Evening star., 1934-08-08
D. c. RELIEF GIVEN
ONE OUT OF FIVE
22 Per Cent Received Aid
in 17-Month Period,
HaIbert Reports.

Twenty-Five per cent Of the popula-
ton of the District received relief at
some time during the 17-month period
from August, 1882, to December, 1888
according to an estimate by Leroy A.
Halbert, director of research for the
District Emergency Relief Division.
This report on the relief burden
handled by the division was in
corporated in survey report submit
ted today to Elwood Street, director
of public welfare, by Miss Alice Hill.
emergency relief director.
One-FOurth Applied.
Halbert's study shows that more
than one-fourth of the entire popula-
tion of the District had filed applica-
tions for relief last December, but a
large number of the requests were not
granted because applicants were found
not eligible. From his study of records
Halbert found that at least 80 900
applications representing 10000 per-
sons had received relief during the
l7-month period.
Halbert made these estimates in a
report on an analysis of 1868 cases on
the relief roll, from which he arrived
at four conclusions he believes of inn
portance as to relief operations here
He presented statistics to show 81
per cent of the persons who we're
finally accepted for continuous and
systematic relief were persons who
had lived in the District for more
than five years. and that so per cent
of the clients had lived here for more
than 10 years, and approximately 40
per cent had lived here for more than
20 years.
He said his study showed also that
80 per cent of the cases surveyed had
never received any kind of assistance,
not even free clinical care, previous
TO the depression.
Victims Of Depression.
I'm other words" he said, nine
tenths of the persons were real victims
of the depression, and were not people
who were accustomed to trying to
get by without working.
The research director found from
his study that 89 per cent of the
families who were the subject of the
survey had some member actually
working for the relief received
Personal observation shows that
practically all the applicants for re-
lief asked for work rather than relief,
and wished to work tor what they
got" Halbert said.
His fourth point was that the study
shows that the case workers of the
relief division had in hand an amaz-
ing amount of information regarding
the applicants for relief
1T is a remarkable tribute to the
greatly overworked case workers to
and that they had actual knowledge
of all the points about their families
which are covered in this study" he
said.
Halbert also added tribute to the
applicants for relief, stating:
THE fact that 81 per cent of the
applicants had been out of work for
six months or longer when they ap-
piled for relief shows that they made
a great effort to be self-dependent
and bore a very heavy loss and sacri-
fee before they asked for any help
from the community.
statistics show that IS per cent OF
the families who were helped had no
income from other sources at the
time they applied for relief. This
does not mean that they may not
have earned a few dollars occasion
ally or had some odd jobs or even
got some help from friends and rela-
tiveS. but it does mean that they
had no regular dependable and known
sources OF income.
Since the high peak in December
the total number of cases receiving
relief has been greatly reduced. Street
said today the total was approx
mately 10000. There was. however. a
steady rise in cases from August, 1882,
TO November 1888
Families of white persons comprise
from 81 to 26 per cent of all those
who received relief during that period
and colored families from "a to 70
per cent.