The San Francisco call., 1906-07-17

all these earnest, honest-intentioned
friends / can but say: Your individual
efforts cannot reach the mass of tent
dwellers in San Francisco | might
name hundred cases where | know
that there is worth and want, but it
would be unfair discrimination, for
there are certainly thousands Of other
refugees who are practically equally
deserving of the greatest thought
and assistance.
had not been among the park re-
fugees long before | realized that
must school myself against my in
clination to stop TO try to straighten
out particular tangles of silently ap-
pealing souls. All that people of San
Francisco who have been fortunate
in finding comfortable homes or more
fortunate in having lived beyond the
burned district can do is to insist
that the properly qualified authorities
get down to working system and
get down to it in hurry. Several
persons have recently been refused
admission into camps on the ground
that it is uncertain how much longer
they will be continued, while many
in the tents are beginning to ask the
question, Where are we to go when
the rains set in?'
HOUSES NEEDED.
They talk of building houses for
us" said one woman, but how many
houses will they build and what are
they going to call reasonable rent!
We have no furniture to take into
home, and it will cost us a good sum
to make any little home livable. Now,
if they charge us any but nominal
rent, we won't be able to purchase
anything to put in the houses they
propose to build"
This building idea is all
wrong, according to my notion"
said one working refugee who is earn
ing good wages and expects to be
able soon to remove his family from
the camp. What sort of places can
they build for a thousand dollars?
When you deduct the sum that the
builder or some one must make out
of each structure, for you might as
we'll be candid and acknowledge that
there will be graft somewhere, you'll
find that the workingmen's homes
pieces by the time that the laborer
has completed his payment on them.
So much for the value OF these
homes
"Now, the workingman with a fair
sized family-and workingmen's fam
lilies are seldom small-who can af-
ford to make the monthly payments
on these relief homes could afford
to get along without the peoples
help.
What is needed is not permanent
homes which will fall to pieces about
the time the last insta1lment is paid,
and which will be miles from the
labor center, but a series of tenn
porary structures, big improvement
on the, Golden Gate Park barracks,
Of course, built down in the heart of
the city, where toilers can live with
their wives and children rent free,
for the next two years. By that time
they will be on their feet, if they are
worth helping on their feet, and these
refuge buildings can be torn down.
The proposed homes are to be
way out somewhere. What is a man
to do who must live miles from the
place where he works? 1t costs him
time and money to get back and
forth. II he goes back near his old
haunts he takes the butcher, grocer
and small tradesman with him, and
he will create a demand for small
flats and cottages, and individual land
owners will pitch in and put up such
houses. Thus you will be housing
the laborer for the time satisfactorily
and will be helping to rebuild his old