PART II
REHABILITATION

Part II
REHABILITATION

PAGE
I.Beginnings of Rehabilitation[107]
1.General Policy[107]
2.Periods of Rehabilitation Work[111]
II.Methods of Work[113]
1.The District System[113]
2.The Centralized System[124]
3.Withdrawal[133]
4.Concluding Remarks[135]
III.Calls for Special Forms of Service[137]
1.Relations with Auxiliary Societies[137]
2.Rehabilitation of Institutions[141]
3.Bureau of Special Relief[145]
IV.What the Rehabilitation Records Show[151]
1.Introductory[151]
2.Social Data and Total Grants and Refusals[152]
3.Principal and Subsidiary Grants[157]
4.The Re-opening of Cases to Make Further Grants[160]
5.Variations in Amounts of Grants, and Refusals[165]

I
BEGINNINGS OF REHABILITATION

1. GENERAL POLICY

In the beginning of the Relief Survey it has been shown how, with what seemed to be an instinctive insistence, the trend of the work was toward the formulation of a definite rehabilitation policy. The principle, one might say axiom, which determined the character of this policy was that help should be extended with reference to needs and not with reference to losses. It was not easy to hold to the relief principle in the face of a sentiment by no means weak nor voiceless that each sufferer was entitled to an equal share of the funds. That the Rehabilitation Committee did consistently act on this principle during the periods of its activity was a marked achievement—an achievement that may be counted to the good, not only for the relief of San Francisco sufferers but for sufferers from subsequent disasters.

When the Rehabilitation Committee began its work at the beginning of July, 1906,[96] it could not know what amount of money would be available for the purposes of its work. It knew that $1,500,000 had been suggested as the amount and 15,000 as the number of families to be rehabilitated. It held many conferences to consider the possibility of obtaining even the roughest sort of census of the families who would require assistance.

[96] See [Part I], [p. 21].