USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Reading > Town of Reading Massachusetts annual report 1938 > Part 19
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The Board of Welfare probably is subject to more criticisms than any other town department. The members have consistently followed up reports of unwise expenditures and they are very grateful to those citizens who have assisted in helping to save money for the town. An- onymous letters are not disregarded. Their contents are also studied and every effort is made to correct any situations that need correction. If the writer of an anonymous letter is misinformed, however, the board has no method of advising him of his error. A very large amount of criticism results from misinformation and citizens should be sure of their facts before reporting.
As Mr. Harnden reports there have been a very large number of decisions to make during the year. About 99% of them have been unanimous and differences of opinion have been negligible and unim- portant. Every member has given many hours of time in endeavoring to save the taxpayers' money and to be just in extending relief. The responsibility imposed upon the board is very great in these trouble- some times and no one is more aware of this than the writer whose term ends at the annual meeting in 1939. He bespeaks for the board your co-operation in its very sincere efforts to properly care for those in distress at the lowest possible cost to the town.
Respectfully submitted,
EDWARD F. PARKER, Chairman.
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REPORT OF THE WELFARE SUPERINTENDENT
To the Board of Public Welfare :
Out of the great mass of detail that flows through this department each year, in order to select some of the more interesting items which would properly seem to have a place in an annual report we have made it a custom to go over the records of all the meetings held by the board during the year.
In making this resume for the year 1938 it is to be noted that the board has taken up 832 matters applying to individual welfare cases, and 436 additional instances involving Old Age Assistance. This means that 1268 times the board has been confronted with some problem dir- ectly concerned with human living and has been called upon to deter- mine the course of action best justified by the conditions presented. In addition, matters of general policy constantly arise for discussion, often in the light of new circumstances, and these also require disposition as the best judgment of the board may direct. To the many persons not familiar with the processes of present-day administration of public re- lief, comprehensive to a degree, and interwoven as it is in these times with the efforts of the Federal Government, the Commonwealth, and with many other cities and towns in the state, this detailed attention required of the welfare board might well appear as the item of greatest interest in this report. Certain it is that this arduous task has hereto- fore seemingly been taken pretty much for granted and it seems only reasonable that it be mentioned in a report of this nature.
General Aid
From our local viewpoint it does not appear that the year 1938 has shown any improvement in the economic situation over the previous several years. There has been no sustained rise in the demand for labor to take men off the relief rolls and place them in self-supporting jobs. Against the odds of these conditions, however, the welfare de- partment has, by concentration on individual cases, been able to effect a decrease of something like 10% in expenditures for General Aid as compared with the year previous. Figures might be given to show that the actual expenditure for General Aid in 1938, when compared with the 1937 expenditure (which includes obligations carried over and paid after the March town meeting in 1938), showed a reduction of some $17,000.00, and this statement would be true so far as welfare records are concerned. It should be noted, however, that about $11,000.00 of this reduction may be directly attributed to the Special Labor appro- priation of $13,000.00 which was voted in March, 1938, and which went into operation in April. This program took men off the welfare and
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Soldier's Relief lists, practically to the full extent of what they re- ceived as wages for this specially planned work under the direction of the Board of Public Works, to whom the $13,000.00 appropriation was given. Much of this work actually raised the value of public property. Such operations as paving gutters, easing curves and installing curbing at points of intersection dangerous to traffic, setting stones for town bounds, erecting signs, installing new drains and certain sewer construc- tion work, improvement of sidewalks, permanent surfacing on High street, piping ditches, erecting fences, and the complete installation of a wading pool at Birch Meadow Park, are of enduring value.
This good result was made possible because, although the labor assignment was from men on the welfare lists, the work part of the plan was brought under a department already having the equipment for it and having also the technical knowledge and facilities for planning and executing the several betterments accomplished. The effect on the morale of the men assigned to this work was beneficial beyond any question. It was obvious, from their attitude and behavior, that they were conscious of the effort to combine assistance to them with an opportunity to maintain a greater measure of self-respect. Some wel- fare labor could not be assigned to this program. The appropriation was not sufficient to last throughout the year and some men had no capabilities for the work planned. The scheme was an undoubted suc- cess, however, and its continuance in 1939 should be strongly recom- mended.
It is, of course, the policy to require work in return for relief fur- nished, in all cases where any member of the family is physically able to perform labor. We have less difficulty in this matter than is popu- larly supposed. Most men are willing to do anything within their capabilities to make some repayment in labor for assistance given to them and their families. A certain few we always have who, if by some improbable circumstance they should become possessed of a govern- ment bond, seemingly would have great travail in bringing themselves to the task of cutting off the interest coupon, but the great majority deliver what they can. From this "welfare work list" help was given in 41 instances where welfare families were obliged to move from one tenement to another, 246 cords of wood were felled, cut, and delivered to needy families and more than 100 cords additional, cut by the W.P.A. project was delivered by the welfare truck. The welfare sedan, a ve- hicle now ten years old, made 104 trips to various hospitals, in the majority of instances taking recipients for clinical or out-patient treat- ment, the driving being done by someone on the welfare work list, which usually contains the names of several better-than-average opera- tors. Under a little one-man welfare project 279 pairs of shoes were repaired for persons in welfare families. The man best qualified for
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this work obtained outside employment in May and, as some signs ap- peared that the recipients were "riding" this shoe repairing somewhat, the project has been discontinued during recent months. A renewal of this shoe repair idea might be worth considering.
The distribution of Federal Surplus Commodities is carried on for the benefit of all needy persons, whether they are on welfare, Depen- dent Children, Old Age, Soldier's Relief, W. P. A., or certified as needy by some recognized charitable organization. The value of these com- modities furnished in 1938 is set by the government at $27,000.00. For the most part distribution is made from the local depot at the Town Farm Building, by an administrative staff of three persons coming un- der a state W. P. A. project. All the trucking expense, however, has to be taken care of from the General Aid appropriation, as there is no other provision for it. Our truck used 1,500 man-hours of welfare labor and 430 truck-hours for this work in 1938, with the attendant expense for gasoline, oil, upkeep, etc.
In addition we have been required to furnish well-made lockable transfer chests for clothing, a large bin for butter which had to be iced in the warm weather, and we have contributed substantially toward a federal assessment for administration, weighing and packing charges on butter, treatment and bottling of the federal milk, and other items. Under the existing arrangement all the trucking, and a major part of the other expense connected with Federal Commodity distribution, falls on welfare "General Aid." A more equitable partition of this cost, so that non-welfare agencies which share in the benefits would partici- pate in fairer proportion towards the expense, might justify some thought.
As in previous years, the classification of expenditures for all wel- fare divisions has been furnished to the Town Accountant and appears as a part of his report. It will be observed from this classification that medical expense for General Aid cases is some ten per cent of the whole General Aid expense, the largest portion being for hospital charges, next in order being doctor's fees, medicine, dental work, visit- ing nurse, and a small amount for optical treatment. This compares favorably with similar towns having no hospital or infirmary but it is, nevertheless, a large item, nearly $5,700.00 in Reading. It does not seem that this report, written by a layman, should carry any definite suggestion in this matter but, with the present interest in socialized medicine, it is certain that the matter of medical assistance for persons receiving public relief will receive intelligent attention from persons qualified to discuss it.
General Aid-that division which most of us think of as "welfare" --- comprises considerably less than half the picture of welfare department
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activities so far as financial outgo is concerned. It is relatively costly, however, as reflected in town taxes because, while the state reimburses in cases having no legal settlement, the federal government makes no contribution except indirectly through distribution of excess commodi- ties. From several years close contact with this vexatious situation one's opinion is the more strongly confirmed that the only release from it is employment as we in former years knew employment. It is not encouraging to see a man who happens to be on relief clubbing away at some task for which he is not in the least fitted when that same man, provided with steady work in his usual occupation or something rea- sonably allied to it, could be drawing his own wages from sources of private initiative, running his own family affairs, accomplishing some measure of the joy of achievement, and working himself out of a men- tal attitude toward this "relief" business which is seizing on the minds of altogether too many men whose fundamental make-up is good stuff. Some local employers have shown indications of more thoughtful at- tention to this idea of giving a person on relief a chance for employ- ment when opportunity has offered during the past year and it is to be hoped that this interest may show increasing development for the benefit of everybody concerned.
Our General Aid case load for the year showed very slight varia- tion from the year previous, some 280 cases, representing nearly a thousand persons. Some saving is shown because in 1938 there were more instances where full aid was not needed or where assistance did not have to be furnished over long unbroken periods. The conditions in our town tend to keep this case load static. Reading is largely resi- dential and has not nearly enough local industry to absorb the labor of its working people. Any sizable industrial plant, able to employ men and women in numbers worth considering, which shows interest in lo- cating in Reading should be given all advantages possible and en- couraged in every way. Our Planning Board has well matured plans and safeguards already in hand so that no citizen need fear that the installation of new factories, mills, or any industrial activity, would be detrimental to general property values. On the other hand, any new local market for labor is sure to work an economic benefit.
Aid to Dependent Children
The provisions for financing Aid to Dependent Children are not too clearly understood by the public generally and this is not strange because the proportions borne by the federal government and the state do not necessarily have a direct relation to the total expenditure in any particular case. Under the liberalized laws which have been ef- fective now for two years, a family where the chief earner, ordinarily
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the father, has been lost by death or desertion or has been physically incapacitated with prospect of inability to support his family for an extended period, Aid to Dependent Children may be given if there is a competent mother, or some relative capable of managing affairs who will make a home for the children, provided there is a child, or children, under 16 years of age. The state will reimburse the town for one-third of the amount expended for the general support of the family, but will not reimburse for items furnished for the particular benefit of any member of the family over 15 or for an incapacitated father. Such per- sonal items would be for the most part medical assistance and clothing. The federal reimbursement, which may be used only for Aid to De- pendent Children, amounts to $6.00 a month for the first child under 16 and $4.00 a month for each additional child under 16. The rest of the financial burden must be carried by the town assisting, regardless of whether the family has a legal settlement or not. There is at pres- ent an effort being made to legislate the settlement feature into the existing laws so that towns would bear this expense only in their own settled cases. In actual experience the federal money amounts to about 171/2 per cent of the total and the state payment, which goes into the town's General Receipts, to slightly less than one-third of the total ex- penditure.
The law provides that all assistance under this category must be given in the form of cash. In each case a family budget is made up, on fundamentals approved by the state department, and this amount necessary for the subsistence of the family is issued in semi-monthly allotments to the mother or the person standing in her place. Quar- terly visits to every family by the local visitor are required by the state and a written quarterly report of each case must be made to the state department. Where special family requirements arise, beyond the regu- lar budget, such as medical or hospital attention or additional fuel for severe weather, a special allowance of cash is arranged for so that the person in charge of the dependent children will be enabled to pay the bill. To make sure that these special allowances are properly used it seems incumbent on this department to follow each such transaction through to the end and this is done one hundred per cent.
December 31, 1938, there were 26 Aid to Dependent cases on our list, with 68 children under 16 and a total of 121 persons being assisted. The number of cases increased 15% over 1937 and the best information we can get, from those best qualified by state-wide observation to know, indicates that this percentage of increase will continue through 1939.
A comprehensive mnothly report is required by the State Statistical Division from every municipality granting Aid to Dependent Children. This report itself is not an especially burdensome affair to local de-
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partments after the technique becomes familiar, but the detailed rec- ords which must be kept in order to formulate the report require a considerable amount of administrative time and attention. As these monthly reports are the basis on which federal reimbursements are paid to us-something around $350.00 a month-this matter very natur- ally is in no way neglected. There is a possibility that we may, some time in the future, receive some federal grant on account of adminis- trative expense in Aid to Dependent Children although so far nothing has been received on this account. In asking for 1939 appropriations the state department has advised us that it will be necessary to in- clude an item of appropriation for administrative expense in Aid to Dependent Children. This will not increase our total administrative cost as the amount asked for on this account will reduce the General Aid administrative by a like amount.
Old Age Assistance
Since its origin in 1931 the whole matter of assistance to aged per- sons has been governed by a policy of wide expansion, to a degree un- paralled by any similar public activity. A graphic chart showing the build-up of cases during the past five or six years looks very much like the picture of one side of a church steeple. The drop in the age limit to 65, the reduction of the required Massachusetts residence to five years out of the last nine, extensions in allowable real estate equity and increases in insurance policy limits, and the combination of a lessened ability in children to assist in supporting their aged parents and a far more serious and increasing disinclination on the part of the children to do so, have operated as a group of factors which has brought us to the point where expenditures for Old Age Assistance ex- ceed the combined expenditures for General Aid and Aid to Dependent Children. If it were not for the federal government's contribution of some 45 per cent and the reimbursement made by the state for ap- proximately two-thirds of the remainder the various municipaltiies in Massachusetts would be hard put to it to carry on the program. As it is, only a little more than one-sixth of the present cost is born by local real estate taxes and the distribution of nearly $6,000.00 a month to Reading residents under Old Age Assistance must have some beneficial effect on the general business of the townspeople.
There are dozens of bills now before the Massachusetts Legislature on Old Age Assistance which demand still greater expansion in this field. Some of these bills have points of merit but very few, if any of them, contain a single suggestion as to how the revenue is to be pro- vided for the increased expenditures they propose. Members of the
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Reading board and the administrative personnel have felt it their duty to attend legislative committee hearings and join with representatives of other communities in protest against propositions impossible of ex- ecution under the present tax-paying ability of the general public. With so much agitation in the air, however, it is easily possible that radical changes may be introduced by federal enactment or by the state with regard to Old Age Assistance and it seems inevitable that such alterations will be toward enlarging the number of persons eligible and liberalization in other ways which would call for very substantial increases in expenditure. The fear expressed by many authorities who have made an intense survey of this question is that the whole program may get itself into a stampede and literally "expand itself to death," to the final serious detriment of the elderly people themselves; a most disastrous ending of the plan originated in 1931 to provide a humane and dignified assistance for the deserving aged citizen who stood in need of it.
This department had on its list a total of 244 Old Age Assistance cases during 1938, of which number 207 were remaining as active on December 31st. The total expended for assistance was $67,706.70 which is offset by receipts from the federal grants of $28,829.80, by state re- imbursement $23,000, and by an amount chargable to other cities and towns of $1500.00, making total receipts of $53,300.00 and showing a net expense of $14,400.00 as affecting the town tax levy. From these figures the effect on the local tax levy can readily be calculated as ap- proximately $60.00 yearly for assistance in each case. The age brack- ets, the length of time people stay on Old Age Assistance, and certain other factors of possible interest may be noted from the schedules ap- pended to this section.
Most everyone seeking assistance under Old Age laws makes ap- plication for "the pension" and many are surprised that the question of need or the ability of children to support is a part of the law under which they ask assistance. As the only authority this department has for expenditure for Old Age Assistance is contained in the law (Chap- ter 118-A with Amendments) we have to obey all the regulations in the statute. The facilities of our office are available to assist any appli- cant in establishing his eligibility as to age, citizenship, and sufficient residence in Massachusetts. The need is determined by the bureau as soon as it has been furnished with the necessary information. The bureau has never failed to grant immediate assistance in any case where eligibility has been established and where, in the judgment of the bureau, there exists a need beyond the ability of children to support.
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Old Age Assistance Case Load by Months-1938 176 active cases January 1, 1938.
Month
New Cases
Closed Cases
Death
Reason for Closing End of Moved Other
Month
January
13
6
2
4
0
183
February
4
3
2
1
0
184
March
3
5
2
1
2
182
April
6
0
0
0
0
188
May
7
3
1
2
0
192
June
4
4
1
2
0
192
July
2
4
2
2
0
190
August
6
3
1
1
1
193
September
9
3
3
0
0
199
October
7
2
2
0
0
204
November
4
3
1
2
0
205
December
3
1
1
0
0
207
68
37
18
15
4
Old Age Assistance
Number assisted during the year :
Native-born
178
Naturalized
66
244
Age Brackets-Existing Cases as of 1938
Men
Women
65 to 69
27
43
70 to 74
36
40
75 to 79
28
28
80 to 84
11
17
Over 84
7
7
109
135
Old Age Assistance-Reading
Years
No. of Applications Accepted
No. Remaining Active Cases Dec. 31, 1938
1931
39
12
1932
18
3
1933
8
5
1934
19
7
1935
30
12
1936
81
53
1937
68
52
1938
67
63
330
20
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During the past year the members of the board have given gener- ously of their time and attention to all the matters of this department. They have been interested enough to attend conferences, legislative hearings, and the many general meetings of large attendance conducted by the Massachusetts Association of Relief Officers, to which all three members belong. In many instances they have been put to private expense to give these matters attention. The relief problem is a tre- mendous affair and the board has been quick to realize it and to under- take the study of the many obstacles which stand in the way of its solution. The administrative staff has given its customary willing and intelligent efforts without stint. Other town departments have co- operated to all possible extent, the Public Works Department being particularly helpful where the use of labor was concerned.
From the nature of the work carried on by this department it is impossible to satisfy both sides, the taxpayer and the person who is in need of relief. In a mental review of the year, with its numberless in- dividual activities, long hours of hard work, emergencies which must be met at once, grief of such a nature that this department can offer nothing, and the occasional victory over adverse circumstances, I have the conviction that the work of the department has been good; that the best that could be done for everybody concerned has been accom- plished.
Respectfully submitted,
EDWARD E. HARNDEN,
Superintendent of Public Welfare and Director of Old Age Assistance.
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REPORT OF W. P. A.
February 15, 1939.
To the Honorable Board of Selectmen,
Reading, Massachusetts.
Gentlemen :
I herewith submit the annual report of your Sponsor's Agent cov- ering twenty-three Federal projects in operation during the year 1938. The W. P. A. personnel was increased during the past year seventy to three hundred. This increase of 429% has made it necessary to en- large our project program considerably. I have endeavored to have projects in operation that have a distinct value to the town; projects that would of necessity have to be done by some other town depart- ment, although perhaps in not so large a scale.
The 300 persons now on the W. P. A. rolls receive in wages $218,- 000.00 in the course of a year. This means that we must have projects containing that amount of Federal money approved yearly. These projects must also contain a town contribution of at least 15% of the Federal allotment for materials and equipment. If this allotment is not made, the project is not approved.
Every worker on the W. P. A. rolls is a certified relief case, rep- resenting 4.3 dependents. This means that 1290 individuals in the town are dependent on W. P. A. for their livelihood.
The cost to the town for materials, equipment and administration per dependent person for the past year was $31.83 or .081/2 cents per day. An itemized account of expenditures of funds appropriated for W. P. A. materials will be found in another part of the Town Report.
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