PART V
RELIEF WORK OF THE
ASSOCIATED CHARITIES
FROM JUNE, 1907, TO JUNE, 1909

PART V
RELIEF WORK OF THE
ASSOCIATED CHARITIES
FROM JUNE, 1907, TO JUNE, 1909

PAGE
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]

I
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?