Chapter XXXIII: Part II: Rehabilitation

We have to recognize:

1. The need, in at least the early stages of rehabilitation, of the district system, in order to facilitate application and investigation and to insure prompt committee action upon calls for assistance.

2. The need of a bureau of special relief from beginning to end of the rehabilitation work in order to meet the emergent and minor requirements of families and individuals without having to use the necessarily complicated slow-moving machinery of the rehabilitation organization itself.

3. The fact that even in a community where the residences of over half of the population have changed and the business section has been completely destroyed, it is possible to make individual investigations of family wants such as will generally mean the adding of the judgment of one outsider at least to that of the family.

We have to recognize further:

4. That the period of time elapsing between applications and grants will not be greatly altered if, after the early stages of rehabilitation, a centralized system is substituted for a district system.

5. That a flexible scheme of rehabilitation is furthered when no rigid limit is fixed for an individual grant and deliberation is required in each case where a grant of large amount is made.

6. That though rehabilitation may proceed generally along the line of fortifying each family in one particular direction, as for instance, in its business relations or housing accommodations, it will always be necessary to provide a considerable proportion of the families with subsidiary grants for other purposes.

7. That any centralized system which attempts to fix arbitrarily the different types of cases with which different committees shall deal will create a certain amount of confusion. If a centralized system seem desirable, the question is whether the committees in the central office should not have authority to consider cases according to geographical divisions rather than according to typical classes of applicants.