As a field investigator has written:
Previous to the organization of the Associated Charities in February, 1908, no center of information existed, and there was practically no attempt at co-operation among the different relief agencies. Indeed, it was tacitly understood, if not openly expressed, that families applying for aid to any agency would go to others. One city official expressed the feeling when he said, "Of course, they go to other societies; we don't give them enough to live on." The shape of the city made communication between the different districts often very difficult in the days before the telephone, and habits formed then are not wholly outlived. The main thoroughfares follow the general direction of the two rivers. These become widely separated by high hills as they extend back from the business district on the "Point," and often one must either go a long way round or climb over to get from one section to another. It was very easy for a family to have its rent paid by a church, to get groceries from the city charities, to secure a nurse if needed, besides miscellaneous aid from one or more societies and charitably inclined individuals without any one of these organizations or persons knowing that another was helping.
From May 1, 1908, to September 20, 1908, the Associated Charities investigated 216 families. Of these thirty were "out-of-town" cases and twelve were false addresses, leaving 174 cases tabulated for comparison. The following shows the number of these cases duplicated by different societies and is probably a fair sample of the overlapping constantly going on:
| No. of cases helped by | 11 societies | 2 |
| No. of cases helped by | 7 societies | 2 |
| No. of cases helped by | 6 societies | 3 |
| No. of cases helped by | 5 societies | 17 |
| No. of cases helped by | 4 societies | 12 |
| No. of cases helped by | 3 societies | 20 |
| No. of cases helped by | 2 societies | 23 |
| Total | 79 |
A more thorough investigation than was possible with the limited number of workers would have shown that many of these cases were also receiving aid from one or more churches or individuals.
It should be remembered that this comparatively small list of duplication, only covers the cases where actual investigations were made by the society itself and not the many duplications revealed in the registering of from 7,000 to 9,000 cases. The reason why no tabulations were made of these was that, owing to the incomplete registration, the returns could represent but a very incomplete set of facts much less than in the case of the families actually seen.
Duplication of relief without thorough investigations, it need hardly be said, may mean one of two things. It may mean in one instance the dowering of a family which needs something else than financial aid, or it may mean, in another, the inadequate dowering which compels an otherwise decent family to beg from different quarters, thus inculcating the begging habit. It is not an unjustifiable theory to advance that it probably meant the one just as often as it meant the other in the Pittsburgh field because there had not been, previous to the coming of the Associated Charities, those frank and informal conferences between workers in the different societies, which alone can bring about that joint planning for the same families which is not only economic but just and not only just, but humane.
Every charity organization society in the country can match these stories of the evils resulting from the lack of a feeling of complete responsibility, which means inevitably unfair umpiring and often no direction at all. For how can there be direction when not all that is being done is known, and when the manner and the character of the remedies are held secret. The Associated Charities workers do not claim that with their presence the uncooperative effects disappear as at the touch of a wand, but that means to bring about complete and, if need be, joint responsibility for doing the right and complete thing for each family is furnished through their offices as meeting places and neutral ground.
The great weakness in the treatment of families in their homes, other than in medical and nursing care, is in the lack of thorough knowledge regarding the individual causes of conditions, the individual characteristics and connections and resources (other than material) of families, and a planning upon this knowledge. There is no need to draw illustrations from the Pittsburgh field because they can be drawn from every city, even where a greater degree of co-operation has been developed.
There is the instance of the aged mother, once a successful boarding house keeper, assisted by a society to re-establish herself in this business though her increasing infirmities doomed the project to failure. This failure brought not only the mother but her widowed daughter (herself in poor health) and two children into the direst of situations. Then it was found that the money had actually been thrown away because a certain well-to-do-relative in another city had not been followed up. The clue which led in his direction had been covered up during a hurried investigation. When he was informed through correspondence of the situation he immediately made provision for the mother in his own home and for the temporary care of the others until the daughter recovered her health.