Friendly Visiting among the Poor Part 7

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CHAPTER IX

RELIEF

I have been very unfortunate if, in the foregoing chapters, I have failed to make it clear that there are many ways of a.s.sisting the poor in their homes besides the one way usually implied by the word "a.s.sistance." To one who knows the real needs of the poor, the relief of suffering by gifts of food and fuel seems only a small part of the work of charity; but the fact remains that the majority of mankind are still little moved by any needs that are not closely a.s.sociated with hunger and cold. Their imaginations are sluggish, and the whole problem of poverty appears to them simpler than it really is. It seems to them no more than a sum in arithmetic,--"one beggar, one loaf; ten thousand beggars, ten thousand loaves"; and the charitable loaf is supposed to have moral and {141} healing qualities that are denied to other loaves. The truth is that charitable cash and commodities have no moral qualities in themselves; not even the good intentions of the giver can endow them with peculiar virtues. Like all other commodities, however, they may become agents of either good or evil.

The way in which we handle commodities tests us at every turn; tests our sincerity, our honor, our sense of spiritual things. Material relief tests us too. If we give it believing that, in itself, it can carry any blessing to the poor, we are taking a grossly material view of human life. If, on the other hand, our knowledge of the mischief done by reckless giving makes us morbidly sceptical of all material a.s.sistance, we are losing a valuable tool; for relief at the right time, and given in the right way, may be made an incentive to renewed exertion, and a help to a higher standard of living.

When the visitor's ingenuity in developing resources within the family renders material relief from outside unnecessary, the family is fortunate; but often relief from outside is a necessity, and the question then arises, How {142} shall it be given? Everything depends upon the "how."

First of all--and this is a lesson that visitors are slow to learn--it is very unwise, especially in the first months of acquaintance, for friendly visitors to give money or commodities to the families they visit, though they may find it necessary to see that relief is sent from some other source. "If one of our visitors finds her family in dire distress, and there is no time to go to the office and have aid secured in some other way, she of course, like any one else, furnishes it at once from her own pocket. But except in these rare emergencies, our visitors do not themselves give relief to those they visit. We believe this is a wise rule, and after eight years' experience we would not change it. If a stranger offered you a gift, you would feel insulted and refuse it Suppose you were constrained by necessity to accept it--would it not make a certain bar between you and that stranger very difficult to break down? Imagine yourself of a different temper, that you wanted all you could get. Would you {143} not be likely to talk more freely or truthfully to one who you knew would give you nothing than to one from whom you hoped a plausible tale would draw a dollar? For the visitor's sake also the rule is a good one. We are apt to think our duty done if we have given money, and if we cannot do that, we are forced to use our ingenuity to find other and better ways of helping." [1]

It is eleven years since the foregoing pa.s.sage was written, but the experience of almost every practical worker in charity will confirm it.

Friendly visitors are human, and their task, as it has been described in this book, is not an easy one. It is so much easier to give. But the history of many volunteers in charity is that, starting out with excellent intentions, they were tempted to give relief to the families they visited. First it was clothing for the children, then the rent, then groceries, then more clothing, and the family's needs, strange to say, seemed to increase, until, finding their suggestions unheeded, and {144} the people no better off, the volunteers deserted their post, and, still worse, carried away a false, distorted idea of what poor people are like. The poor, too, learn to distrust a charitable interest that is not continuous. A little self-restraint, a little more determination to keep their purpose clearly in mind, would save the charitable and the poor from an experience that is hardening to both.

When the friendly visitor has known a family for years, and the friendship is thoroughly established, it is conceivable that he may be the best possible source of relief; but the att.i.tude that we must guard against--creeping, as it does, into all our relations with the poor as an inheritance, an outworn tradition--is the att.i.tude of the London church visitor, who said that she could not possibly administer spiritual consolation without a grocery ticket in her bag. It is good for the poor and good for us to learn that other and more natural relations are possible than the relations of giver and receiver, of patron and patronized.

Nothing that has been said, however, against {145} permitting the visitor to become the source of supplies should be interpreted as meaning that the visitor is not to concern himself with the way in which relief enters the home, and its effect upon the welfare of the family. Everything that concerns the welfare of its members concerns him, and that their energies should be paralyzed by a too plentiful supply of relief, or that the lack of it should cause unnecessary suffering, is a matter that concerns him vitally. To administer relief wisely one needs special training, and an inexperienced visitor should seek the advice of one who knows the charitable resources of his own particular community and the standard of living of the family's particular neighborhood. There are certain general relief principles that common sense and experience have found to be applicable everywhere, however, and, avoiding the technical language of charitable experts, I shall try to state these principles as briefly and clearly as possible, under six heads.

I. When relief is needed in a poor home, it should be given _in the home_ without any {146} publicity, and after conference with the head of the family, who, if unable to provide the means of subsistence himself, is still responsible for procuring it. The man of the family, unless disabled, should do all the asking. This means, of course, that wives should not be sent to charity offices and private families to ask a.s.sistance, and that every charitable agency, public and private, and every church worker and every teacher should positively refuse to receive any message or appeal for relief sent by a child, except in those rare cases where all the adult members of the family are disabled. The neglect of this simple precaution has often kept children away from school, and has tempted parents to use them to excite sympathy. One sensational item in a Baltimore daily, headed "Barefooted through the Snow," was the account of thinly clad children sent to the police station for relief. Their father, upon investigation, was found to have taken their shoes off, and sent them out to do the begging for the family, after refusing a good offer of work.

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This newspaper item ill.u.s.trates the danger of giving publicity to individual cases of need. The poor read the papers, and when they find that sympathy is excited by sending children for relief, they are tempted to use their children in the same way. Few worse things can happen to a poor family than for their distress to excite the interest of an enterprising journalist, who publishes an account of the circ.u.mstances with name and address. It brings them an avalanche of relief sometimes, but the visits from sentimental strangers, the envy of their worst neighbors and the disapproval of their best, the excitement and uncertainty, the repeating over and over the tale of their trouble, and the destruction of all the natural conditions of family life, leave behind a train of demoralization that lasts long after the relief has been exhausted.

In a less degree, the congregating of the poor in any place for a relief distribution is to be deplored, whether the relief is given out upon presentation of an order or not. The standing in line, the jostling and waiting, the gregariousness and publicity, are demoralizing. {148} Missions, I regret to say, sometimes treat such free distributions as an advertising spectacle; but "it is of the very essence of charity that it should be private," and advertising, on the other hand, presupposes publicity. I have often had opportunities to give the poor tickets for Christmas dinners, free treats, and general charitable distributions, but, as I have come to know the poor better, and to care more for their welfare, I have learned to resent a charity that would help them in droves, as if they were cattle. A form of charitable relief that appeals to many good people in cold weather is the free-soup kitchen, where the poor come with their kettles, and "no questions are asked." The hot, steaming soup and the cold, shivering applicants make a striking contrast, and the kind-hearted citizen is very likely to think of such charity as "practical," and denounce the people who object to it as "theorists." There is nothing practical about a free-soup kitchen. It is the cheapest of cheap charity. If the weather is cold, people must have fires at home to keep them from freezing, and the gift of cooked food is {149} unnecessary. Soup is not the most nourishing food to give, moreover, and the "no questions asked" means that those who need most will get least, and that the crowd of st.u.r.dy beggars always attracted by such distributions will drive away the shrinking poor, who need help the most.

_The first relief principle is that relief should be given individually and privately in the home, and that the head of the family should be conferred with on all questions of relief._

II. A due regard for the self-respect of the poor prompts us, when relief is needed, to secure it from the most natural source or sources.

A family that still has credit does not need relief at all, and it is better for them to run in debt to those who still consider them a fair business risk than to receive charity instead. Next to credit, as a natural resource, come relatives. Charity weakens natural ties by stepping in, unless it is certain that relatives have done all that they can, or unless it has brought pressure to bear, at least, to induce them to do their part. Sometimes relatives have good reasons, which the charitable should {150} know and heed, for withholding relief. The next source of relief is friends, including neighbors and former employers, and a visitor who is seeking aid for a family may often discover better ways of helping by consulting with these. The tendency of indiscriminate charity is to destroy neighborliness. (See p. 27.) The next source is the church to which members of the family belong, or fraternal societies of which they may have been members.

Only when all these sources fail, and it is not possible to get adequate relief from charitable individuals whom we can interest, should we turn to societies organized for the purpose of giving relief to the poor, and, even then, special societies, like the St. Andrew's Society for Scots, St. George's Society for Englishmen, and Hebrew Benevolent Society for Hebrews, should take precedence of general relief societies, which were not intended to a.s.sume other people's charitable burdens, but exist to care for the unbefriended families that cannot be relieved from any more natural source.

There remains one more source of relief for the poor in their own homes. Many American {151} cities still give public outdoor relief.

This relief is called "public" because it is voted from funds collected by taxation, and it is called "outdoor" to distinguish it from indoor or inst.i.tutional relief. There are several reasons for regarding this as the least desirable form of relief. In the first place, it is often administered by politicians, and becomes a source of political corruption. But, what is even more important, it is official and therefore not easily adaptable to varying needs. Private charities can undertake a large expenditure for one family, when a large expenditure will put the family beyond the need of charity; but official relief must always be hampered by the fear of establishing a precedent, and inadequate relief is often the result of this fear. Moreover, public relief comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part.

Even where it is well and honestly administered, as in Boston, the most experienced charity workers regard it as a source of demoralization both to the poor {152} and the charitable. No public agency can supply the devoted, friendly, and intensely personal relation so necessary in charity. It can supply the gift, but it cannot supply the giver, for the giver is a compulsory tax rate. Some of the sources of information on this subject are noted at the end of the chapter. It is impossible to give the question any adequate consideration here, but it will be noticed that a large majority of those who have worked as volunteers in the homes of the poor, and have watched the effects of outdoor relief in these homes, are anxious to see it abolished in all our large cities, believing that private and voluntary charity can more than replace it. On the other hand, those who know the poor in another way--in public offices and from the point of view of the public official--are often stanch advocates of outdoor relief.

The fewer sources of relief for any one family the better, though it is often impossible to get adequate relief from one source. "The difficulty in giving judiciously is great, even where one person or society does the whole. But when the applicant goes from one to {153} another, undergoing repeated temptations to deceive and getting from no one what is sufficient to meet the full need, each giver feeling but a partial responsibility in the matter, one giving when another has desired that relief ought to be withheld, and thus destroying the effect of the other's action, we believe that the difficulties in the way of judicious aid are greatly increased. . . . We earnestly hope that the various relief-giving agencies may adopt the plan, so far as possible, of a division of labor, each doing all the relief-giving needed by those within its care and leaving others to do the relief-giving in other cases." [2] When, however, relief must come from a number of sources, it does most good if given through one channel.

_The second relief principle is that we should seek the most natural and least official sources of relief, bearing in mind the ties of kinship, friendship, and neighborliness, and that we should avoid the multiplication of sources._

III. In deciding to give or to withhold relief, we should be guided by its probable effect upon the future of the applicant. When it is {154} conceded that we should discriminate at all in giving, the popular notion is that we should give to the worthy poor, and refuse aid to the unworthy. The words "worthy" and "unworthy" mean very little; they are mere catchwords to save us from thinking. When we say that people are "worthy," we mean, I suppose, that they are worthy of material relief, but no one is so worthy as to be absolutely relief-proof. If relief is given without plan or purpose, it will injure the worthiest recipient.

On the other hand, an intelligent visitor can often see his way clear to effect very great improvement in what are called "unworthy" cases, and may find material relief a necessary means to this end. Better than any hard and fast cla.s.sification, is the principle that our relief should always have a future to it, should be given as part of a carefully devised plan for making the recipient permanently better off.

The only excuse for giving relief without a plan is that it is sometimes necessary to give what is called "interim relief," to prevent present suffering, until we can learn all the facts and a plan can be devised. In this, relief work is very much like doctoring a sick {155} patient. We have very little use for a doctor who does not alleviate suffering promptly, but, on the other hand, we naturally mistrust the doctor who does not ask a great many questions, or who fails to make a plan for getting his patient beyond the need of medicine as soon as possible. Our relief work is often nothing but aimless dosing. Like the doctor, too, we should stand ready to change our plan of treatment when conditions change. "In one family, where a pension was given on account of the breadwinner's illness, and continued for six weeks after his death, the daughters have been unwilling to take work offered at wages they thought too low, because they were not thrown upon their own resources at once." [3]

A plan that is not based upon the actual facts is, of course, worse than useless. Sometimes a charitable person will call at a home for the first time, will see miserable surroundings, and will feel that the circ.u.mstances are all made plain to him in one visit. Calling at a relief office, he will urge immediate relief, adding, "I have investigated the case myself." {156} The word "investigation" means very different things to different people. Here are some of the questions that, according to the London "Charity Organization Review,"

[4] an almoner should ask himself about any given case:

"1. Can anything be done to increase the family income? Can the number of wage-earners be added to? Can those doing badly paid work be taught better-paid work? Can they be put in the way of getting better tools or appliances?

"2. Can anything be done to make the existing income go farther than it goes now? e.g.

"(_a_) Is too much money paid away in rent? Could as good accommodations be obtained in the district elsewhere for less? Or could the family do with less accommodation.

"(_b_) Is money wasted? _e.g._ on medicine, or in habitual p.a.w.ning, or in purchasing from tallymen, or in buying things not wanted? Do husband and children keep back an undue share of their earnings?

"(_c_) Is too much money spent in travelling {157} backwards and forwards to place of employment? If so, could the family move nearer to their work without increasing their rent?

"These are but a few of the questions which the almoner must put if he wishes to be thorough. In every case he must _think_ about the problem with which he is dealing, and he must try to make those who are applying for help think also."

The best arguments for giving relief upon a definite plan are the results of haphazard benevolence that are all around us--feeble-minded women with illegitimate offspring, children crippled by drunken fathers, juvenile offenders who began as child-beggars, aged parents neglected by their children. Every form of human weakness and depravity is intensified by the charity that asks no questions.

_The third relief principle is that relief should look not only to the alleviation of present suffering, but to promoting the future welfare of the recipient._

IV. It follows from the foregoing that when we relieve at all we should relieve adequately.

"Can any one really approve of inadequate {158} relief? Can any one really approve of giving 50 cents to a man who must have $5.00, trusting that some one else will give the $4.50, and knowing that, to get it, the person in distress must spend not only precious strength and time, but more precious independence and self-respect? . . .

"There are many families in every city who get relief (only a little to be sure, but enough to do harm) who ought never to have one cent,--families where the man can work, but will not work. The little given out of pity for his poor wife and children really intensifies and prolongs their suffering, and only prevents the man from doing his duty by making him believe that, if he does not take care of them, some one else will. On the other hand, there are many families who ought to have their whole support given to them for a few years,--widows, for instance, who cannot both take care of and support their children, and yet who ought not to have to give them up into the blighting care of an inst.i.tution; and these families get nothing, or get so little that it does them no good at all, only serving to {159} keep them also in misery and to raise false hopes, or else to teach them to beg to make up what they must have.

"Ought not charitable people to manage in some way to remedy these two opposite evils?--to do more for those who should have more, and to do nothing for those who should have nothing, saving money by discriminating, and thus having enough to give adequate relief in all cases." [5]

By adequate relief charity workers do not mean that all _apparent_ needs should be met. There are often resources that are hidden from the inexperienced eye, and by ignoring these we destroy them.

_The fourth relief principle is that, instead of trying to give a little to very many, we should help adequately those that we help at all._

V. We should make the poor our partners in any effort to improve their condition, and relief should be made dependent upon their doing what they can for themselves. Whether we give or do not give, our reasons should be {160} clearly stated, and we should avoid driving any sordid bargain with them. For instance, it may be wise sometimes to make relief conditional, among other things, upon attending church, but to require attendance upon a church to which they do not belong because it is our church, or to let them regard relief as in any way a.s.sociated with making converts to our way of thinking, is to weaken our influence and tempt the poor to deceive us.

_The fifth relief principle is that we should help the poor to understand the right relations of things by stating clearly our reasons for giving or withholding relief, and by requiring their hearty cooperation in all efforts for their improvement._

VI. The form of relief must vary with individual circ.u.mstances and needs. Work that is real work is better, of course, than any relief; but there should be a prejudice among charity workers against sham work, for which there is no demand in the market. Unless such work is educational, or is used to test the applicant's willingness to work, it is often better to give material relief.

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A charitable superst.i.tion that we should outgrow is the notion that it saves us from pauperizing the poor to call our gifts loans. We may know that they cannot repay, and they may know that we know it, but this juggling with words is still undeservedly popular. When the chances of their being able to repay are reasonably good, and a loan is made, we should be as careful to collect the debt as in any business transaction.

Another charitable superst.i.tion is the prejudice in favor of relief in kind rather than in money. We think that bundles of groceries and clothes, and small allowances of fuel, can do no harm, but the fact is that, where it would be unsafe to give money, it is usually unsafe to give money's equivalent. Large relief societies find it more economical to buy commodities in quant.i.ties, and so get the advantage of wholesale prices; but, so far as the poor themselves are concerned, there is no reason for giving goods rather than cash. On the contrary, many poor people can make the money go farther than we can. Money intended for temporary relief should not be used {162} for rent, however, except in cases where ejectment would seriously endanger the welfare of the family. Back rent is like any other back debt; landlords should take their chances of loss with other creditors. Nor should charitable relief be used to enable people to move from place to place in order to avoid the payment of rent.[6]

When inst.i.tutional care is clearly not only the most economical but the most adequate form of relief, we are sometimes justified in refusing all other forms.

In cases where inst.i.tutional care is not practicable, and relief will be needed for a long period, it is best to organize a private pension, letting all the natural sources of relief combine and give through one medium an adequate amount.

_The sixth relief principle is that we must find that form of relief which will best fit the particular need._

Though the foregoing six relief principles could easily be extended to twenty, yet a {163} bookful of such generalizations would be of no value to the almoner without a detailed knowledge of the neighborhood into which relief is to go, and an intimate acquaintance with the lives of the poor. It is evident, therefore, that a beginner in charity should not decide relief questions except in consultation with an experienced worker. For instance, a new visitor going to the house of a widow supporting her aged mother and two children, may find the woman sick, and receiving only a small pittance in sick benefits from the society to which she belongs. There is no apparent suffering, but the visitor at once concludes that the income is insufficient, and applies to the nearest relief agency, asking that coal be sent. As a matter of fact, the family income is as large as the average income of the neighborhood, and the woman has never thought of asking relief; if fuel is sent, the neighbors all know it, and, immediately, there is a certain expectancy aroused, a certain spirit of speculation takes the place of the habit of thrift. There seem, to the simple imaginations of these people, to be exhaustless stores of relief, which {164} are somehow at the command of visiting ladies. Take another instance of a more difficult kind. A family has long pa.s.sed the stage of receiving relief for the first time; the man is a heavy drinker, the household filthy, the children neglected. They appeal at once for a.s.sistance.

The children need shoes to go to Sunday-school, the rent is overdue, the coal is out. Confronted with such misery, the beginner is very likely to give, and to compound with his conscience by giving "a little." This is the very treatment that has brought them to their present pa.s.s, and only an experienced and intelligent almoner can tell how far it is wise to let the forces of nature work a cure, and how far it is wise to prevent extreme suffering by interference.