FINDINGS
1. The homeless casual and migratory workers, while found in all parts of the city, are segregated in great numbers in four distinct areas: West Madison Street, Lower South State Street (near the Loop), North Clark Street, and Upper State Street (the Negro section).
2. The number of homeless men in these areas fluctuates greatly with the seasons and with conditions of employment.
3. The concentration of casual and migratory workers in this city is the natural result of two factors: (a) the development of Chicago as a great industrial community with diversified enterprises requiring a variety of unskilled as well as skilled laborers, and (b) the position of Chicago as a center of transportation, of commerce and of employment for the states of the Mississippi Valley.
4. The homeless men in Chicago fall into five groups: (a) the seasonal laborer, (b) the migratory, casual laborer, the hobo, (c) the migratory non-worker, the tramp, (d) the non-migratory casual laborer, the so-called “home guard,” (e) the bum. Groups b, c, d, and e constitute what are known in economic writings as “The Residuum of Industry.” In addition to these groups of the homeless casual and migratory workers are the groups of seasonal laborers and the men out of work, which expand and contract with the periods of economic depression and of industrial prosperity.
5. The causes which reduce a man to the status of a homeless migratory and casual worker may be classified under five main heads as follows:
a) Unemployment and Seasonal Work: these maladjustments of modern industry which disorganize the routine of life of the individual and destroy regular habits of work.
b) Industrial Inadequacy: “the misfits of industry,” whether due to physical handicaps, mental deficiency, occupational disease, or lack of vocational training.
c) Defects of Personality: as feeble-mindedness, constitutional inferiority, or egocentricity, which lead to the conflict of the person with constituted authority in industry, society, and government.
d) Crises in the Life of the Person: as family conflicts, misconduct, and crime, which exile a man from home and community and detach him from normal social ties.
e) Racial or National Discrimination: where race, nationality, or social class of the person enters as a factor of adverse selection for employment.
f) Wanderlust: the desire for new experience, excitement, and adventure, which moves the boy “to see the world.”
6. To satisfy the wants and wishes of the thousands of homeless migratory and casual workers at the lowest possible cost, specialized institutions and enterprises have been established in Chicago. These include:
a) Employment agencies.
b) Restaurants and lodging-houses.
c) Barber colleges.
d) Outfitting stores and clothing exchanges.
e) Pawnshops.
f) Movies and burlesques.
g) Missions.
h) Local political and social organizations, as “The Industrial Workers of the World” and the “Hobo College.”
i) Secular street meetings and radical bookstores.
7. Chicago as the great clearing house of employment for the states of the Mississippi Valley naturally and inevitably becomes the temporary home of men out of work for the entire region. The following appear to be the facts in regard to the workers and the conditions of employment:
a) Fluctuations of industry, such as seasonal changes, and of unemployment, force large numbers of men into the group of homeless migratory and casual workers.
b) At the same time, the homeless migratory and casual worker develops irregular habits of work and a life-policy of “living from hand to mouth.”
c) Employment records indicate that the lower grade of casual workers prefer work by the day, or employment by the week or two, to “permanent” positions of three months or longer.
d) The Illinois Free Employment offices, efficiently administered with simple but well-kept records and with courteous treatment of applicants, placed 50,482 persons in the year ending September 30, 1922, mainly in positions in and near Chicago.
e) The private employment agencies dealing with the homeless man, about fifty in number, which are, in general, poorly equipped, with the minimum of record keeping required by law and with inconsiderate treatment of applicants, place about 200,000 men a year in positions, for the most part, outside of Chicago.
f) The law relating to private employment agencies as approved June 15, 1909, in force July 1, 1909, and as amended and approved June 7, 1911, in force July 1, 1911, appears not to be enforced in two points:
i) the requirement that sections three (3), four (4), and five (5) of the law be posted in a conspicuous place in each room of the agency; and
ii) the return to the applicant of three-fifths of the registration and other fees upon failure of applicant to accept position or upon his discharge for cause.
8. The health and hygiene of the homeless migratory and casual worker is of vital concern not only for his economic efficiency but also because of the relation of his high mobility to the spread of communicable diseases.
9. The homeless migratory and casual workers constitute a womanless group. The results of this sex isolation are:
a) No opportunity for the expression and sublimation of the sex impulse in the normal life of the family.
b) In a few cases, the substitution for marriage of free unions more or less casual, usually terminated at the will of the man without due regard to the claims of the woman.
c) The dependence of the greatest number of homeless men upon the professional prostitute of the lowest grade and the cheapest sort.
d) The prevalence of sex perversions, as masturbation and homosexuality.
10. The attraction for the boy of excitement and adventure renders him peculiarly susceptible to the “call of the road.”
a) Hundreds of Chicago boys, mainly but not entirely of wage-earning families, every spring “beat their way” to the harvest fields, impelled by wanderlust, and the opportunity for work away from home.
b) Of these a certain proportion acquire the migratory habit and may pass through successive stages from a high-grade seasonal worker to the lowest type of bum.
c) The boy on the road and in the city is constantly under the pressure of homosexual exploitation by confirmed perverts in the migratory group.
d) Certain areas of the city frequented by boys have been found to be resorts and rendezvous for homosexual prostitution.
11. While the majority of the homeless migratory workers are American citizens of native stock:
a) They are in large numbers for practical purposes disfranchised because they seldom remain in any community long enough to secure legal residence.
b) They constitute a shifting and shiftless group without property and family, and with no effective participation in the civic life of the community.
c) According to statements from police authorities they contribute but slightly to the volume of serious crime.
d) Both on the road and in the city, they are at all times subject to arbitrary handling and arrest by private and public police and to summary trial and sentence by the court.
e) The attitude of Chicago, like that of other communities toward the homeless man, has been a policy of defense intrusted to the police department for execution.
12. Social service to the homeless migratory and casual worker has for the most part been remedial rather than preventive; unorganized and haphazard rather than organized and co-ordinated.
a) Professional beggars and fakers exploit public sympathy and credulity for individual gain to the disadvantage of the men who need and deserve assistance.
b) The missions and certain churches feed, clothe, and provide shelter for several thousand men during the winter months.
c) The Dawes Hotel, the Christian Industrial League, and the Salvation Army hotels provide lodging at a low charge.
d) The Salvation Army maintains the Industrial Home with workshops which accommodate a limited number of men.
e) The United Charities and the Central Charity (Catholic) Bureau, although concerned mainly with family relief, give certain forms of assistance to the homeless man.
f) The Jewish Social Service Bureau maintains a department for homeless men, which acts as a referring agency to two shelter houses.
g) The American Legion and other patriotic organizations have provided assistance of various types to the ex-service man out of employment.
h) The Municipal Lodging House, which closed its doors in 1918, has not been reopened, despite the evident need of the winters of 1920-21 and 1921-22.
i) The Cook County agent provides free transportation to non-residents to place of legal residence and refers residents to Oak Forest Infirmary.
j) The county and city hospitals and dispensaries provide free medical care.
k) Unco-ordinated effort of the organizations for service to the homeless man has resulted in duplication of activities, a low standard of work, and the neglect of a constructive program of rehabilitation.