The simplest and cheapest arrangement for a family engaged in business is to live in the house in which the business is carried on. Except in the case of lodging houses, this presupposes smaller rental and in most instances, smaller income, because places of business with living quarters attached are usually remote from the business centers of the town, and attract therefore a smaller volume of trade. The list of combined quarters is a long one. Of the families re-visited, 302 are known to have lived in combined quarters both before and after the fire. Data are complete for 285 of the 302 cases, and the amounts paid are given in [Table 55].
TABLE 55.—COMBINED BUSINESS AND RESIDENTIAL RENTALS PAID, BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE, BY 285 FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, WHO PAID COMBINED RENTALS IN BOTH PERIODS
| Monthly rentals | FAMILIES PAYING RENTALS SPECIFIED | |
|---|---|---|
| Before fire | After fire | |
| Less than $10 | 13 | 33 |
| $10 and less than $20 | 61 | 27 |
| $20 and less than $30 | 75 | 53 |
| $30 and less than $40 | 34 | 58 |
| $40 and less than $50 | 32 | 44 |
| $50 and less than $60 | 26 | 25 |
| $60 and less than $80 | 25 | 24 |
| $80 and less than $100 | 7 | 6 |
| $100 and less than $200 | 8 | 10 |
| $200 and less than $400 | 4 | 5 |
| Total | 285 | 285 |
The quarters secured by the payment of the above rentals include 200 premises with from 1 to 120 rooms; 37 stores with from 1 to 8 rooms attached; 25 shops with from 1 to 7 rooms; 12 offices with from 1 to 9 rooms; 3 studios with from 1 to 3 rooms; 2 saloons with rooms; 2 stables with rooms; and a factory, a restaurant, a stand, and a theater, each with a room or rooms attached.
To secure these quarters, 34 families were paying the same rent as before the fire, 110 were paying less, and 141, or 49.5 per cent, were paying more than before. Of the 33 families who paid less than $10 a month after the fire, 15 had before paid higher rents. Subsequent to the disaster each of these families rented ground in an out of the way place, and had put up a shack for a factory or utilized a refugee cottage for shop and residence.
Rents have been gone into in detail because, more than any other item, they show the far-reaching family changes brought about by the disaster. Astonishing, indeed, is the adaptability of families whose quarters, from being one room, became seven; or from being eight, became one; whose rent jumped from $20 for a restaurant and two rooms before the fire, to $175 for a restaurant and one room afterwards; or who, having lived for years in a twelve-room house for $35, dropped after the fire, to a $7.50 ground rent for space for a three-room shack.
As conditions in San Francisco approach more and more nearly what they were before the fire,[158] it is to be hoped that the families can better see how to adjust their efforts so that business will yield at least a fair living. The details of many of these long-continued struggles of adjustment are striking, not to say dramatic, and it is to be regretted that the following pages must deal rather with the general features of the contest and, for sake of compactness, omit much that would serve to clothe the dry bones of statistics with living flesh.
[158] It may be that the steady growth which San Francisco is destined to make will prevent the rent of business premises ever falling to before-fire levels.
5. OCCUPATIONS
The Rehabilitation Committee made 4,736 grants to as many families to enable them to resume business of 219 different kinds. The 894 families re-visited are a little less than 20 per cent of the whole number. In the grants made to these, 126 occupations are represented.