Evening star., 1941-03-04
d. {. Relief Quiz
Hears Welfare
Aides Today
Citizens Units Also
To Outline Needs
Of Unemployed

represented at the hearings, con-
Quoted by the Voteless D. c. League
of Women Voters at the Y. w. c. A..
Scheduled to add their contribu-
ton to the total relief picture today
were Herbert L. Willett, jr., Com
munity Chest director; william
Savin, director, and Edith Holloway,
assistant director of the Family
Service Association; Msgr. L. j.
Sheehan, director of Catholic Chari-
ties; Alice E. Jones, executive secre-
tary of the Travellers Aid Society;
Gertrude Bowling, executive director
of the Instructive Visiting Nurses
Society; John L. Nixon of the WASH
ington Federation of Churches, Maj.
Charles H. Dodd of the Salvation
Army and Mrs. Henry Grattan
Doyle, director of the Self-Help Ex-
change.
Mrs. E. w. Payton, civic associa-
ton representative; Rufus Lusk of
the Taxpayers Association, the Rev.
Harry Porter, chairman of the We'll
fare Committee of the Federation of
Citizens Associations, and Sidney
Katz of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations were also to give tes-
timony.
Cites Lack Of Funds.
Welfare Director Robert E. Bondy
opened the public hearings yesterday
by asserting that national defense
expansion would have substantially
no effect on relief required here.
While national defense needs have
reduced the number of unemployed,
he said, people employed are all
able bodied and the District gives no
relief to employables.
You can't reduce zero" he de-
clared.
Urging that relief be granted to
employables where work was not
available, he expressed his support
of the proposed social security
amendment which would allow Dis
trict expenditures for general relief
to be met by matching social Sc
curity funds. 1t is not a regulation,
but the lack of funds which now
restricts relief grants to unemploy-
ables here, he pointed out.
Families on relief eat one month
and pay their rent the next, Mrs.
Helen w. Martin, assistant superin-
tendent of the Public Assistance Di-
vision, testified. They can't do both,
she said, with the present relief CELL
ings. She added that the P. A. D.
has recorded 400 changes of address
of relief families a month.
Using the food budget considered
essential by the Department of Agri-
culture as a standard, Mrs. Martin
cited case after case to illustrate
how far below minimum needs were
the maximum grants provided by
law.
Unit for Children Handicapped.
The relief ceilings written into the
law also handicap the Protective
Service for Children unit of the Wei
fare Board, Miss A. Madorah Dona-
hue, chief of the unit, declared. She
pointed out that not more than Sc
a month may be paid by the Public
Assistance Division for support OF
a child under 16 years. If the child
cannot be taken care Of at home or
by relatives and is committed to
the Board of Public Welfare, she
continued, the foster care service
of the board may pay a reasonable
amount for the child's maintenance
in suitable home.
"Thus our system" she said, "cre-
ates a diefferential favorable to care
of children away from their own
homes, while the protective service
is set up, primarily, to strengthen
and conserve homelife for children,
She ured that the Welfare Board
be given administrative discretion
to meet the needs of children on a
family budget basis.
Giving q case to illustrate the re-
lationship of juvenile delinquency
to inadequate relief, Miss Genevieve
GaboWer, chief of social service at
the Juvenile Court, declared that
I'VE have learned it is futile to try
to teach a child the beauties of good
citizenship when he sits before us
hungry"
Rutland TeStifies.
The need of more money to care
for the INDECENT sick was stressed by
District Health officer George C..
Ruhland in pointing to unmet needs
of the Health Department.
Emphasizing the need for con-
structing a health center in the con-
gested central Northwest area, DR..
Rutland said that area contributed
So per cent of the relief clients and
80 per cent of the admissions to
Gallinger Hospital.
Other needs he cited were for
more nurses at Gallinger, transpor-
tation for Public Health nurses and
sanitary inspectors and more Public
Health nurses.
Comparing the District allotment
for the Health Department with the
standard set by the American Public
Health Association, he declared
I'VE are operating on approximately
half the money believed by compe-
tent authority necessary to do the
job"
Edwin Jones, director of the Dis
trict Employment Office, testified
that 1t was becoming harder and
harder to place clients off the relief
rolls because the degree of manual
skill was decreasing and employers
refused to relax their former job re-
quirements.
Ihlder Is Heard.
John Ihlder, director of the Alley
Dwelling Authority, pointing out
that large percentage of A. D. A.
tenants were wholly or partially de-
pendant on public assistance, urged
raising their incomes $50 they won't
starve in their houses"
The inadequacy of relief and the
problems arising from it were also
discussed by Otto ]. Cass, superin-
tendent of the Public Assistance Di-
vision, and Mrs. Florence Conlin, so.
cial worker in the Landlord Tenant
Court.
Mrs. George Barnes Galloway
chairman of the Relief Committee
conducting the hearings, said the
L. - \ 1.n D.