The independent., 1907-03-14
THE MANY HOMELESS WOMEN
WILLING TO WORK hut THERE Is
NO PLACE FOR THEM

New York Tribune Farmer: While
the problem of the woman worker who
at middle age finds herself thrust out
of her position to face old age and pow
erty is sufficiently pathetic, what OF
the gentlewoman who at thirty-five or
fifty, or perhaps at sixty, through some
whirligig of fate, is thrown on her own
resources2
The middle aged woman who has al
ways supported herself has an equip
ment of brain on hand, or both, that
may eventually land her in position,
if not in New York, in some city less
overstocked with labor. But the wo-
man who has never had to work,
who has always had her own home"
who has never learned to do anything
well, yet at middle life walks the
streets of New York vainly looking
for a job"-ah! what of her in this
roaring, swirling maelstrom of city?
Not Even Temporary shelter.
TDo you realize" said a woman who
administers the charities Of one of
New Yerk's millionaires, that there
is not in all New York a place where
reduced gentlewoman out Of funds can
go-not a home or an institution Of
her over her crisis till she can get her
feet again?
New York is honeycombed with
charities. millions are given away an
nually in philanthropy, mission work
ers overlap in the houses of the very
poor, yet absolutely nothing is being
done for the poor lady between thirty
five and sixty who is obliged to earn
her own bread.
Now here" and she ran her eye
down a page of the Charities Direct
ory, lis a home for INDECENT females
admission fee, 5000 How, ask you.
is a woman who expects to be put out
on the street any day because she
can't meet her rent to raise 5000?
Here is a home for destitute, re-
spectacle women'-admission 800, and
the candidates must be the widows of
missionaries. Here are church homes
innumerable; but this one only accepts
women of sixty-five or over, that one
charges IS a week, another has wait
ing list of three years, another re-
quires 5000 admission, $50 for burial ex-
penses and S. for examining physi-
clans fee.
And so on and so on She closed
the book impatiently. You'd think
great deal was being done to meet
this class Of distress, but it's all on
paper.
II heard of new home for women,
to be opened in the fall. Now / said
to myself, we shall have something
that will really touch the problem of
the reduced gentlewoman struggling or
stranded in New York I wrote, and
found that from 5000 to $500 down
would be required, and applicants must
be sixty or more!
'Of all classes of needy ones in this
big city, reduced gentlewomen are the
most neglected"
True Cases of Distress.
les of the poor things who drift to her
in their distress, seeking home, a
friend work, resources. counsel, hope
everything.
There's the widow of a university
professor-shes making neckties in an
East Side factory for $6 week. She
is fifty-three years old. Her husband
died her family dropped off one by
one At first she tried to keep genteel,
playing accomplishments or reading to
inyalids Slowly she sank. sank, till
now she earns her pittance in the buzz
and roar of a factory, living on two
meals a day, her home a hall bedroom,
four flights up in a cheap tenement
house.
And there's a nice southern woman
of thirty eight or forty who may be
on the street by now, for when she