Evening star., 1938-09-27
'PHONEY FIGURES
CHARGE IS DENIED
Miss Hill Asserts That Relief
Prober's Findings Are
Unf0unded.

Charges by the newly appointed in
vestigator Of public relief that the
Public Assistance Division is issuing
. stream Of phoney statistics" were
denied today by Miss Alice Hill, direc-
tor Of public assistance in the District
Miss Hill described as unfounded q
report released by Burdette g. Lewis,
investigator Of public relief, in which
1t was charged that findings In at
least one incident bolster the con-
tention that the p. A. d. has pursued
q deliberate policy of exaggerating
relief needs through the medium Of
reporting large number of intake
rejections."
Miss Hill said, however, that such
reflections do not and never have
formed the basis for estimating the
relief needs Of the District, as they
admittedly are highly unreliable. and
often are duplicated from month to
month, but never within any one
month.
''s Specific Case Cited.
On the other hand, william Kar.
plnsky, supervising senior analyst. IN
. report released today by Mr.. Lewis.
declared that An Investigator found
. case in which . client made four
applications for relief between Sep
tember and II and that this case was
reported Is three rejected cases and
one accepted case by the Northeast
ONCE.
Miss Hill replied that Implications
are eliminated in her monthly re-
ports, and that any such duplicat ton
is clerical error. She added, however,
that "repeaters" often appear from
month to month. The assistance di-
rector pointed out that her report for
September would not be made up until
October /.
Mr.. Lewis, who was appointed in
April by an Independent Citizens Ad-
visory Committee, created by the last
Congress, stated in releasing the find-
ings Of his Investigators that he did
so in response to many appeals for
information concerning suffering of So
called rejected cases Of p. A. D. intake
in the District" ...-
He declared the statement was is
sued, also, "in the hope Of ending the
stream Of phoney statistics furnished
to the Social Security Board and
other agencies by the P. A. D."
Miss Hills Basis.
Miss Hill said she based her esti-
mate that an average Of 5000 families
q month should be placed on relief this
year upon the 2,783 monthly average
Of the last fiscal year, and upon an
increase Of monthly applications fol
relief. She said an average Of 3S2
such applications were turned down
monthly last year and that this figure
did not include Implications within
any one month.
I'VE have no way of knowing what
percentage Of rejected applicants are
entitled to relief" Miss Hill said, "but
we are sure from past experience that
many Of them are ineligible. Even
admitting this, the need for an in
crease in families on relief Is evident"
At present only 1000 families are on
relief.
In his report, Mr.. Karpinsky said:
"The Northeast Public Assistance
Division reported for the period Sep
tember to II, inclusive, that there
were 100 applications for general re-
lief rejected in that ONCE because of
insufficient funds.
Only 50 Families.
Mr.. Elwood Chisolm endeavored
to locate the rejected applications for
these cases and found that no records
were available for 13 cases and that
the remaining 81 reflections repre-
septed only so different families
Miss Hill explained that the missing
Is applications probably were in the
hands Of office workers who had re-
moved them from the active files for
various reasons An application al
ways is removed from the flles, Miss
Hall said, when an applicant comes
into the Office. It Is used by the per-
son who interviews the applicant and
writes up additional information.