Page FOURTEEN
THE PILOT—Southern Pines. North Carolina
Welfare: Not Enough Money^
Workers To Do Thorough Job
(Continued from Page 1)
taken special action and re
plenished the fund to the ex
tent of $3,000 transferred
from, the county contingency
fund. Presumably, the cases
herein described will be re
viewed in the light of this
possibility for emergency
aid.)
First time you met up with
this fund—only you didn’t—was
in the case of the old Negro in
the miserable cabin.
As he was almost entirely blind
and had lost a leg, he was being
helped by two funds, Aid For
The BUnd and APTD, but, the
day before we came to see him,
fate had come down on him hard
in the shape of six young grand
sons. His daughter, their mother,
had been jailed for drunkenness
and had “dumped the boys,” as
he expressed it, on him. There
wasn’t a bite of food in the
house, he told us. On his
two crutches, his eyes dim be
hind the black glasses, he stood
to tell his tale, the center of a
swarm of youngsters— you’d
have said there were a dozen in
stead of six—and he was just
about crazy.
Here was a dilemma. It would
be impossible to raise his APTD
allowance under three weeks,
the minimum time it takes to
communicate with the State De
partment of Public Welfare and,
if the extra help is allowed, to
get a check back. Here was a
case for the Poor Fund, the coun
ty fund for use in emergencies;
through which a food order may
be given or an ernergency call
for medicine. But the Fund was
living up to its name: It was so
poor that it had vanished. There
wasn’t any more.
This is whai happens reg
ularly towards this time of
the year, according to past
exi>erience. Why? The com
missioners say: "She, (mean
ing Mrs. W. B. Cole, super
intendent of the county de
partment.) doles it all out too
fast." And SHE says: "There
isn't enough. We HAVE to
help in emergencies. That's
what the fund is for."
So what was to happen? It was
arranged that the local store
would help but you wondered:
should the store-keeper be pen
alized? And, how would he feel
if he had to do this sort of thing
often? Would he think: “We pay
our county taxes and part of
them go to run the Welfare. Why
can’t they take care of this kind
of thipg? That’s what they’re
for.”
Another Family's
Troubles
’That was the reaction of an
other man we saw that day.
'This young man had been
injured in an automobile
accident ,four or five weeks be
fore. His arm was still in a cast
and it would be several weeks
more, most likely, before he
could go back to work. He had
sent in an SOS.
Our case worker friend had
not visited here before but, even
'oefore we got there, she said she
doubted if this was in any sense
a strictly “welfare” case.
“Temporary troubles, like
this,” she said, “aren’t our job.
But we’ll see him and see how
things are.”
The house was small, in a bare
yard, the young man was on the
stoop. He was taU and gaunt, had
a heavy cast on his right arm.
He opened the door on a sea of
children. Or so it seemed in the
small room. Light heads and
dark, huge eyes looking out from
under long bangs: three little
boys and two little girls. A thin
young wife stood, her tow hair
hanging, like a shadow in the
back doorway' of a black inner
room. She had a baby in her
arms.
He caught our look. “And two
more in school,” he said.
You sit yourself on the sofa
and pick up your pad and pencil.
The children silently draw near.
Soon a touselled little girl snug
gles close, the others hang over
your shoulder. Only the littlest
boy stands solemn at the end of
the sofa, his chin resting on his
folded arms, great dark eyes gaz
ing, like a Raphael cherub.
As background data in the case
of this young textile worker,
the employer had been consult-
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1957
ed, with the result that the wel
fare department knew the man
was a good hand, steady and re
liable, but a poor manager of his
own affairs. “Never saved; used
up his wages as soon as he got
them.” When the young man
himself confessed to a recent
sizeable debt he had to pay as
“a. loan from the bank for
Christmas” you felt it was in the
character given him by others.
But when the case worker sug
gested that he’d got big wages
and when he went back to work
again maybe he could manage
them'better and save something:
“you’ve got seven children and
perhaps. . .” he flared up:
"I Pay My Taxes So,.
“I can manage. You don’t need
to tell me. I’ve always worked
and never asked help from no
one. You don’t need to help. I
just thought I pay my taxes to
the county and when I need
help, like now, seems like I
ought to be able to get it.”
He was flushed and angry, on
the defensive. The five little chil
dren stood around, huge eyes
peering out from! under tangled
hair. The young wife maintain
ed her shadowy silence. The
place was cold.
It took a bit of talking to get
things back on an even! keel, and
whether the worker’s attempt at
explanation of the way the de
partment works: how you have
to be in a certain kind of fix be
fore you can get help, how his in
jury was just temporary and so
on. . . whether this got over, (it
was hard to tell.
Later, you ask: “they surely did
need help: no firewood and by
the looks of it, little food—can’t
you do something in emergen
cies?”
Yes. you can, said the worker,
under certain conditions. You
can give a food order, for in
stance. But one of these condi
tions is the existence of the
general relief fund. As for this
young man, chances seemed to
be that he’d be able to go back
to work pretty soon. Yes, the
family did look pretty miserable,
but they’d probably make out.
Again came the phrase “the
neighbors will probably help.”
As you drive on, you think;
“Well. We spent half an hour
there and made the father mad
and I drew a dog and a cat and a
pig with a curly tail for the chil
dren. And that was that.” And
you think: “That Wcisn’t good
enough.” And finally you say to
your companion:
“You know, I think if I were
that man, I’d be mad, too. You
did a good job, aU right, in calm
ing things down, but it does
seem as if it was in times of
such emergencies that welfare
help is needed, and quick. Now,
that young man felt ashamed to
be asking for help. He wouldn’t
have if he hadn’t been really up
against it,” and you go on think
ing out loud: “Of course, he
ought to have saved. He oughtn’t
to have borrowed all that just
for Christmas presents, there’s
no sense to it; but people will do
it. And he oughtn’t to have had
so many children so fast to start
with. That wife looked so thin
and sick—but people will do
that, too. If people had good
sense always and kept their
health—and didn’t get in auto
accidents and so on— if a lot of
things—there wouldn’t have to
be any Welfare Department—”
“And I’d be out of a job,” your
driver laughs, “but there’ll
always be a need. Not only be
cause of the bad luck some
people get mixed up in but there
are always people with poor
judgment, of difficult tempera
ments who get into some kind of
a mess. And there’ll always be
sickness, a sudden death and old
age—and little children left
alone.”
And she goes on to say
that it is a curious anom
aly of social service work
that prosperity, such as now,
doesn't bring any marked de
crease in welfare rolls. The
families living on the lowest
income have not benefitted
by prosperous times, espe
cially around here where
farming is the general occu
pation. At the same time, the
cost of living has gone way
up and, to people who must
spend every penny they
make just to keep on living,
the going is pretty tough.
The poor are always, it
seems, relatively poorer in
good limes than in hard
times.
You ride along and then you
ask: “Even if this wasn’t strictly
a welfare case, wouldn’t you
have given a food order to that
man if the Poor Fund hadn’t
been used up?” ,
She hesitated: ‘T don’t decide |
these things. We talk them! overj
in the department—” j
“But if there real need: all
those children: starvation—”
“Nobody really starves. Some
body hears about it and helps.”
“Yes, but—what do the people
think? They look to the welfare
as to a friend in need. 'They know
you help this one and that one.
They don’t understand why you
can’t help when they need it.”
“It’s true. 'They don’t under
stand. We try to explain but it’s
complicated and they don’t see
why we can’t just hand money
out. They have an idea we have
all this money rolling around—”
she laughs wryly, “and here we
don’t even have any emergency
fund so’s we can give them a
little quick help.”
“So you 'would havfe helped?”
You are triumphant.
But still she hedges. “He made
good wages. High wages. It’s rid
iculous that he couldn’t have
saved better.”
“But the point is: he DIDN’T,
and he’s got seven little children.
And that sick-looking wife. If
she and the children land in the
hospital for malnutrition, you’ll
have a lot more than food to pay
for!”
And, as you drive along, you
decide that a visit to Mrs. Coie
and a look-see at the Poor Fund
in her reports and those of the
County Auditor Mrs. Wicker
might help you to understand
this business of the Disappearing
Poor Fund.
“You’ll do your best to keep in
touch,” you think, “but how is it
humanly possible when there are
so many people to see and so few
people to do the seeing?—only
two case workers, now, to cover
Moore County. No wonder that
one visit in six months is about
all that can be managed, along
with the emergency trips that, of
course, have to be made in be
tween.
You think of some figures you
saw recently in which Moore
County and other counties are
compared, from a Welfare De
partment angle. You wonder
why Anson County, for instance.
with population just 1,000 below
Moore, and Public Assistance
cases running 50 less, should
have 10 workers in the Welfare
Department while Moore has
only six. Harnett County, with
390 more cases than Moore has
14 workers; Richmond with a
population of 6,400 more than
Moore has only 3^0 more welfare
cases and 16 workers as com
pared to Moore’s six. Dr. Ellen
Winston, superintendent of State
j Welfare, in her talk here Tues-
|day, reviewed these figures.
Geographically, Moore is a
large county. It is certainly a
question worth studying, this
matter of the Welfare work here.
For one thing, and ignoring, for
the moment, the humanitarian
side of it: would it not be more
economical in the long run, to
increase the size of the depart-
jment staff so that more frequent
visits could be made? It would
allow counselling, to try to pre
vent some of the troubles and
;the expense they bring on the
! county. Such counselling might
I help to keep families going, so
that children wouldn’t need to be
in foster homes. More workers
would enable the department to
do more thoroughly the proba
tionary and juvenile delinquent
supervision, which is their re-
sponsibility; it might, again, cut
down on the troubles and the ex
pense- More frequent yisits
might even remove from the
welfare rolls a certain number of
cases now carried simply because
no one has been able to get out
to check up on the circumstances.
It just might be Good Business,
as well as Good Works, to spend
more money on the Welfare De
partment.
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