Senator MORSE. Mrs. Stoddard, you can be of further help to the committee by supplying us with additional material on the very lines that you testified here today. I do not see how anyone can read your testimony and not reach the conclusion that we do not have to drive the father out of the home in order to protect the taxpayer from wasting any of the money. In fact, it would be interesting, would it not, if we could have an accounting of how much of the taxpayer's money has to be spent through other agencies, through other services to take care of the father after we drive him out of the home? We not only have to pay his rent, he has to live somewhere, but I do not think I am letting my imagination run away with me when I say that I suspect in many instances that we drive him into unlawful conduct of one kind or another. Maybe if we want to look at it from the standpoint of dollars and cents it is cheaper to leave him in the family. If we forget about all these other much more precious values than dollars, it is cheaper dollarwise to leave him in the family and exercise the greater supervision and control that I suggested earlier today as the best way of seeing to it that the money is not used for improper purposes by the father. I do not think that is an administrative problem that defies a solution, particularly when you look at the price you are going to pay money wise and in the loss of priceless human values by a policy that says you have got to leave the family. Well, I want to thank you very much. Mrs. STODDARD. Thank you. Would it be helpful in submitting some more cases to you to use if we do them in very summarized forms such as I have presented these three? Senator MORSE. I wish you would. If you get them to me before the hearing record is closed, they will go in. (Information requested follows:) FAMILY AND CHILD SERVICES OF WASHINGTON, D.C., Hon. Senator WAYNE MORSE, May 11, 1965. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: As you so graciously suggested at yesterday's District subcommittee hearing, I am enclosing for the record a few additional "case briefs" to be added to my testimony. Thank you again on behalf of Family and Child Services for your valued interest and concern about such a vital matter affecting children and families. Very sincerely yours, MARY ALICE STODDARD FAMILY AND CHILD SERVICES OF WASHINGTON ILLUSTRATIVE CASE EXAMPLES 1. The Allen family: Mr. A, 28. Mrs. A, 27, six children 7 years to 5 months. Mr. A is a very unskilled head of household, a self-employed vendor, supporting family as best he can, meagerly, using an old rundown car, which had finally broken down completely. Despite applications to about 20 places, he was unable to find any kind of job. Applied for help with rent and food until he could get some work. Is intelligent, impressive-type person. Casework and financial help imperative to see family through crisis. Not eligible for any type of public funds. Man unable 2. The James family: Father 40, mother 40, five children 3 to 12. to find work, exhausted unemployment benefits. Family now broken up when applied-all living with different relatives. Couple came to FCS seeking job counseling after eviction. Man attending night school, looking for daywork. Highly motivated to better himself, has high standards for his family. Aid to this family before eviction would have prevented this breakdown and separation. 3. The Hall family: Man 37, wife 30, eight children 11 years to 15 months. Mr. H asking financial aid to keep family together, not eligible for UIB, unable to find steady trucking job since previous employer went out of business. Man now ill, facing hospitalization and family to be evicted if rent not paid up. Family in need of help to see them through his short-term illness and until he can get some kind of job. Community resources nonexistent to provide this type of total help which should be a public welfare responsibility. 4. The Renault family: Father 32, mother 27, three children. Without funds due to father's unemployment. Evicted from home of relatives, no home, no furniture. USES and private agencies could not find job for him. Finally he secured a poor job. We have helped until first pay. This family could have been helped from public funds if a program of assistance to families with unemployed head were available here. We see no reason why private funds should have to carry this kind of financial need. They of course also need basic casework counseling. 5. The Conway family: A 24-year-old father of four young children. Unemployed several months during the winter. He and his 20-year-old wife have managed the best they could on scanty unemployment benefits and occasional odd jobs. Now as he returns to an unskilled construction job, he is faced with eviction before he can draw fist pay, immediate food needs and the inevitable indebtedness so many families like this have had to incur. 6. The Clarks: This 24-year-old man, who had been unemployed, came to a private social agency with his year-old son and pregnant wife, seeking help in work and temporary financial help after eviction for nonpayment of rent. This man has been attempting to improve earning ability by night school. Now they are living separately, each taken in by a relative. AFDC-UP could have held this little family together as a unit and given support to their efforts to improve themselves. The next witness is Mrs. Jane Schwartz, president, League of Women Voters, District of Columbia Chapter. Mrs. Schwartz? STATEMENT OF MRS. JANE SCHWARTZ, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CHAPTER Mrs. SCHWARTZ. Mr. Chairman, the League of Women Voters of the District of Columbia is grateful for this opportunity to appear before you to speak to S. 1817. I would like to make it clear that we lack time, and maybe judgment, to consider the technical aspects of this bill as a means toward the desired end of more complete District participation in the Federal public welfare program. In terms of the end itself, however, we can state without hesitation that the league endorses full participation by the District in the Federal welfare program. Our position, indeed, goes beyond public welfare to state that as a matter of fiscal policy, the District should seek to qualify for all Federal programs for which there are grantsin-aid to States. For 4 years we have been pressing the Department of Public Welfare, the District of Columbia Commissioners, the President of the United States, and the Congress, to provide local funds for aid to families with dependent children of unemployed parents. In addition, we have urged that maximum advantage be taken of 75 percent matching Federal funds for services to recipients and to Senator MORSE. I have a statement to include in the hearing record from Americans for Democratic Action by Louis Aronica, executive director. (Document referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF THE GREATER WASHINGTON CHAPTER, AMERICANS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION (By Louis Aronica, Executive Director) Senator Morse and members of the Senate District Committee, the Greater Washington Chapter, Americans For Democratic Action, is pleased to have the Opportunity to speak in favor of S. 1817. We will not take much of your time today to repeat the abundant statistics relating to the conditions of neglect and deprivation in public sector facilities nd programs in the District of Columbia. I wish only to mention that ADA supports your efforts to put the Congress on record in support of including the District of Columbia in all the programs of the Social Security Act. On May 5, 1964, the voters of the District went on record in support of the program of aid o dependent children of unemployed parents. In a primary referendum at that ime-and may I say that this is about the only manner in which we can express ur intent under the present system of control by the Congress and no local ranchise—the voters overwhelmingly supported ADC-UP. The District resients, as recently as yesterday, expressed their desire to support and establish better welfare program through a citizens rally on the welfare crisis. ADA oints to these indications of District citizens' concern. We hope that the enate will likewise go on record to express their concern. If I may, I would like to have a portion of a document prepaired by the local DA chapter introduced into the record. I refer to the ADA program for a reater Washington, section III, which is entitled "Poverty or Opportunity." this section I want to refer to the discussion of the wide variants in income nong District residents, as well as some of the programs needed in order to rrect these shortcomings. ADA supports a better welfare program. We believe that S. 1817 will help move in this direction. We compliment you and Senator Ribicoff for your Corts to this end. Thank you for your time and your deep interest and help on District problems. The ADA program for a Greater Washington, pages 8-18.) III. POVERTY OF OPPORTUNITY They are born, they live, they try, and too often they die in the same cirmstances of abject poverty into which they were born".-SENATOR PAT MC LARA. e poor of Washington find little comfort in the rhetoric of abundance and ration. Like the poor elsewhere, they are trapped by their poverty in a litating environment from which there has been little hope for escape. parated by Rock Creek Park from the affluence of Georgetown and the er Northwest, the "other Washington," the central core of the city, is literally -aster area. This densely populated section of Washington, indicated by jacent map is the home of 138,000 people. Unemployment, poverty, crime, disease abound. Houses deteriorate as blight advances from block to block. ren play in the streets and alleys because there is nowhere else for them Landlords squeeze the last possible rent from slum housing. Parents, in educational attainments themselves, send their children off to school sly deprived of educational advantages. the people of this central core area, poverty is not merely an unfortunate tion but a total environment that denies them one of their basic rights of Ship: the right of choice. They cannot choose to work or not to work, tinue their education or to quit at the minimum age, to live in a decent · or in a squalid slum. Rather, they are caught up in a cycle of the ine. in which events and circumstances make these choices for them. persons in danger of becoming dependent. Use of such funds for extended and intensified training of social workers has also been one of our chief goals. In view of the revenue crisis which confronts the District each year (because of a comparatively low tax base, an inadequate Federal payment, and a large low-income population in need of publicly supported services), the city has a stringent need to make full use of funds from Federal grants-in-aid programs. In public welfare, specifically, lack of AFDC-UP causes the breakup of great numbers of families, with the result that the District must spend millions entirely out of local funds for care of homeless children in foster homes or Junior Village. The argument has been made that refusal to aid needy families of unemployed parents saves the city money. The opposite, it seems to us, is true. In fiscal 1964, operating costs at Junior Village were $2,050,316; expenditures for foster care were $2,021,794. Junior Village housed an average of 739 children, foster homes 1,677. The present AFDC program, on the other hand, supported 18,691 persons (some 15,000 children) at a local cost of $2,709,342 (Federal, $4,588,330). The AFDC-UP extension would require a local annual expenditure of only $630,000. Not counting the terrible cost-both human and financial-of destitution and family disintegration in terms of suffering, crime, delinquency, mental illness, and mental retardation, the District's present inability to utilize the full Federal program is penalizing District taxpayers for welfare expenditures right now. We might point out, further, that the program's inadequacies are leading the District to try to fill one gap with a current request to the Children's Bureau for a grant of $115,000 to meet emergency needs of destitute families. As we understand it, Children's Bureau demonstration grants are research oriented. Although grateful for the funds, we cannot see how research is involved in this request. Emergency needs of families should be met through the regular assistance program, here as elsewhere. Furthermore, if families were aided when their need first existed, far fewer such emergencies would occur. Thank you again for your consideration. Senator MORSE. Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz. If we could really have an accounting of the full cost money which that involves, putting the father out of the home from the standpoint of taking care of the father, in many, many instances it seems a wise expenditure of money to leave him in the home. Mrs. SCHWARTZ. Yes, and it seems to me there are certainly many instances where a family does not even apply for public welfare because they know that they are not eligible, where the father may go out and steal to get money to support his family. So it does contribute to our crime problem. |