realizing this aim of impartially meeting the needs of the applicants has been limited by the fact that as a society it was known by the public at large, as well as by the direct and indirect sufferers from the disaster, by their relatives, and by their friends, to be acting as the financial agent of a corporation that continued to have large sums of money to disburse.

[225] Before and since the disaster the Associated Charities has been,
except for the work done by the Hebrew Board of Relief, the accepted
general relief society. It has had, throughout, the active
co-operation of the Catholics.

2. NATURE OF THE DEPENDENCY

The interest in the relief administration centers in the desire to know to what extent it altered the poverty situation of the city. The presumption is, of course, that the work of the Associated Charities and kindred agencies was greatly increased by the disaster, but it is important to get a specific idea of the increase for the two selected years, and to determine what proportion is a distinct result of the social upheaval brought by the earthquake and fire of 1906.

To answer this question required a knowledge of the work of the Associated Charities for the two years before the fire as exact as for the two years under consideration.[226] By one of the most notable incidents of the great fire, the building containing the records of the Associated Charities escaped the flames. These records, no previous study of whose facts had been made, were therefore available. The stories of the applicants to the Associated Charities for the two years preceding April 18, 1906, have been analyzed, and in order that comparison might be possible, a similar study of records has been made of the post-disaster cases.

[226] At the time of the fire the Associated Charities had been in
existence for over seventeen years. Its original aim had been to
confine its work to organizing charity; but as there was no general
relief society in existence it was called on more and more to do
relief work. By 1905 the society had a list of 900 subscribers; an
annual income of not more than $5,000; a staff consisting of a general
secretary, two or three paid investigators, and a stenographer on part
time. In addition to these, the office had the exclusive use of two
district nurses supported by special funds. With a staff and an income
so limited it was possible to give little beyond emergency aid to
needy families in their homes. The problem of homeless men was not
touched. The initial steps had been taken looking to co-operation with
other philanthropic agencies along several lines. In conjunction with
the Merchants’ Association, a charities endorsement committee had been
formed; a children’s agency had been established, and a department of
legislation and law organized to originate needed social legislation
and to give free legal aid to applicants. For a résumé of the
development of the work of the society after the disaster, see Part V,
pp. 317-318.

As the means to aid during the two years from June, 1907, to June, 1909, were drawn almost exclusively from the Corporation and the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds, a statement of the work of the Associated Charities is practically a survey of the further use made of the disaster relief funds.

The Associated Charities, as an independent agent, reopened its doors to applicants on June 17, 1907; but since it had assumed the responsibility before the complete transfer of duties was effected, data are here given for the period beginning June 1. From June 1, 1907, until June 1, 1909, 6,766 applications were made to it in the following order:

June 1, 1907, to December 31, 1907 2,547
January 1, 1908, to December 31, 1908 3,154
January 1, 1909, to June 1, 1909 1,065
-----
Total 6,766

From April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906, 1840 cases had applied for aid at the office. There was therefore a nearly fourfold increase in applications during the two post-disaster years under comparison. There are no data to show the sequence of increase or decrease of cases for the earlier period. The number of monthly applications during 1908 and 1909 was as follows:

TABLE 96.--NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES FOR ASSISTANCE, BY MONTHS. 1908 AND 1909[227]

=========+=====+=====
Month | 1908| 1909
---------+-----+-----
January | 474| 229
February | 815| 237
March | 417| 219
April | 219| 145
May | 172| 135
June | 195| 274
July | 146| 113
August | 152| 97
September| 115| 84
October | 173| 42
November | 126| 161
December | 150| 183
---------+-----+-----
Total|3,154|1,919
---------+-----+-----

[227] As the figures in this table are for the calendar years 1908 and
1909, the totals do not correspond with the figures for the period
from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, presented in other tables in this
Part. While there were some inconsistencies between various records
consulted, as to the number of applications per month, it is believed
that the figures presented are approximately correct.

Although for three of the months of 1909, June, November, and December, there was an increase of applications over the corresponding months of the previous year,--an increase of 41, 28, and 22 per cent respectively,--the work for 1909 as a whole, compared with 1908, decreased 39 per cent.

In relating the facts found in the case records of applicants from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, 815, or 12 per cent, of the 6766 records are omitted,--107 because they were found to be the records of cases belonging not to the Associated Charities but to other relief societies; 606 because they were not relief society records, but were those of cases cared for in the City and County Hospital which for reasons of office organization were, during a number of months of the year 1907, filed with the Associated Charities’ records; 102 because they were too incomplete to give the required data. The facts drawn from the remaining 5951 cases are compared with 1550 cases of the earlier pre-disaster period. Two hundred and ninety cases, or 15.8 per cent, of the 1840 cases of that period (April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906), had to be omitted, some because they were records of cases handled by other relief societies, and a larger number because the statement cards lacked sufficient data to permit tabulation. The large number of cases marked “Unknown” throughout this study makes it incontestably plain that the records are lacking in many details. Though admirably complete as compared with those before the fire, and much more so during the years 1908 and 1909 than during 1907, yet data have failed with regrettable frequency.

TABLE 97.--ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CASES CLASSIFIED AS HAVING LIVED OR NOT HAVING LIVED IN THE BURNED AREA, AND BY NUMBER AIDED, AND NUMBER REFUSED AID. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[228]

======================================+==========+===========+=======
Classes of applicants |Applicants|Applicants | Total
| aided |refused aid|
--------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------
Applicants who had lived in burned | | |
area: | | |
With rehabilitation record | 1,309 | 571 | 1,880
Without rehabilitation record | 1,512 | 604 | 2,116
--------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------
Total | =2,821= | =1,175= |=3,996=
| | |
Applicants who had not lived in burned| | |
area | =1,303= | =439= |=1,742=
--------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------
Grand total | =4,124= | =1,614= |=5,738=
--------------------------------------+----------+-----------+-------

[228] Data are not available as to the former place of residence of
123 of the 4,247 applicants aided, and of 90 of the 1,704 applicants
who were refused aid.

One point on which the records in many cases fail to supply information is as to whether or not the applicant had been burned out. In the previous studies of this Survey no division has been made of the refugees into the two classes of those who lived within or without the burned area, because dependency as a result of the disaster was known to be due not alone to having been in the first named class. Since one of the vital points of this study, however, is to determine how much of the relief work of the Associated Charities during the second of the two-year periods was due, directly or indirectly, to the earthquake and fire, an effort has been made to reach the point by dividing the 5,738 applicants about whom the fact was known into two groups: 3,996, or 69.6 per cent, of whom had lived within the burned area; 1,742, or 30.4 per cent, of whom had lived without. The further classification given in Table 97 reveals the interesting fact that a large number of persons who had lived in the burned area made no recorded application for rehabilitation until after June, 1907.

Fifty-three per cent of those burned out, who by June, 1909, had come to the Associated Charities for assistance, first made application for relief needed as a result of the disaster, after the rehabilitation work was done. Many of them had undoubtedly received their share of clothes, had stood in the bread line, and had lived in the camps, but as their names are not on the records of the Rehabilitation Committee they had had, up to the time that they applied to the Associated Charities, no rehabilitation in the accepted sense of the term.

3. SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE CASES

The social characteristics of these cases are second in importance only to the question of their relation to the disaster.

What do the records show with regard to their nationality, their family relations, their ages, the size of their families, their occupations, and their characteristics in general? What were the disabilities that drove them to ask for help? What proportion of the disabilities from which they suffered can be marked against the rehabilitation methods?

Forty-one different countries, as shown by Table 98, are represented by the persons who made application in each of the two-year periods, and of whom the place of birth was learned.

Partly Rebuilt. Cottages in Washington Square

TELEGRAPH HILL AND WASHINGTON SQUARE]

The situation as far as nationality governed application shows but slight variation between the two periods of time. There are, however, a few interesting variations; as, for instance, the falling off in the second period in the number of applicants born in the British Empire, in the Scandinavian countries, and in the United States. Only the Irish and Italians have materially increased their proportionate numbers. Did the relief funds cause this increase, or did the catastrophe bear most heavily on these nationalities? When it is recalled[229] that the Latin Quarter was wiped out and that “South-of-Market,” largely the residential quarter of the poor Irish, was entirely burned, the fire seems undoubtedly to be responsible.

[229] Part I, p. 4.

TABLE 98.--NATIVITY OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[230]

===================================+==========================
Nativity | APPLICANTS OF EACH
| SPECIFIED NATIVITY
+-------------+------------
| Number | Per cent
+------+------+------+-----
|Before| After|Before|After
| fire | fire | fire | fire
-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----
United States | 532| 1,933| 42.7| 37.0
Ireland | 135| 734| 10.9| 14.0
Italy | 65| 541| 5.2| 10.4
Spain, Mexico and Porto Rico | 113| 500| 9.1| 9.6
Germany | 118| 475| 9.5| 9.1
Great Britain, Canada and | | | |
Australasia | 113| 373| 9.1| 7.1
Norway, Sweden and Denmark | 38| 138| 3.1| 2.6
Finland, Russia, Poland and Armenia| 32| 150| 2.6| 2.9
Other countries (24) | 97| 381| 7.8| 7.3
-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----
Total | 1,243| 5,225| 100.0|100.0
-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----

[230] Data are not available as to the nationality of 307 of the 1,550
persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 726 of the 5,951
persons applying for relief after the fire.

No question is of greater importance than that involved in the relation between relief and the family. In Parts I and II the effort of the Rehabilitation Committee has been shown to have been to limit closely the amount of aid given to single, able-bodied persons and to able-bodied men.[231] This policy is shown in the following table to have influenced the work of the Associated Charities also, so that the widow and the handicapped family received primary consideration in the extended rehabilitation work.

[231] See Part I, p. 47, and Part II, p. 123. This policy was, of
course, being carried out in spirit when breadwinners were helped not
with continued general relief, but with means to re-establish a home
through a housing or business grant.

TABLE 99.--FAMILY TYPES AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[232]

======================================+===============================
| CASES OF EACH SPECIFIED TYPE
+---------------+---------------
Family type | Number | Per cent
+-------+-------+-------+-------
| Before| After | Before| After
| fire | fire | fire | fire
--------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Families | | | |
(1) Married couples with children | 500 | 2,012 | 34.2 | 33.9
(2) Married couples without children| 109 | 522 | 7.5 | 8.8
(3) Widows with children | 167 | 1,044 | 11.4 | 17.5
(4) Deserted wives with children | 53 | 258 | 3.6 | 4.3
(5) Widowers with children | 41 | 144 | 2.8 | 2.4
(6) Deserted husbands with children | 8 | 20 | 0.6 | 0.3
(7) Divorced men or women with | | | |
children | 26 | 109 | 1.8 | 1.8
(8) Orphan families | 10 | 30 | 0.7 | 0.5
(9) Illegitimate families | 6 | 65 | 0.4 | 1.1
--------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Total families | =920=|=4,204=| =63.0=| =70.6=
| | | |
Detached persons | | | |
Men | 362 | 916 | 24.8 | 15.4
Women | 163 | 798 | 11.1 | 13.4
--------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Total detached persons | =525=|=1,714=| =35.9=| =28.8=
| | | |
Dependent minors | =16=| =33=| =1.1=| =0.6=
--------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Grand Total |=1,461=|=5,951=|=100.0=|=100.0=
--------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------

[232] Data are not available as to the family type of 89 of the 1,550
persons applying for relief before the fire.

Since the term “families” covers the widest range of variations in social status, it has seemed wise to make the nine family classifications given in the above table. It is plain that the seventh group lacks in value as compared with the classifying of each group separately according to sex. The incompleteness of the records made a separation by sex impossible. The most notable difference in the numbers applying for relief before and after the fire occurs in the case of widows with children. If to the 1,044 widows with children--taking the figures of the second period--be added the 258 deserted women and the 30 orphaned families, all supported by women, 1,332, or 22.3 per cent of all the cases, are shown to be families dependent upon women as breadwinners. If the 798 childless, detached women be added to the 1,332, we have 2,130 women dependents, or 35.7 per cent of those that applied,[233] which must be compared with 26.8 per cent for the period before the fire. The 164 widowers and deserted husbands with children, 2.7 per cent of all the cases of the later period, is a relatively larger number of such cases than is usually found in charity records. The proportion of the group called “illegitimate families” rests upon facts open to challenge as to exactness or completeness. Though the presumption is that the number is too small, 65 such cases for the second period are all that can be proven by the records. The fact that the percentage of applications from single men was less after than before the fire shows that the policy to limit relief given to this class had a deterrent effect. The 49 dependent minors applying to the Associated Charities in the two periods for various reasons were not referred for care to the city’s child-caring agencies.

[233] See Devine, Edward T.: Misery and Its Causes, New York,
Macmillan, 1909. The percentage of women breadwinners in the 500
cases, New York Charity Organization Society in the year 1908 is given
as 40.8 per cent.

Of 1,375 married couples who had lived in the burned area 647, or nearly 47 per cent, had a rehabilitation record, while the majority of all the men applying were without such records. By actual count over 80 per cent of the single men who made the first application after June, 1907, had come to San Francisco within the year after the disaster, lured presumably by the expectation of work.

The age of the person entered on the statement card as the main source of support for the family group, has been chosen as the age basis for Table 100.

In the second period of time 55.6 per cent of all the cases in which the age was ascertained were over forty years of age. This proportion falls to 54 per cent when the family cases alone are considered.

From the records for the first period, it was possible to tabulate data relative to the age of the breadwinner for only 661 family groups. In only 175 of these 661 groups, or 26.5 per cent, was the breadwinner known to be over forty years of age.

TABLE 100.--AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[234]

[234] Data are not available as to the age of the principal
breadwinner in 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying for relief after
the fire.

TABLE 101.--AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE, BY FAMILY TYPE[235]

=======================================+============+===============
Family type | Families | FAMILIES WITH
| for which | BREADWINNER 40
|information | YEARS OF AGE
|as to age of| OR OVER
|breadwinner +------+--------
|is available|Number|Per cent
| | | of all
| | |families
---------------------------------------+------------+------+--------
Married couples with children | | |
Before fire | 372 | 83 | 22.3
After fire | 2,012 | 946 | 47.0
Married couples without children | | |
Before fire | 84 | 26 | 31.0
After fire | 522 | 293 | 56.1
Widows and deserted women with children| | |
Before fire | 135 | 44 | 32.6
After fire | 1,302 | 864 | 66.4
Widowers and deserted men with children| | |
Before fire | 34 | 17 | 50.0
After fire | 164 | 110 | 67.1
Other family types | | |
Before fire | 36 | 5 | 13.9
After fire | 204 | 65 | 31.9
---------------------------------------+------------+------+--------
Total Before fire | 661 | 175 | 26.5
After fire | 4,204 |2,278 | 54.2
---------------------------------------+------------+------+--------

[235] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner
and family type for 889 of the 1,550 families of persons applying for
relief before the fire, and for 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying
for relief after the fire.

TELEGRAPH HILL AND WASHINGTON SQUARE]

The preponderance of applicants past forty in the second period is not surprising. Given a prosperous community and care in dispensing aid in time of disaster it was to be expected that those approaching middle age would be the ones to apply for and to receive aid.

It is interesting to note whether the strain due to the conditions following the disaster was felt more by the native or by the foreign born married groups.

TABLE 102.--AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES THAT HAD BEEN BURNED OUT APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BY NATIVITY AND REHABILITATION RECORD. JUNE 1, 1907-JUNE 1, 1909[236]

=======================================+============+================
| Families |FAMILIES BURNED
| burned out | OUT WITH
| for which | BREADWINNER
Nativity and rehabilitation record |information | 40 YEARS
|as to age of| OF AGE OR OVER
|breadwinner +-------+--------
|is available| Number|Per cent
---------------------------------------+------------+-------+--------
Native born | | |
With rehabilitation record | 558 | 322 | 57.7
Without rehabilitation record | 473 | 226 | 47.8
---------------------------------------+------------+-------+--------
Total | =1,031= | =548=| =53.2=
| | |
Foreign born | | |
With rehabilitation record | 966 | 666 | 68.9
Without rehabilitation record | 1,032 | 583 | 56.5
---------------------------------------+------------+-------+--------
Total | =1,998= |=1,249=| =62.5=
| | |
All cases with rehabilitation record | =1,524= | =988=| =64.8=
All cases without rehabilitation record| =1,505= | =809=| =53.8=
---------------------------------------+------------+-------+--------
Grand total | =3,029= |=1,797=| =59.3=
---------------------------------------+------------+-------+--------

[236] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner,
nativity, and rehabilitation record for 967 of the 3,996 burned out
families applying for relief after the fire.

The answer given by the table is that the foreign born family was older than the native born, whether it had had rehabilitation aid before applying to the Associated Charities or not. The facts indicate that the courage and resourcefulness of comparative youth whether of the foreign or of the native born, tended to make men under forty wait until all other resources had failed before appealing for aid.

The number of children shown in Table 103 gives but the approximate number of living children of the different families. Though data were fairly complete for children, minor and adult, living at home, there were probably many instances in which children who were married or no longer members of the household, were not named on the statement card. The count, however, tells facts sufficiently interesting to a student of dependency to warrant its inclusion.

TABLE 103.--NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN FAMILIES HAVING CHILDREN APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE

==================+=========================
Number of children| FAMILIES HAVING EACH
| SPECIFIED NUMBER OF
| CHILDREN
+------------+------------
| Number | Per cent
+------+-----+------+-----
|Before|After|Before|After
| fire | fire| fire | fire
------------------+------+-----+------+-----
One | 263 |1,204| 32.4| 32.7
Two | 205 | 989| 25.3| 26.9
Three | 150 | 608| 18.5| 16.5
Four | 85 | 370| 10.5| 10.0
Five | 58 | 255| 7.2| 6.9
Six | 26 | 130| 3.2| 3.5
Seven | 9 | 69| 1.1| 1.9
Eight | 9 | 36| 1.1| 1.0
Nine or over | 6 | 21| .7| .6
------------------+------+-----+------+-----
Total | 811 |3,682| 100.0|100.0
------------------+------+-----+------+-----

In the first period only 6 per cent of these families applying had more than five children; in the second only 7 per cent. Seventy-six per cent of the families in each period had three or a smaller number of children. Large families evidently played a small part in the dependency situation. It is true that the cases which presented serious problems of treatment were often those with a large number of children, but the actual number of such cases was small. The high average age of the applicant and the likelihood, therefore, of his having unrecorded children living away from home must, it is reiterated, be borne in mind.

The applicants in 75 per cent of the cases of the second period, mentioned in Table 104, were found to be suffering from two or more disabilities. The classifications were taken from the case records.

TABLE 104.--CAUSES OF DISABILITY AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE

====================+===========================
Disability | CASES IN WHICH THE CHIEF
|DISABILITY WAS AS SPECIFIED
+------------+--------------
| Number | Per cent
+------+-----+------+-------
|Before|After|Before| After
| fire | fire| fire | fire
--------------------+------+-----+------+-------
Death | 31 | 111| 2.0| 1.9
Illness | 493 |1,366| 31.8| 23.0
Old age | 56 | 344| 3.6| 5.8
Accident | 94 | 264| 6.1| 4.4
Unemployment | 302 |1,532| 19.5| 25.7
Laziness | 26 | 184| 1.7| 3.1
Desertion or divorce| 90 | 151| 5.8| 2.5
Vicious habits | 143 | 295| 9.2| 5.0
Other disabilities | 315 |1,704| 20.3| 28.6
--------------------+------+-----+------+-------
Total |1,550 |5,951| 100.0| 100.0
--------------------+------+-----+------+-------

The largest single disability for the second period was unemployment. Of those who applied to the office between June, 1907, and June, 1909, 1532, or 25.7 per cent, came for the alleged reason that they were out of work. The greater percentage of illness before than after the disaster is also noteworthy. Included in the other disabilities or handicaps that led to application for relief should be mentioned unsanitary surroundings and overstrain, the latter a term used to describe a general break-down of nerve due to the conditions following the disaster. Under the caption “vicious habits” are included all cases in which drunkenness, the drug habit, brutality, licentiousness, or professional mendicancy had played their part in bringing persons to be a charge upon a charity office. Add to those classed as having vicious habits those who were recorded as being lazy, as having deserted or divorced a partner, and 49 of those reported under “other disabilities” who had been neglectful or had served a penal term, and we have a total of 679 persons of the second period who may be said to have come to make application, or caused others to apply, by reason of the effects of wrong living. As this count does not include those whose illnesses resulted from evil practices or those whose unemployment resulted from disabling vice, it is not complete. It indicates, however, that dependency after the fire did not come in an exceptionally large number of cases as a result of evil living. Before the fire vicious habits were reported as responsible for 9.2 per cent of all the cases of distress.

4. OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS

In the table that follows all applicants for relief for the second period are classified by general occupation.

TABLE 105.--APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CLASSIFIED BY GENERAL OCCUPATIONS, AS REFUGEES WITH AND WITHOUT REHABILITATION RECORD, AND AS NON-REFUGEES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909

=====================+=========================+======+========+=====
Occupation | APPLICANTS WHO HAD LIVED|Appli-| Appli- |Total
| IN BURNED AREA | cants| cants | of
+---------+---------+-----+ who | whose | all
| With | Without |Total| had | former |clas-
|rehabili-|rehabili-| | not |place of| ses
| tation | tation | | lived| resi- |
| record | record | | in | dence |
| | | |burned| is |
| | | | area |doubtful|
---------------------+---------+---------+-----+------+--------+-----
Professional service | 44 | 38 | 82| 45| 6 | 133
Public service | 11 | 7 | 18| 10| .. | 28
Personal and domestic| | | | | |
service | 574 | 366 | 940| 252| 13 |1,205
Unskilled labor | 255 | 372 | 627| 288| 20 | 935
Transportation | 94 | 110 | 204| 83| 10 | 297
Trade | 172 | 114 | 286| 109| 15 | 410
Manufacturing and | | | | | |
mechanical industries| 579 | 460 |1,039| 371| 30 |1,440
Miscellaneous | | | | | |
occupations | 24 | 32 | 56| 30| 3 | 89
Unknown | 127 | 617 | 744| 554| 116 |1,414
---------------------+---------+---------+-----+------+--------+-----
Total | 1,880 | 2,116 |3,996| 1,742| 213 |5,951
---------------------+---------+---------+-----+------+--------+-----

WASHINGTON SQUARE CAMP]

In between 23 and 24 per cent of the cases, the facts of occupation were not stated in the records. A study of the cases remaining proves how widely need distributed itself through all economic classes in the community. The persons enumerated were engaged in about 200 different callings.

Of the 4,537 persons for whom data concerning occupation were secured, 32 per cent were employed in the manufacturing and mechanical industries, 27 per cent were in personal and domestic service, and 21 per cent were in unskilled labor. The proportion of applicants in trade was 9 per cent and in transportation between 6 and 7 per cent. Less than 3 per cent of the applicants were in professional service or in miscellaneous occupations and less than 1 per cent in public service. Whether considered as having lived within or without the burned area, no striking difference appears in the proportion in each group of occupations.

The facts concerning the occupations of the needy show that the mass of poverty in San Francisco centered, as might be expected, in the same occupations before the fire as afterwards. The data for both periods are presented in Table 106.

TABLE 106.--GENERAL OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[237]

=======================================+=========================
Occupational group |APPLICANTS IN EACH SPECI-
| FIED OCCUPATIONAL GROUP
+------------+------------
| Number | Per cent
+------+-----+------+-----
|Before|After|Before|After
| fire |fire | fire |fire
---------------------------------------+------+-----+------+-----
Professional service | 67| 133| 6.1| 2.9
Public service | 13| 28| 1.2| .6
Personal and domestic service | 259|1,205| 23.4| 26.6
Unskilled labor | 243| 935| 22.0| 20.6
Transportation | 85| 297| 7.7| 6.5
Trade | 107| 410| 9.6| 9.0
Manufacturing and mechanical industries| 297|1,440| 26.8| 31.8
Miscellaneous occupations | 36| 89| 3.2| 2.0
---------------------------------------+------+-----+------+-----
Total | 1,107|4,537| 100.0|100.0
---------------------------------------+------+-----+------+-----

[237] Data are not available as to the occupations of 443 of the 1,550
persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 1,414 of the 5,951
persons applying for relief after the fire.

In the two years before April 18, 1906, as in the two years following June 1, 1907, the largest percentage of persons was engaged in those vocations which are grouped as mechanical and manufacturing trades, as unskilled labor, and as personal and domestic service. The proportion of applicants in these three groups combined was, however, smaller before the fire, totaling 72.2 per cent before the fire as compared with 79 per cent in the later period. This is possibly due, in part, to the fact that the proportion of persons whose occupation was unknown was larger before the fire than after. The proportion of demand for help from persons in professional and public service was larger before the fire than after, for applicants in these occupations constituted 7.3 per cent of the cases in the period from April, 1904, to April, 1906, and only 3.5 per cent of the later cases. The disaster only slightly affected the proportion of persons in need who were in transportation employment or in trade. Before the fire 7.7 per cent of all applicants were in transportation employment and 9.6 per cent in trade, and after the fire 6.5 per cent were in transportation employment and 9 per cent in trade.

No specific data as to income are offered, because after some brief experimentation a study of income seemed futile. A person applying for aid may understate his income because he is humanly open to the temptation of trying to make as good a case for himself as possible, or may overstate it because he does not take into account the amount of irregularity to which he as a weekly or daily wage-earner is subject. In about 3000 of the cases in which income data were available for study, the potential earning power could have been in every case safely estimated by the occupations. The income for the average breadwinners, most of them semi-skilled, may be said to have approached during the periods stated the sum of $15 to $20 per week, an amount that represents something near the minimum earning power of the wage workers in San Francisco, a class of persons paid more highly than in any other part of the United States. For instance, among the American families burned out who were given aid, 32 gave their earning power at $10 to $15 per week, 27 at $15 to $20, and 21 at $20 or over.

It is of course of fundamental importance that the relief agent should know the total income of the families or individuals applying for aid. Only by learning what the income actually or approximately is can treatment be made to fit actual need. The record hurriedly written under pressure of work may fail to reveal the facts used by the investigator in determining treatment. The record may not, therefore, show the actual sum of knowledge held and used as the basis for treatment. The record, on the other hand, may be no more meager than was the investigation that it records. In the latter case, investigation, as well as treatment, has been in the hands of an agent who has lacked either time or training, or both, to do work such as is called for by the present standards of adequate case work.[238]

[238] See Part III, p. 173, for method of determining income of
persons owning their own business.

Summarizing the facts concerning the character of the cases and the situation that forced these individuals to seek aid, it would appear that the cases group themselves into three leading types.

1. Dependency because of abnormal conditions.

2. Dependency because disaster had converted semi-dependency into complete dependency.

3. Dependency because character and circumstance, irrespective of abnormal conditions, induced dependency.

It is plain that each group requires a separate treatment and that in estimating the character and utility of the relief measures applied, each class will have to be kept in mind. A conscientious effort was made to find how many of the applicants belonged to both periods of treatment, but the results of the efforts were so inconclusive that they cannot be given.

THE METHODS OF RELIEF EMPLOYED

1. RE-APPLICATIONS

The preceding chapter makes plain that from June, 1907, to June, 1909, there was made on charity the largest demand in the history of San Francisco, and it seems safe to assert that the majority of those who asked aid would never have done so had they not been suddenly overtaken by the material losses and physical strain of a great disaster.

This chapter deals with the policies and costs of relief and the reasons discernible for refusing aid to applicants.

Any account of relief work, to be satisfactory, must include such a statement of the effect of the relief upon those to whom it was given as will enable the reader to decide how far it was appropriate and sufficient for the need it aimed to supply, how far it was given only to those who could or would benefit by its use, and how far, when refused, it was justifiably withheld. An attempt was made to note the instances in which the work of the Associated Charities could be said to have restored a family to efficiency. Only a case by case re-visit, by Relief Survey investigators, which for the reasons given later it was thought best not to make, would have determined the point for any great number of cases.

Table 107 shows the size of the grants and the number of persons that applied to the Associated Charities after having been under the care of the Rehabilitation Committee before June, 1907.

The largest proportion of the earlier grants was for furniture, which were given, in sums of from $75 to $150, to 905 applicants. The next largest was for general relief, by which 388 applicants were aided, in the greatest number of instances because of sickness.

TABLE 107.--SIZE OF GRANTS MADE BY THE REHABILITATION COMMITTEE, BEFORE JUNE 1, 1907, TO APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF WHO AFTERWARDS APPLIED FOR RELIEF FROM THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES

===================+===========================
Amount of grant |APPLICANTS RECEIVING GRANTS
| OF EACH SPECIFIED AMOUNT
+-------------+-------------
| Number | Per cent
-------------------+-------------+-------------
Under $50 | 82 | 4.4
$50 and under $100 | 420 | 22.3
$100 and under $150| 437 | 23.2
$150 and under $200| 293 | 15.6
$200 and over | 517 | 27.5
None | 131[239] | 7.0
-------------------+-------------+-------------
Total | 1,880 | 100.0
-------------------+-------------+-------------

[239] Of the 131 applicants who received no money grant from the
Rehabilitation Committee, 19 received relief other than money.

There is evidence that 1768[240] persons aided by one group of rehabilitation workers reapplied later to another group.[241] The question that arises is, Why?[242] In reading the records of cases, reapplication cannot be attributed to any one cause. For example, a group of about 60 lodging-house keepers, the majority of whom had been given over $200 with which to establish rooming houses, had to apply to the Associated Charities for aid in untangling their subsequent business difficulties. In a few instances the first grant served as a spur to ask for more; in other instances the amount given was insufficient to accomplish what was intended; in still other instances, failure of health, inability to secure lodgers, rise of rentals, the bank flurry, the unemployment crises, each played a part in inducing a miscarriage in the plan.

[240] From the 1,880 noted in the table have been deducted the 112
applicants to whom the aid given was neither in money nor in kind.

[241] It should be borne in mind that persons who reapplied were in
many cases making their reapplication to the same individuals who had
extended treatment in the first instance.

[242] Part II, p. 127 ff., should be read in connection with this
discussion.

2. EMERGENT RELIEF

The relief given by the Associated Charities from June, 1907, to June, 1909, can be divided from the point of view of material service rendered into three principal types of aid:

1. Moving camp cottages to permanent locations.

2. Giving aid.

(a) In sums less than $50, or in kind. (Emergency and temporary
relief.)

(b) In the form of care for the destitute sick.

3. Administering pensions and grants.

(a) Grants made by the Rehabilitation Committee previous to the
assumption of work by the Associated Charities.

(b) Grants or pensions made by the Associated Charities from money
donated by the Corporation on advice of the Rehabilitation Committee.

The first type of aid has been already considered. The aid given in money, other than large grants and pensions, and in kind (2, a), is noted in Table 108.

TABLE 108.--EMERGENCY AND TEMPORARY RELIEF GIVEN IN MONEY OR IN ORDERS BY ASSOCIATED CHARITIES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[243]

=======================+=========+============
Nature of aid |Number of| Amount of
|grants or| grants
| orders | or orders
-----------------------+---------+------------
Food | |
Groceries | 3,526| $10,158.44
Meat | 3,519| 5,301.90
Milk | 2,435| 2,877.25
Vegetables | 23| 32.65
Emergency and food | 592| 2,094.20
-----------------------+---------+------------
Total | =10,095=| =20,464.44=
| |
Household | |
Rent and furniture | 499| 6,466.88
Sewing machines | 52| 1,355.00
Fuel | 163| 212.35
-----------------------+---------+------------
Total | =714=| =8,034.23=
| |
Clothing | =212=| =1,583.37=
Lodging | =447=| =639.80=
Transportation | =27=| =76.85=
Merchandise | =718=| =718.00=
Carfare and incidentals| =1,042=| =2,438.57=
-----------------------+---------+------------
Grand total | =13,255=|=$33,955.26=
-----------------------+---------+-------------

[243] Because of the fact that many persons received a number of
grants, the total number of grants as shown in this table necessarily
exceeds the number of persons receiving relief, as given in other
tables in this Part.

2. Well under way

3. Joining two cottages

4. The completed dwelling

REMOVAL FROM THE CAMP]

Most of this relief went to persons who would be dependent on aid in normal times and to the unemployed. The relief for the hungry was given for the most part in the form of orders, which varied in amounts from 10 cents to $10.44. The two items “emergency and food” are classed together under “food,” because they represent temporary aid given to persons whose special emergent need was food, but who had to have coupled with it other necessities. The rent and furniture grants varied in amounts from $1.00 to $75. A small supply of half worn clothing was kept on hand for distribution. This supply was drawn on in some instances; in others, money or an order was given for the purchase of new clothing. Materials for clothing, “merchandise,” were given in the form of $1.00 orders.

The following table shows actual expenditures for medical relief made by the Associated Charities in the course of its case work.

TABLE 109.--EXPENDITURE BY ASSOCIATED CHARITIES FOR CARE OF SICK, IN ADDITION TO AID FROM RED CROSS FUNDS. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909

In Parts I and II accounts have been given of how the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation aided the hospitals in their care of the sick. To the Associated Charities, however, fell the task of caring for the sick poor in their homes, a task made doubly heavy because of the scattering of the applicants throughout the city. In the table of disabilities, in Chapter I,[244] it has been shown that although the percentage of sickness among applicants was less in the second period than in the first, the number of sick persons to be cared for was much greater. As the expense of caring for the sick in their homes was not made solely chargeable upon the Relief and Red Cross Funds, physicians and nurses having given their services freely, specific enumeration of services rendered to the sick does not belong to this particular study.

[244] See Table 104, p. 293.

The Society’s employment bureau was during the two-year period after the fire in charge of a paid agent, who replaced the volunteers that had been able before the disaster to give but irregular service. As has been shown in the preceding chapter, the community was called on to care for an unusually large number of middle-aged women, widows with children, and aged men. The employment agent had therefore to deal with the problem of the more or less untrained, incapable worker, with whom a regular agency could not or would not grapple.

In looking through the records, applicants were found to have been of all ages, but except during the unemployment crises of February and October, 1908, they were predominantly feminine. In regard to capacity the majority were low-skilled. Among these were the usual types of persons: the willing and able to work, pathetically few in number; the willing but inefficient because too delicate, too refined, or too specialized as to training; and the willing, the eager for employment, who ought to be protected from work. In the last class were not only the obviously incapacitated, but the children under suitable working age and the widowed mothers.

The good social service work done by the employment agent in showing women in what way they could best serve the real welfare of their children and in bringing them in touch with the public and private sources of relief is an interesting and suggestive story, but it is not one that belongs to this Relief Survey, except in so far as it shows that the Associated Charities itself was enabled to do better work for its people after having passed through the ordeal of the rehabilitation work than before the disaster. The fine spirit of independence that drove some to persist in seeking work is illustrated by the following stories.

An Irish widow who had been burned out and who was suffering from incipient tuberculosis applied for work. She consented after much persuasion to go to a home farm near San José, where for the sake of her self-respect she was to do some housework. After a week or more a letter arrived from the perplexed head of the house saying that the Irish woman had suddenly and summarily left with the announcement that she’d “rather die than be so lazy.” She had left to hire out as a cook in a family which was quite unaware of her being tubercular.

Another woman accepted aid to carry out an employment plan which was somewhat opposed to her own. She dropped from sight, apparently having acquiesced in the office scheme. A year later she was found at a different address placidly pursuing, with fair success, the vocation she had been warned not to undertake on account of probable failure through ill health.

A widow in wretched general health who was burned out, had received before June, 1907, in addition to the aid of the camp and bread line, $1.00 for expressage. She came to ask the Associated Charities in the late spring of 1908, for money to go into business. Even the staff, whose policy was to make the largest possible concession to plans made by the applicant, hesitated and proposed that she do something involving less personal responsibility. She refused, so some generous-hearted members of the Rehabilitation Committee interceded for her. Two grants were made therefore, contrary to the judgment of the society’s staff, of $150 and $200 respectively, to be used under Associated Charities supervision for business purposes. In June, 1909, the woman was reported to be dying in a hospital; the business enterprise had failed.

In finding work for applicants a standard rate of wages for standard work was insisted upon. For all work the quality of which was below par by reason of the delicate health, relative inefficiency, or character defect of the applicant, the employer was left to settle terms with the employe. The greater number of women were given the only employment of which the average untrained middle-aged woman is capable; domestic work, “day’s work,” and house cleaning were paid for at prices ranging from $1.50 per day to $2.00 per day, plain sewing at $1.60 per day, care of the sick at $10 per week.

The two periods of unemployment which came in February and October, 1908, and which came as an indirect result of the disaster, brought heavy problems.

On February 5, 1908, arrangement was made to give work to unemployed men. It was decided that work orders should be granted to those applying, preference being given to men with families. From February 5 to March 26, 1781 work orders of three days each were given, a total of 5343 days’ work. As there were a number of repetitions, 1781 work orders represented about 920 men at work during the--approximately--six weeks. The majority of the men were untrained. One hundred and ninety-eight who had training were classified as follows: Bricklayers and stone masons, 7; electricians, plumbers, machinists, and engineers, 44; upholsterers, 2; watchmakers, 3; painters, 11; butchers, 5; cooks and bakers, 13; carpenters, 74; teamsters, 22; clerks and bookkeepers, 17. About 15 per cent of the 198 were members of unions. Most of the applicants had large families dependent upon them. As they were chiefly men newly arrived in San Francisco who expected to profit by the demand for labor created by the rebuilding, they were in reality not a fair charge on the relief funds. Their only relation to the earthquake and fire was the fact of their having been attracted to the city after April, 1906, by what proved to be in their case a Will-o’-the-wisp. The Porto Ricans and the Russians lead in the number of those who had come to San Francisco after the fire, and these are followed in point of numbers by the Mexicans and the Spanish.

As to the kind of work provided, four plumbers, six carpenters (all union men), and some of the laborers were set to work on the camp cottages. Seventeen of the carpenters were given work on the new Associated Charities building then in process of construction. Other groups were given work by the Corporation in repairing the almshouse road, in taking apart buildings at Stanley Place, South Park, and Lobos Square, and in loading wagons with warehouse supplies to be taken to the Relief Home. At this time and in the similar crisis in October, preference was given to family men. The payment was made either in money, or in kind; sometimes in both. Ninety-seven per cent of the men were paid at the following rate for three days’ work: Meat order, $1.00; grocery order from the store room of the Associated Charities, $3.00; and cash $.50. In some few cases, to those who were sent to work on the almshouse road, carfare also was given. As the Associated Charities purchased all groceries at wholesale, it was able to give four dollars’ worth of groceries for the three-dollar order. Men with large families, if they had no other employment were allowed five days’ work each week instead of three.

In October, 1908, about one-third of the men given employment were put to work upon a temporary tuberculosis hospital which was being built at the Ingleside Track. Four hundred and forty-two dollars in labor was paid for building four large wards, a diet kitchen, medicine closets in each one of the wards, and the bath and toilet rooms. Two-thirds of the men worked either at the almshouse or at the quarry which was started and run for several weeks by the Associated Charities. Many of the men, however, resented being put at quarry work which they considered belonged to convicts. Their dissatisfaction, the physical inability of a large number of them to do such heavy labor, and the inclemency of the weather, which caused the work to be intermittent, made the experiment one that can not be classed as a notable success.

To carry on this work for the unemployed the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds made during February, March, and October, 1908, three appropriations of $5,000 each. Of this amount, $14,105.26 was expended in wages or equivalent aid to unemployed men and their families.

3. PERMANENT RELIEF

The work of relief was carried on with most care in the case of those applicants to whom money had been given in sums of over $50, in some instances in one grant, in others, in the form of pensions. Though numerically of relatively slight importance, these cases occupied so much of the attention of the force that they may justly be taken as most representative of policies and accomplishments. The amounts of the gifts are shown in Table 110. The grant was made most often to the family whose dependence was a result of the abnormal times.

TABLE 110.--GRANTS AND PENSIONS OF $50 AND OVER GIVEN BY THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES[245]

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San Francisco Relief Survey; the organization and methods of relief used after the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906Chapter XXVIII: Part V: Relief Work of the Associated Charities From June, 1907, to June, 1909 (1)

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