believed that in no way could money be spent to greater advantage than
in the manner proposed. While the business applications which had been
accumulating since August were being disposed of, in November, 1906,
printed forms[155] were prepared for future applications, and the public
was notified of the conditions under which business aid might be
obtained by means of the following announcement, displayed for some days
in the newspapers:
SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS
(Incorporated)
Rehabilitation Department
For business rehabilitation, applications will be received from those
who have been successful in trade, business, or profession, and who
have been so crippled by the fire that they cannot now provide
themselves with the necessary equipment or stocks in trade, and who
have no other way of supporting themselves or their families.
Assistance can be given in a limited way only, and for the same line
of business, and the committee reserves the right to deny any
applications.
Applicants can address a letter or postal card to Business Committee,
Gough and Geary, San Francisco, giving name and address. Blanks will
be sent immediately, which must be filled and returned by mail. No
applications will be received after November 30, 1906.
Personal calls and applications cannot be received.
[155] See Appendix II, p. 443.
The blanks sent to applicants were framed so as to help the applicant to
explain clearly on what scale he had been doing business up to the time
of the disaster, what was the present relation of his assets to his
liabilities, and on what scale he proposed to re-establish. He was
directed to present letters from wholesalers or others with whom he had
had business relations. As a part of the subsequent investigation, it
was often possible for the committee’s visitors to secure written
statements from creditors or from wholesalers, stating definitely what
terms they were willing to make for the payment of old debts or for the
establishment of new credits.
An applicant’s plan for re-establishment was not considered complete
until it included a proposed definite location. Before making a grant
for a lodging house or shop, the location for either of which is
important, the committee usually required the applicant to secure a
definite option on a reasonably good location. One of the most important
functions of the visitors on the staff was to visit and to determine the
merits of these proposed locations. Every effort was made to prevent an
applicant from starting business in a poor but costly location merely as
an excuse for securing an allowance from the relief funds.
The general aim of Committee VI was to supply the right sort of man with
money enough to pay one month’s rent, to buy the necessary fixtures, and
to cover a deposit on stock or on machinery or instruments. The
applicant went into debt for the rest of his equipment, with the idea of
discharging the debt little by little from the profits of the business.
2. THE STUDY OF RESULTS
Between October, 1906, and April, 1907, Committee VI considered 2,032
applications. Applicants to the number of 464 were refused aid of any
nature; 111 applicants were given aid, but for purposes other than
business; and 1,226 were given business aid in amounts ranging from $50
to $500.[156] The remaining 231 cases were withdrawn or taken over by
other committees. Most of the applicants, many of whom collected little
or no insurance upon property destroyed by the fire, represent the class
that prefer a very modest living in an enterprise of their own to better
wages working for others. There were those, too, who by reason of age or
other infirmity had small prospect of holding their own as wage-earners,
and can hardly be said to have had the choice between the two ways of
making a living.
[156] Committee VI made about one-fourth of all the business grants
that were made. The total number of cases in which grants were made
was 4,916, and the total sum granted was $872,437.20. See Tables 40
and 41, pp. 157 and 158.
A re-visit, for the Relief Survey, to persons who had applied for aid
for business purposes, was begun in July, 1908, and completed in
November, 1908. This re-visit covered 1,000 cases, in 894 of which aid
had been given, and in 106 refused. Cases from all periods of the
rehabilitation work were selected at random, and should therefore be
representative. Of the 894 grants, 196 were made before October 27,
1906, by individual committeemen representing the Rehabilitation
Committee. The remaining 698 grants to these cases were the work of the
special sub-committee known as Committee VI. The average grant for
business received by the 894 applicants to whom grants were made was
$247.55.
It is not to be understood, from the statement that 1,000 persons were
re-visited, that all were found and personally interviewed. A number of
the families had disappeared and could not be found. In cases of this
sort an effort was made to secure as much information as possible from
outside sources; and naturally the information supplied was more
complete on some phases of family or business life than on others.
The word “family” in the sections which follow is used as meaning any
applicant for aid and the persons with whom he lived. As will be shown
below, a number of the families aided consisted of but one person.
3. THE FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS AIDED
Data as to nativity were obtained for 750 of the 894 revisited families
which received aid. These are shown in Table 48.
TABLE 48.--NATIVITY OF HEADS OF FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS
REHABILITATION
================+====================
Country of birth|Heads of families of
| each specified
| nativity
----------------+--------------------
America | 377
Germany | 96
Ireland | 93
Italy | 29
England | 26
France | 24
Russia | 22
Mexico | 12
Canada | 12
Austria | 8
Roumania | 7
Denmark | 7
Others | 37
----------------+--------------------
Total | 750
----------------+--------------------
From this statement of the nativity of heads of families, it appears
that the American born constituted almost exactly half (50.3 per cent)
of the entire number. There were, among the heads of the families aided,
122 Hebrews, of whom 22 were born in Russia, seven in Roumania, five in
Austria, four each in Germany and in America, and one each in Poland,
Hungary, Turkey and England; 76 Hebrews did not give their nativity.
Together, the Hebrew families constituted over 16 per cent of all the
families revisited for which information as to nativity was secured.
Table 49 shows the conjugal condition of the families aided.
TABLE 49.--CONJUGAL CONDITION OF FAMILY GROUPS RECEIVING BUSINESS
REHABILITATION[157]
======================================+==========================
Conjugal condition |Families of each specified
| conjugal condition
--------------------------------------+--------------------------
Married couples | 394
Women, widowed, divorced, or separated| 286
Single women | 93
Men, widowed, divorced or separated | 55
Single men | 61
--------------------------------------+--------------------------
Total | 889
--------------------------------------+--------------------------
[157] Of the 894 family groups investigated, five consisted of men who
failed to supply information relative to conjugal condition.
The table shows that there were 394 married couples among these families
that had received aid. Man and wife were of the same nativity in 360
cases, and of differing nativities in 34 cases.
The average size of the family groups aided with business grants was
relatively small, being but 2.8 persons per family. The average number
of children per family was low, partly because of the large number of
single persons aided; but the average number per marriage was low, too,
being 1.37. Of the 394 married couples, 124 had no children at all, or
none living at home; of the 286 widowed, divorced, or separated women,
128 had no children at home; of the 55 widowed, divorced, or separated
men, 33 had no children with them.
The ages of all but 19 of the applicants who received aid are known. Of
the 875 concerning whom information is available, only 3 per cent were
over seventy; 45 per cent not more than forty; 60 per cent not more than
fifty; and 77 per cent, over three-fourths, not more than sixty. More
than one-half were between thirty-five and fifty-five years of age.
The 894 family groups aided included, at the time of the re-visit, 2,270
individuals. Of these, 1,138, or 50.1 per cent, were fully
self-supporting; 113, or 5 per cent, were partially self-supporting; and
1,019, or 44.9 per cent, were dependent. The burden on the breadwinners
is thus seen to have been relatively light. However, the income from
most of their businesses was very small. It was less than the wages
earned in the organized trades and fluctuated so that it was found
impossible to reduce net receipts to dollars and cents.
In many cases when grants were given to persons who had no young
children, they were given in consideration of the fact that there were
others, often aged parents, depending upon them. This is true of
one-third of the single women and about two-fifths of the single men.
4. CHANGES IN FAMILY AND BUSINESS LIFE
Partly as a result of the fire, and partly, no doubt, from other causes,
the situation of the families aided with respect to membership, manner
of living, and business arrangements, was somewhat different at the time
of the re-visit from what it had been before the fire. The families
aided had been composed, previous to the fire, of exactly 2,500
individuals. When the re-visit was made, 29 of these individuals had
died and 201 had disappeared, leaving 2,270 individuals in the families
studied.
Of the 894 families, 691, or 77 per cent, were found not to have changed
in membership. For 83 families no data on this subject could be secured.
Changes of membership in the remaining 120 families are shown in Table
50.
TABLE 50.--CHANGES IN FAMILY COMPOSITION BETWEEN PERIOD BEFORE FIRE AND
THE RE-VISIT IN 120 FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION
============================================+==================
Nature of change | Changes of each
| specified nature
--------------------------------------------+------------------
Women married since fire | 21
Men married since fire | 5
Separated couples reunited | 2
Couples divorced or separated | 6
Wives deserted by husbands | 3
Women widowed | 23
Men widowed | 5
Families in which other deaths have occurred| 21
Children married since fire | 22
Unmarried children away | 12
--------------------------------------------+------------------
Total | 120
--------------------------------------------+------------------
A further classification of the 120 families shows that in 16 families,
consolidation, instead of separation, had taken place. Any tendency of
families to stay together or of related families to consolidate, was
fostered by the policy of the Rehabilitation Committee, which was to
treat the family group, if possible, as a unit, and to give but one
grant and that to one member on behalf of the whole family.
RENTALS AND CHARACTER OF PREMISES
Of the families aided, some had living quarters connected with their
places of business, while others lived away from their offices or
stores. Some families owned the premises which they occupied, but the
great majority paid rent for business accommodations, for residences, or
for both. For 197 of the 894, data could not be secured upon this
subject. The situation of the remaining 697 families with respect to
the payment of rentals, both before the fire and at the time of the
re-visit, is shown by Table 51.
TABLE 51.--NATURE OF PREMISES OCCUPIED AND OF RENTALS PAID BEFORE AND
AFTER THE FIRE, BY FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION
==============================================+=======================
Premises and rentals |CASES IN WHICH PREMISES
| AND RENTALS WERE AS
| SPECIFIED
+-----------+-----------
|Before fire|After fire
----------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------
One rental for business and residence combined| 481 | 353
Two rentals | 161 | 98
One business rental (residence owned) | 16 | 13
No rental (combined premises owned) | 6 | 34
One residence rental | 33 | 152
Not in business and not paying rent | .. | 47
----------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------
Total | 697 | 697
----------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------
The table shows that there were many changes in the rental situation of
the families. Before the fire, 658 families paid a business rent; that
is, hired either a separate place of business or quarters in which
business and residence could be combined. The latter plan was followed
by 481 families, the separate rental plan by 161. The remaining 16 paid
a business rent only, as they owned the house they lived in. After the
fire, only 464 of the families were paying a business rent. The
falling-off is most marked in the group of persons following the more
ambitious plan of renting a place of business separate from the
residence. Note the six families that before the fire owned premises for
business and residence combined. This number was raised through the
disaster to 34, most of whom were found, however, to be carrying on some
small enterprise in a cottage taken from a camp to a cheap suburban lot.
The 33 that paid only residence rent before the fire are among the
families that were given money for business though not in business
before the fire. The 152 families that, since the fire, had been paying
residence rent only, and the 47 that were paying no rent, were the
families that had utterly failed to recover their ground. Some were
working for wages; the rest were dependent on relatives or the public.
[Illustration: A plumber’s new start
Laundry and residence
CAMP COTTAGES USED FOR BUSINESS]
RESIDENCE RENTALS AND SIZE OF RESIDENCES. Of the 894 families there were
125 that are known to have paid rental for separate residence quarters,
both before and after the fire. The rents paid and the number of rooms
occupied at both periods by 94 of these are known, so that the housing
conditions of these families may be discussed apart from their business
affairs.
TABLE 52.--RESIDENCE RENTALS PAID, BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE, BY 94
FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, WHO PAID RENTALS FOR
SEPARATE RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS IN BOTH PERIODS
=====================+=======================
Monthly rentals |FAMILIES PAYING RENTALS
| SPECIFIED
+-----------+-----------
|Before fire|After fire
---------------------+-----------+-----------
Less than $10 | 13 | 14
$10 and less than $20| 38 | 30
$20 and less than $30| 26 | 23
$30 and less than $40| 13 | 12
$40 and over | 4 | 15
---------------------+-----------+-----------
Total | 94 | 94
---------------------+-----------+-----------
The highest rent paid before the fire was $45; after the fire, $65. It
will be noted that both before and after the fire, these families were
able to pay rents that would seem to have assured fairly comfortable
housing accommodations. Before the fire 45.7 per cent of the families
paid a rental of $20 a month or more; after, 53.2 per cent were paying
$20 or more.
It was found impracticable to establish the relation between rent paid
and income received, for the reason that scarcely a person interviewed
was able, however willing he might be, to say what his income for a year
past had been. Income in most instances had been exceedingly irregular,
and ordinarily the most that a man could say to the visitor was that his
business had or had not met its running expenses; had or had not, in
addition, furnished some sort of a living for the family; was or was not
paying instalments on the principal of any debt incurred in starting.
Therefore, the standard of life represented by the families in this
study can be shown only by indirect means.
One of the best of the indirect indications of standards of living
consists in the number of rooms occupied for residential purposes. The
situation in this respect, before and after the fire, of the 94 families
for which information was secured, is shown by Table 53.
TABLE 53.--NUMBER OF ROOMS IN RESIDENCES OCCUPIED, BEFORE AND AFTER THE
FIRE, BY 94 FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, WHO PAID RENTALS
FOR SEPARATE RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS IN BOTH PERIODS
==================+============================
Number of rooms | FAMILIES OCCUPYING
|RESIDENCES OF EACH SPECIFIED
| NUMBER OF ROOMS
+-------------+--------------
| Before fire | After fire
------------------+-------------+--------------
1 | 19 | 20
2 | 3 | 5
3 | 28 | 33
4 and less than 8 | 39 | 32
8 and less than 15| 5 | 4
------------------+-------------+--------------
Total | 94 | 94
------------------+-------------+--------------
The table shows that no striking change took place in the number of
rooms used for residence by these families. Individual families had
their ups and downs, however. Whereas 39 families occupied the same
number of rooms after the fire as before, 31 occupied fewer than before,
and only 24 occupied more than before. As for outlay for rent for living
quarters, 13 of these 94 families paid the same rent before and after;
27 paid less after the fire, and 54 paid more after the fire.
In some instances the disparity in the amount paid in the two epochs by
the individual family is very great. Some families were found to be
paying twice and some even three times as much rent as before the fire,
in spite of the strong effort that people naturally made to secure
quarters corresponding in size and price with those previously occupied.
On the other hand, some of the childless couples did not try at once to
resume housekeeping, but boarded, so that their rent dropped from the
price of a flat to that of a single room. When families undertook to
re-establish themselves in 1906-1907, the city was not sufficiently
rebuilt to afford every family just what it required in the way of
quarters at a reasonable price; but the families showed themselves
highly adaptable by taking what they could get, and making the best of
it.
BUSINESS RENTALS. The list of 894 cases affords 76 instances of families
who, both before and after the fire, maintained places of business
separate from their residences, and the amount of rent paid by 74 of
these families for business quarters is known. The residence rents of 56
of them have been discussed in the preceding paragraphs. The data
relative to business rents are presented in Table 54.
TABLE 54.--BUSINESS RENTALS PAID, BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE, BY 74
FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, WHO PAID RENTALS FOR
SEPARATE BUSINESS QUARTERS IN BOTH PERIODS
=======================+======================
Monthly rentals | FAMILIES PAYING
| RENTALS SPECIFIED
+-----------+----------
|Before fire|After fire
-----------------------+-----------+----------
Less than $20 | 23 | 19
$20 and less than $40 | 25 | 22
$40 and less than $60 | 11 | 12
$60 and less than $80 | 9 | 10
$80 and less than $100 | 0 | 5
$100 and less than $300| 6 | 6
-----------------------+-----------+----------
Total | 74 | 74
-----------------------+-----------+----------
Of the 74 families, 10 were paying the same rent as before the fire, 21
less rent, and 43 more rent. The premises rented were as follows: 30
shops, 23 stores, 12 offices, 3 stands, 2 restaurants, a studio, a
stable, a coal yard, and a junk yard. Eight enterprising persons who
took advantage of unsettled conditions to secure better quarters at a
much higher rental in better locations than before the fire were doing
well.
There are no such striking cases of retrenchment in business rent as
appeared when families gave up housekeeping and went to board. Unless a
man could resume business on a scale corresponding in some degree with
the scale on which he had done business before the fire, he often
became a wage-earner. Where he did drop from a relatively high to a
relatively low rent, his business usually suffered a corresponding
decline. Many people evidently failed to secure advantageous locations,
and though their actual rent was less than it had been, it was harder to
meet.
COMBINED RESIDENCE AND BUSINESS RENTALS. The simplest and cheapest
arrangement for a family engaged in business is to live in the house in
which the business is carried on. Except in the case of lodging houses,
this presupposes smaller rental and in most instances, smaller income,
because places of business with living quarters attached are usually
remote from the business centers of the town, and attract therefore a
smaller volume of trade. The list of combined quarters is a long one. Of
the families re-visited, 302 are known to have lived in combined
quarters both before and after the fire. Data are complete for 285 of
the 302 cases, and the amounts paid are given in Table 55.
TABLE 55.--COMBINED BUSINESS AND RESIDENTIAL RENTALS PAID, BEFORE AND
AFTER THE FIRE, BY 285 FAMILIES RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, WHO
PAID COMBINED RENTALS IN BOTH PERIODS
=======================+=======================
Monthly rentals |FAMILIES PAYING RENTALS
| SPECIFIED
+-----------+-----------
|Before fire|After fire
-----------------------+-----------+-----------
Less than $10 | 13 | 33
$10 and less than $20 | 61 | 27
$20 and less than $30 | 75 | 53
$30 and less than $40 | 34 | 58
$40 and less than $50 | 32 | 44
$50 and less than $60 | 26 | 25
$60 and less than $80 | 25 | 24
$80 and less than $100 | 7 | 6
$100 and less than $200| 8 | 10
$200 and less than $400| 4 | 5
-----------------------+-----------+-----------
Total | 285 | 285
-----------------------+-----------+-----------
The quarters secured by the payment of the above rentals include 200
premises with from 1 to 120 rooms; 37 stores with from 1 to 8 rooms
attached; 25 shops with from 1 to 7 rooms; 12 offices with from 1 to 9
rooms; 3 studios with from 1 to 3 rooms; 2 saloons with rooms; 2 stables
with rooms; and a factory, a restaurant, a stand, and a theater, each
with a room or rooms attached.
To secure these quarters, 34 families were paying the same rent as
before the fire, 110 were paying less, and 141, or 49.5 per cent, were
paying more than before. Of the 33 families who paid less than $10 a
month after the fire, 15 had before paid higher rents. Subsequent to the
disaster each of these families rented ground in an out of the way
place, and had put up a shack for a factory or utilized a refugee
cottage for shop and residence.
Rents have been gone into in detail because, more than any other item,
they show the far-reaching family changes brought about by the disaster.
Astonishing, indeed, is the adaptability of families whose quarters,
from being one room, became seven; or from being eight, became one;
whose rent jumped from $20 for a restaurant and two rooms before the
fire, to $175 for a restaurant and one room afterwards; or who, having
lived for years in a twelve-room house for $35, dropped after the fire,
to a $7.50 ground rent for space for a three-room shack.
As conditions in San Francisco approach more and more nearly what they
were before the fire,[158] it is to be hoped that the families can
better see how to adjust their efforts so that business will yield at
least a fair living. The details of many of these long-continued
struggles of adjustment are striking, not to say dramatic, and it is to
be regretted that the following pages must deal rather with the general
features of the contest and, for sake of compactness, omit much that
would serve to clothe the dry bones of statistics with living flesh.
[158] It may be that the steady growth which San Francisco is destined
to make will prevent the rent of business premises ever falling to
before-fire levels.
5. OCCUPATIONS
The Rehabilitation Committee made 4,736 grants to as many families to
enable them to resume business of 219 different kinds. The 894 families
re-visited are a little less than 20 per cent of the whole number. In
the grants made to these, 126 occupations are represented.
Grants were confined almost entirely to re-establishing families in a
line of business in which they had been engaged as proprietors. A
departure from this rule was for good cause, such as the death or injury
of the former head of the business, or a change in trade conditions. The
number of exceptions is 75, or 8.4 per cent of the whole number of
re-visited families receiving grants. They are: 28 wage-earners and six
housewives given grants to enter business; and 41 former proprietors
aided to re-engage in business in an entirely different line.
In 79 cases it was recognized at the time the grants were made that it
would be impracticable to reinstate the applicant on the before-fire
scale. In such cases it was hoped that business would be successful
enough on a small scale to admit of gradual expansion. Table 56 shows
the occupations for which grants were most frequently given.
TABLE 56.--PROPOSED OCCUPATION OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING BUSINESS
REHABILITATION
=======================================+=======================
Proposed occupation |Applicants who proposed
| to follow each
| specified occupation
---------------------------------------+-----------------------
Boarding and rooming house | 256
Tailor shop | 46
Dressmaking shop | 45
Notions or branch bakery | 33
Barber shop | 30
Restaurant | 30
Grocery store | 24
Huckster or peddler | 23
Millinery shop | 21
Seamstress | 20
Cigar stand | 19
Boot and shoe making and repairing shop| 18
Physician’s equipment | 18
Printing shop | 16
Drayman | 14
Painting contractor’s shop | 14
Other occupations | 267
---------------------------------------+-----------------------
Total | 894
---------------------------------------+-----------------------
Among the 267 cases entered in the table opposite “other occupations,”
there were 61 occupations with only one representative each, and 49
with from two to thirteen representatives each.
6. HOMOGENEITY OF GRANTEES
Of the 2,032 applicants for business rehabilitation considered by the
business committee, 464, or about 23 per cent, were refused business
aid, though many who were judged not to be suitable candidates for
business rehabilitation were given aid for other purposes. This severe
weeding out of candidates for one definite, specialized form of aid had
this result, that those aided were a group homogeneous to a high degree.
This fact was voiced often by the investigators during the progress of
the work and by the staff that did the re-visiting in 1908, and was
mirrored in the uniform reports filed by all these visitors. The
uniformity shown in the records was not due to superficial inquiries,
for data were unusually full and often included side-lights on the
situation thrown by old friends, former business associates, former
landlords, and other references. A further indication that the business
group was looked on as being practically homogeneous is the fact that
there were so many unconditional grants of $250. The phenomenon of so
many of the grants being for exactly $250 may have been due in part to
the effort to make the average grant not more than one-half[159] of what
was the established $500 maximum grant, or may have been a reflection of
the committee’s impression that there was little to distinguish many of
the applicants, one from another, either as to plight or as to
recuperative power.
[159] See Part II, p. 129, for the result of limiting a committee’s
power to make grants larger in amount than $500.
The applicants that received aid were almost uniformly persons who had
had successful business experience. Most had founded their own
enterprises; none, as far as the records show, had come into his holding
by inheritance, as might have been the case in an older city; and few by
purchase of an established business. There were but few of the
applicants who had occupied for any great length of time the place
burned out. A shifting population and the resultant changes in minor
business centers had been the instruments by which the less fit had been
to a great extent eliminated in the years preceding the disaster.
7. RESULTS OF BUSINESS REHABILITATION
The nature of the occupations which the 894 re-visited families that
were given aid proposed, with the assistance of the committee, to
re-enter, or, in a few cases, to enter for the first time, has already
been shown. How many of these families, at the time of the re-visit in
1908, nearly two years later, had succeeded in getting into and
continuing in business? The answer to this question will go far toward
showing the success or failure of the work of business rehabilitation.
Data showing the status of the grantees in 1908 are presented in Table
57 and the chart which follows.
TABLE 57.--BUSINESS AND EMPLOYMENT STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT,
OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION
========================================+==========================
Status of applicants who received aid |CASES IN WHICH APPLICANT’S
| STATUS WAS AS SPECIFIED
+---------------+----------
| Number | Per cent
----------------------------------------+---------------+----------
In business as planned | 507 | 56.7
In other business | 36 | 4.0
Employed in line same as former business| 66 | 7.4
Employed in line different from former | |
business | 29 | 3.2
Neither in business nor employed | 256[160] | 28.7
----------------------------------------+---------------+----------
Total | 894 | 100.0
----------------------------------------+---------------+----------
[160] This group includes 29 applicants who were known to have died
before the time of the re-visit.
The table and chart show what the Relief Survey visitors found in 1908.
They found 543, or 60.7 per cent, of the families in business; 507 in
exactly the kind of business contemplated by the grant, and 36 in
business of another sort. A much smaller group, 95, or 10.6 per cent of
the total, were engaged in gainful occupations, but not as proprietors.
Of these 95, 66 were employed in the same business, and 29 in a
different line of business than before the fire. There remain 256, or
28.7 per cent of the total number, who were not in business or employed.
The visitors found that of this last group 36 were housewives; eight
were unsettled, their affairs being in a transition state; 33 were
dependent; 31 were known to have left San Francisco; 29 were known to
have died; and 119 were not to be found for a personal interview by the
visitors. Of this latter number, 75 had dropped completely out of sight.
[Illustration: Neither in business nor employed, 256 or 28.7%
Employed in line different from former business, 29 or 3.2%
Employed in line same as former business, 66, or 7.4%
In other business, 36, or 4%
In business as planned, 507, or 56.7%
BUSINESS AND EMPLOYMENT STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT, OF 894
APPLICANTS RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION]
Of the 351 found not to be in business at the time of the revisit, 140
are known to have started in business and then dropped out. The
remaining 211, as far as the records show,--some no doubt for the best,
and others for the flimsiest of reasons,--failed even to get into
business.
8. REASONS FOR SUCCESS AND FAILURE
As has been shown in the preceding section, some of the families aided
were as a result of rehabilitation successfully established in business,
while others either did not embark at all in business ventures or began
business only to discontinue. It is important to determine as far as
possible the causes that resulted in success in some cases and in
failure in others. Among the questions which, in the judgment of the
writer, should be considered in this connection, are the following:
1. Was the grant made in a manner suited to the need of the case?
2. Was the grant timely?
3. Was the grant adequate?
4. Was the location chosen for business a good one?
5. Was the applicant handicapped by ill health of himself or family?
6. Did the applicant begin business with sufficient capital?
It will be noted that the first three questions relate to the deliberate
action of the Committee, and involve a judging of its work by the
reviewer. Question 4 relates to the applicant’s ability to secure or his
own good fortune in securing proper quarters, and also involves a
judgment by the reviewer. Questions 5 and 6 relate to the circumstances
of the applicant.
MANNER IN WHICH GRANT WAS MADE. The reviewer for the Relief Survey in
1908 found in 21 case records strong internal evidence to the effect
that the grant had not been made in the proper manner. Appropriate
safeguards had not been provided to assure the carrying out of the plan.
Of the 21 families, 12 failed to start in business, one started and gave
up, and only eight were in business in 1908.
Ignoring those who managed to make a start, let us briefly consider the
12 who failed to do so. A woman who planned to separate from her husband
was granted money to establish a rooming house to support herself and
baby. By mistake the money was handed to the husband, who kept it and
turned her and the child out of the house. She then obtained a divorce
but she never recovered the money. A tailor, sixty-one, who claimed he
was “afraid of the high rents,” spent his grant for living expenses. The
visitor could see no reason why he should not have made a start. In the
other 10 cases there was serious illness or disability in the families,
so the grants were spent to meet doctors’, hospital, or undertakers’
bills. In each instance the expenditure was an error of judgment on the
part of the beneficiary, as he might have made a second claim on the
relief fund for medical aid until his business should be on a paying
basis. It showed a hesitancy in applying for relief to be expected on
the part of those whose lifelong habit was to be entirely independent.
The 12 families could have been started in business if the expenditure
of the grants had been supervised by a third person acting as agent of
the committee.
[Illustration: Cigar store of an Italian cripple
Store owned by a German-Swiss couple
BUSINESS REHABILITATION]
The policy of supervision should not have been extended to all business
cases, for the applicants were of all the classes seeking aid the ones
best fitted to put money to good use. But supervision might well have
been extended to all the families which carried obvious burdens of
illness or such handicaps as advancing years, a visionary outlook, or a
lack of initiative. The advantages to be derived from adequate
supervision are shown by the experience of 35 cases re-visited other
than the 21 mentioned above. In all of these 35 cases the results were
mutually satisfactory. In some cases the supervision was found to have
gone no further than the committee’s seeing that a plan was perfected
and a location secured; in others to the extent that an applicant was
not allowed to handle the grant money, it being expended on his behalf
by one of the committee’s visitors, by some other organization, or by a
personal friend acting as trustee. Consequently, the 35 started
business, and of the 33 found by the Relief Survey visitors, 23 were
still in business.
Guidance in expenditure would undoubtedly have secured the permanent
re-establishment of many a family that through no fault of its own had
dropped hopelessly behind in the race. A supervised payment by
instalments, payments subsequent to a first instalment being conditional
on a square business start having been made, provided that the first
instalment had been adequate for a start, would have resulted in the
canceling of second instalments on grants made to persons with no
original intention of re-entering business or with changed plans.
TIMELINESS OF GRANT. The second question, “Was the grant timely?” cannot
be answered by a positive “yes” or “no,” as the elusive personal
equation makes assertions fallible. In some cases the beneficiary could
with reason claim that earlier aid would have been more effective.
There were a number of cases in which it seems obvious that the grants
were unnecessarily and unduly delayed. Twenty-two of these families,
notwithstanding the obstacle, were in business; the only comment to be
made is that some enterprising and refined families were left to endure
the hardships of camp life months after they might have been engaged in
independent business, had the machinery and the funds been available.
Among applicants who started in business and later dropped out there was
one man so old that results would probably have been the same if there
had been no delay. In three other instances the grants were, in the
opinion of the reviewer, inadequate as well as delayed, a combination
well calculated to bring about failure.
Among the families whose grants were delayed and who did not even start
in business there was one man whose grant was delayed for six months,
because the check was accidentally delivered to another person of the
same name. This man claimed to have lost good opportunities for
starting. Another grant was delayed forty days, not an unusual length of
time, but in the interval the subjects, a refined American woman and her
elderly husband, had suffered irreparably. The wife had injured herself
doing unsuitable work and had died, leaving the man powerless to open
the rooming house they had planned together. Another applicant, one of
the many whose cases were shelved from three to four months during the
dispiriting period of arrested progress, had a friend who was ready at
the time of the application to loan money to add to the relief grant for
starting a notion store. Three months later the friend’s circumstances
had changed, and with the relief money alone the applicant dared not
make the venture. The predicament of three other applicants was much the
same. By the time they received their business grants, late in the
winter of 1906, every cent of their insurance money had been used for
living expenses. Another illustrative story is that of a German cobbler
with a frail wife and two young children, who after the disaster had
$100 in savings. He bought tools, but as he could not support his family
by cobbling alone and his savings were gone, he asked for a business
grant. When he was finally given $200 to stock a small shop with shoes
to sell, he and his family had been sleeping on the floor for six
months.
ADEQUACY OF GRANT. Inadequate aid, in the estimation of many of the
applicants, was the one stumbling block in the path to satisfactory
re-establishment. This question, like the two which have preceded it,
must be recognized as having an illusory quality. In the opinion of the
reviewer the complaint of inadequacy was justified in slightly over 100
cases, in about three-fourths of which the grants were lower than the
average grant of $247.
Of the 894 grants under consideration, only 52 were for $500[161] or
over, and 162 grants, or nearly one-fifth of the total, were for
exactly $250, from which it appears that the latter figure was firmly
lodged in the minds of the disbursers of the fund. But one in nine of
the re-visited applicants who received business rehabilitation, received
grants for other purposes. The average amount given to those who did
receive such subsidiary aid was $83.75.
[161] See Part II, pp. 128-129, for explanation of limitation of
grants to less than $500.
The ultra-cautious policy of the initial rehabilitation work was early
changed. Between June 1 and July 7, 1906, 21 checks for more than $100
each had been drawn for business rehabilitation, the two highest being
each for $400. By the middle of July, four checks for $500 had been
drawn for business cases. Before the end of July, a $900 business loan
was made. A scanning of the early case records shows that the
committeemen were careful to give the exact amount needed.
During the third rehabilitation period the size of the business grants
was much smaller than in the preceding period, two-fifths of the grants
being under $100 each and four-fifths less than $200. The average grant
for the 123 re-visited cases which had been passed during the second
period was $305.77; for the 73 passed during the third period, $191.16;
for the 698 passed during the fourth period, $242.26. Of applicants who
received aid in the third period, the period of arrested progress, when
the grants were small, a materially smaller proportion were in business
at the time of the review, than of those who received grants in the
second and fourth periods.
A few examples show the fate of some applicants who were given prompt,
but apparently inadequate aid.
* * * * *
An elderly woman who applied for $250 for a rooming house was given
$100. She is doing well, but had to incur a heavy debt which by close
management, hard work, and with great mental anxiety she has been able
to pay off.
* * * * *
A family of five, the father sixty-three, the mother fifty-seven, and
their children, were given $150 for a rooming house. They took a
six-room flat and by subletting two rooms met their rent. But their plan
was to take a larger house which would bring in enough to provide more
than the equivalent of rent and which with the supplementary small
wages of a son and daughter in their teens, would have made a fair
income.
* * * * *
A tailor was given $125 to add to his own limited resources in order to
open a shop, but as he couldn’t make good he sold his shop and is now a
bushelman.
* * * * *
FAVORABLE LOCATION. After the fire there was naturally for a time a
scarcity of desirable locations for business. With ready money in hand,
those applicants who were keen to judge and prompt to act secured the
best places, while many were left to take locations with which they were
not satisfied and which proved to be unprofitable.
In some instances locations good at first became undesirable through the
shifting of the population; certain business centers proved to be but
temporary and had to be abandoned like a sinking ship by all who had
begun business there. The man who did not have money to move when his
first location proved unfit, had to fail or discontinue.
The proportion of re-visited applicants who, having been assisted to
engage in business, were still in business, was materially larger among
those applicants who, in the judgment of the reviewer, secured
satisfactory locations than among those whose locations seemed less
favorable. As is suggested in the preceding sentence, the quality of a
business location is largely a matter of opinion. If a business succeeds
it is easy to conclude that its location is good; if it fails a poor
location is a ready excuse. Here, again, a definite estimate is made
nugatory by the intrusion of underlying queries relative to the
applicants. How adaptable were they? How far sighted? How much
initiative had they? To such as were lacking in any of these qualities a
favorable location did not always mean success.
HEALTH OF APPLICANTS AND FAMILIES. Serious illness in the family tended,
of course, to interfere with the carrying out of a business plan. The
outcome of business rehabilitation in cases where there was no serious
handicap of this nature, and in those where such a handicap existed, is
shown by Table 58.
TABLE 58.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS
RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, BY HEALTH OF FAMILIES.[162]
===========================================+=================+======
Health of family | APPLICANT | Total
+--------+--------+
| In | Not in |
|business|business|
-------------------------------------------+--------+--------+------
Family all well or without serious handicap| 448 | 249 | 697
Family seriously handicapped by ill health | 95 | 73 | 168
-------------------------------------------+--------+--------+------
Total | 543 | 322 | 865
-------------------------------------------+--------+--------+------
[162] Of the 894 families investigated, 29 lost the applicant by death
before the time of the re-visit.
Since the business grant was given in behalf of the family as a whole,
the health of the whole family including that of the head has been
considered. Of the 697 families without serious handicap, 448, or 64 per
cent, were in business at the time of the re-visit, while 95 of the 168
families handicapped by ill health, or 57 per cent, were in business.
This latter proportion seems relatively high. Many a man or woman in
frail health can see that his hope for security lies in maintaining a
small business against all odds. The man with more capital and better
health has a chance to make a better income, but he who is without the
alternative of employment for wages cannot permit himself to be
deterred. A further study of the records seems to indicate that, among
the applicants still in business, the proportion who were doing poorly
is decidedly smaller in the case of those not handicapped by ill health
than in the case of those burdened by a handicap of this nature, whether
slight or serious.
CAPITAL AVAILABLE. The part played by the amount of capital available
for starting afresh in business was an important one. The term capital
as here used includes the grant, and other resources, if any, such as
equipment or stock saved from the fire, insurance, savings, gifts,
loans, and credit. Table 59 shows the numbers starting business with
given amounts of capital, and shows what part the grant played therein.
TABLE 59.--AMOUNT OF GRANTS TO AND OF CAPITAL AVAILABLE FOR APPLICANTS
RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION[163]
===========================+==============+===================
Amount of grant or of grant|Cases in which| Cases in which
and capital | grant was as | capital available
| specified | for business,
| |inclusive of grant,
| | was as specified
---------------------------+--------------+-------------------
Less than $300 | 476 | 231
$300 and less than $500 | 159 | 121
$500 and less than $700 | 58 | 145
$700 and less than $1,000 | 1 | 89
$1,000 to $5,000 | .. | 108
---------------------------+--------------+-------------------
Total | 694 | 694
---------------------------+--------------+-------------------
[163] Of the 894 families investigated, 200 failed to supply
information relative to capital available.
It has already been seen that grants ranged in amount from less than
$100 to $900. The amount of capital available for starting business
varied from less than $300 to as high as $5,000. More than two-thirds of
all persons in this group received less than $300 cash from the
committee. By virtue of other resources which some of the group had on
hand or managed to secure, 463, or almost exactly two-thirds of the
entire number, had $300 or more available for starting business.
In general, the rehabilitation committee adhered to its announced policy
of helping only those that were accustomed to doing business on a small
scale. Even among these, however, there were degrees. For clarity, as
the division seems a convenient one, the discussion that follows will
recognize two groups: one of 497 persons whose available capital
including grants was less than $700, and one of 197 persons who had $700
or more available for the start. These will be spoken of as the low
capital and the high capital groups respectively. In a similar way,
grants for business rehabilitation consisting of less than $300 will be
referred to as small grants, and grants of from $300 to $1,000 as large
grants.
Of the 497 members of the low capital group, 380 received small grants
and 117 large grants; while of the 197 members of the high capital
group, 96 received small grants and the remaining 101 large grants. Thus
the proportion of applicants who received large grants was much larger
in the case of the high capital group than in the case of the low
capital group--an application, doubtless justifiable, of the scriptural
principle, “unto him that hath shall be given.”
The members of the high capital group who received small grants were
possessed of other resources so considerable that the grant was, in many
instances, but a small fraction of the capital available for business.
In such cases, the grant derived its importance and its justification
from the fact that it was in the form of cash. The possession of a
certain amount of ready money was always necessary to secure a site, and
was often a necessary condition of obtaining credit.
Whether or not a given capital is sufficient for a business venture will
depend largely on the nature of the business entered; and, as has
elsewhere been noted, the successful applicants for relief engaged in
many different and highly diversified undertakings. The discussion of
the adequacy of capital and of the relation of capital to grants will
therefore be deferred to the following chapter, in which the recipients
of business relief will be considered in occupational groups.
SUMMARY. Outward circumstances have much to do with the success of a
business enterprise: the time, the place, and the money form a strong
combination, and with health thrown in for good measure the combination
is almost proof against disaster provided the right man make use of the
combination. A committee disbursing business aid which patiently
eliminated those doomed to fail, could get practically all of its
beneficiaries started if it were left free-handed throughout the whole
period of relief distribution to make well-timed and adequate grants,
and if it spent enough on administration to allow for the supervising of
grants whenever character and circumstances indicated the advisability
of doing so. It may be noted that the 45 persons who in the judgment of
the reviewer received timely aid, properly given, to the extent of $250
or as much more as was needed; persons who had resources to equal or
exceed the grant, who were in good health, and who secured what seem to
have been good locations, had started in business. Only three of the 45
had discontinued business, and of these, one had only temporarily
discontinued.
II ANALYSIS BY OCCUPATIONS, STUDY OF REFUSALS AND SUMMARY
1. SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN RELATION TO OCCUPATIONS
The proportion of applicants aided who succeeded in establishing
themselves in business varied to a certain extent with the occupation
entered. Sufficient data relative to the occupations and success in
business could be secured for only 702 of the 894 applicants visited in
1908. The table next presented shows for the different occupational
groups the number of cases in which grants of each specified nature were
made and the proportion of these cases that were still in business at
the time of the re-visit.
TABLE 60.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS
RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION, BY OCCUPATIONS.[164]
================================+============+==================
Nature of occupation | Applicants | APPLICANTS IN
| whose | BUSINESS IN 1908
|occupations +------+-----------
| were |Number| Per cent
|as specified| | of all
| | |applicants
| | | receiving
| | | grants
--------------------------------+------------+------+-----------
Professional | 79 | 68 | 86.1
Manufacturing and mechanical | | |
industries | 183 | 146 | 80.0
Trade | 175 | 124 | 70.9
Personal and domestic service | 249 | 168 | 67.5
Transportation and miscellaneous| | |
pursuits | 16 | 7 | 43.8
--------------------------------+------------+------+-----------
Total | 702 | 513 | 73.1
--------------------------------+------------+------+-----------
[164] In this table data are presented for only the 702 applicants of
the 894 investigated for whom complete information relative to
occupation and business success or failure was secured.
The occupations shown in the table are not necessarily those for which
the grants were given, but the occupations in which applicants were
found engaged in 1908.
If one thing stands out more clearly than another it is, that following
a disaster, persons who seek to re-establish themselves in professional
or manufacturing pursuits have a much higher expectation of success than
those that seek to re-establish themselves in trade or as proprietors in
some branch of personal and domestic service, such as a restaurant or a
rooming house.
On an earlier page it has been noted that some applicants were unable to
make a start because of lack of capital. Lack of capital was less
seriously felt by those having mechanical or professional skill, to whom
the amount of capital held appeared to be of slight moment, than by
those in the two remaining groups. The relation of capital to success in
the trade and in the personal service groups is treated, therefore, at
some length in connection with the detailed discussion of these groups.
THE PROFESSIONAL GROUP
Of the 88 members of the professional group re-visited, 79 whose cases
furnished data complete on the points to be considered are here studied.
As for the grants made, none exceeded $500 and 50 were for $250 or less.
Those whose offices, studios, and in many cases, homes also, had been
burned, had little left in the way of material possessions. Twenty
persons are noted on the visitors’ schedules as having had no resources
other than their grants. The amounts with which the members of this
group essayed to re-establish themselves were as follows: 34, less than
$500; 24, $500 and less than $700; and only 21, $700 or more. The
outcome by 1908 was: of the first group 29 were still in business; of
the second, 20; and of the third, 19. There were eight who had not
started, and three who had started and discontinued.
In the cases of those that did start, the grant was as a rule applied as
a cash payment toward equipment. The difference between the amount of
capital and the amount of the grant, in general, measures the amount of
credit allowed by wholesalers in the purchase of instruments and
equipment. The proportion of success is high even among those with least
capital at their disposal, and no direct relation is to be discovered
between amount of capital and success except in the cases of a dentist
and a photographer who were found to be working for wages and to be
adding savings to their grants so as to start later with better
equipment. Six others, as stated above, also failed to start. A woman
pianist married and gave up her profession. A woman physician accepted a
position in her alma mater as an instructor. A stenographer took a
position on salary instead of opening her own office. An elderly music
teacher became a chronic invalid and was admitted to the Relief Home. A
man who had wanted to resume his work of giving electric treatments took
instead a position with the city board of health and the visitor who saw
him thinks he did not intend to resume his old line. Supervision of his
grant of $250 would have tested his good faith. Another case which
should have been supervised was that of an elderly showman who was given
$450 to replace the tent used to house the wax figures of his quaint
historical show. He spent most of the business grant for an operation to
restore the failing sight of his elderly wife. A supervisor could have
arranged for surgical care without interfering with rehabilitation.
Three cases, as noted, started but to discontinue. A physician who had
received $450 from the Rehabilitation Committee and $100 from the
Physicians’ Fund, opened an office; then, having closed it “on account
of dull times,” left the city. A gymnasium director set up his
equipment, but found his location a poor one; therefore he stored his
apparatus and closed his place until he should find a better. A public
stenographer had typist’s cramp from overwork. When able to resume work,
he took a salaried position. More careful investigation and supervision
of the eleven unsuccessful cases would probably have resulted in
withholding the grant from one man, and getting one other into business.
But as a group the applicants accomplished all that was possible under
the circumstances, and that without the use of large sums of money.
MANUFACTURING AND MECHANICAL GROUP
An almost equally high degree of success attended the efforts of 183
persons engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries.
[Illustration: Owner aided by Rehabilitation Grant and money privately
loaned
Hat maker aided by a Rehabilitation Grant
BUSINESS REHABILITATION]
These were largely tailors, dressmakers, shoemakers, painters, and metal
workers. In the group of 79 in which capital was under $300, the
attempts at rehabilitation of 50, or less than two-thirds, were
successful. In the group of 104 with more capital, the showing was
higher. The 26 who had $1,000 or more were without exception successful.
There were 23 who started business and discontinued, and 14 who did not
start. Among these 37 cases, 10 failures appear to be due principally to
lack of capital, but the 27 remaining failures are to be attributed
largely to other causes, among which unfortunate choice of location and
ill health complicated with old age are uppermost. Two examples must
suffice:
A shoemaker, aged sixty-six, presented a plan to Committee VI which
definitely called for $400 to buy a half interest in a given shop. He
was granted $250, but as he could make no satisfactory arrangements with
his proposed partner he began working at wages. A younger man with that
amount of cash might have started a shop of his own, but this was too
much to expect of one of his age. Another, a much younger man, failed to
make a success of his bakeshop. He leased a lot on which to build his
shop and invested in equipment his capital of $500. When competition
sprang up around him, he could neither afford to move nor to remodel his
shop in order to rent it to some one else for another purpose.
Perhaps one-half of the foregoing 37 failures could have been averted or
mitigated by intelligent oversight. As a rule, however, it is safe to
assume that persons with the skill to do mechanical work require less
supervision than do those of the groups we are to discuss in the
following sections.
TRANSPORTATION AND MISCELLANEOUS GROUP
Of the 16 members of this group, seven were established in business at
the time of the re-visit. Grants were given to 12 men to start as
teamsters or draymen. Ten of the 12 men bought teams, but only four were
still in business in 1908. The price of hay was high, and work at wages
easy to obtain; the two men who made no start became wage-earners. One
man who was given money to acquire a messenger service, had been
successful. Of the three remaining grantees of this group, one started a
chicken farm which was running with fair success; another, a cleaning
and dyeing establishment which was successful; and the third, a venture
of the last named kind which had failed in the first month. This last
proprietor after his failure had left the city.
In considering the relatively small number of successes among the
members of this group, it must be remembered that the number of cases is
too small for the data to be truly representative.
PERSONAL AND DOMESTIC SERVICE GROUP
Just as a small manufacturing enterprise is the avenue through which
skilled artisans seek by becoming small proprietors to reach
independence, so rooming and boarding houses, barber shops, restaurants,
laundries, and the like are the roads along which individuals of a less
skilled class travel to reach the same end. The cheap rooming houses of
today are often run by the charwomen of yesterday; the better grade
houses, by widowed housewives of somewhat higher station; the barber
shops, by erstwhile barber’s helpers; and the small restaurants and
lunch counters, by one-time cooks. Competition is extreme because
persons accustomed to small earnings are constantly entering these
fields with their little hoard of savings, ready to be satisfied with
very moderate returns. In the long run, business ability tells in this
as in all other lines of enterprise, but to this class adequacy of
equipment and suitable location are of relatively more importance than
in other forms of enterprise previously discussed.
In a city changing as rapidly as San Francisco changed for the first
three years after the fire, the wisest could not tell with certainty how
long a certain locality would remain desirable for his purposes. Some
persons, in order to avoid prohibitive rents, signed leases for one or
two years, which held them in poor locations after their better judgment
told them they should move to keep near their shifting patrons. Under
such circumstances two or three hundred dollars in the bank, or even
less, might mean the difference between success and failure.
Where competition is close it makes a very great difference whether the
equipment is owned outright or whether considerable monthly cash
instalments must be paid. It is true that in ordinary times clever
persons can fit up rooming houses and rent all the rooms at a fair
profit. But ordinarily the small house at best offers a woman nothing
more than an opportunity to be her own employer at very moderate wages;
her fate depending, at each recurring crisis, on a cash reserve
sufficient to carry her over a dull period, or to enable her to win in
an endurance test with a nearby competitor. Rooming houses are spoken of
specifically because more than three-fourths of the grants for personal
service enterprises were given for this purpose.
As has been shown by Table 60, of 249 applicants visited in 1908 who had
been given aid for personal and domestic service and for whom data have
been tabulated, 168, or almost 68 per cent, were still in business at
the time of the re-visit.
In this group the tendency of committeemen, already commented on, to
make grants about uniform in amount is clearly seen. In fact, 105, or
more than two-fifths of the 249 cases discussed in this section,
received grants that were $200, and less than $300. It was understood
that many of the enterprises required a considerably larger capital, but
the business committee had the theory that given a sum of $200 or $250
any normally enterprising person could “raise” the rest. Many applicants
did so, but not all. By sub-dividing the 245 cases in which the amount
of capital is known into three groups we are able to see the respective
parts played by the relief grant and the applicants’ other resources.
The figures are given in Table 61.
TABLE 61.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS
RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION FOR PERSONAL AND DOMESTIC SERVICE, BY
SIZE OF GRANTS AND AMOUNT OF CAPITAL[165]
==============================+===============+=========+======
Business status |CASES IN WHICH |Cases in | Total
|CAPITAL WAS LOW| which |
+-------+-------+ capital |
| Grant | Grant |was high |
| small | large | |
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------
In business at time of revisit| 66 | 41 | 57 | 164
Started and discontinued | 29 | 7 | 9 | 45
Did not start | 27 | 5 | 4 | 36
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------
Total | 122 | 53 | 70 | 245
------------------------------+-------+-------+---------+------
[165] Information relative to the amount of capital was secured for
only 245 of the 249 applicants receiving business rehabilitation for
personal and domestic service concerning whom data are presented in
Table 60.
The classification of capital as high and low, and of grants as large
and small, has been discussed in the preceding chapter. The first group
dealt with in the table, which will be called for convenience the
small-grant low-capital group, consists of persons whose grant was less
than $300 and whose capital available for business, including grant, was
less than $700. Their enterprises in general were those of side streets
and out-of-the-way locations.
The second group, known as the large-grant low-capital group, is made up
of persons whose grant was $300 or more, but whose entire capital was no
more than $700. They were largely persons whose previous enterprises had
been capitalized at over $700 and to whom the Rehabilitation Committee
gave liberal grants with the idea that the applicant would go into debt
for the balance needed.
There remains a third group of the high-capital group which was
previously capitalized at from $700 up and which expected to go into
business in fairly prominent locations, on something like the old scale.
As its members had considerable resources, the grant, while it played an
important part in the applicant’s rehabilitation, was not the sole
factor determining a start. Such was frequently the case in the two
low-capital groups. The distinction between large grants and small
grants, as it is of much less importance to the members of this group
than to the members of the two low-capital groups, has not been
indicated in the table.
It will be noted from the table that the proportion of applicants aided
who were in business at the time of the re-visit was largest for the
high-capital group, and much larger for the large-grant low-capital
group than for the small-grant low-capital group. Brief consideration
will now be given to each of the three groups.
The small-grant low-capital group has 122 members. Of its members 93
were given aid to open boarding and rooming houses, 15 to open barber or
hairdressing establishments, eight to start restaurants, three to start
laundries, and three to set up boot-blacking stands. Nearly two-thirds
of the group were widows, and 57 were persons or couples living alone.
At the time the grants were made, 93, or more than three-fourths of this
group, had no other resources; 27 had savings, collectible insurance, or
real estate available for business. Data are lacking as to the resources
of the two remaining individuals.
It was the hope of the Rehabilitation Committee that the large
proportion of persons who came empty-handed, would, on receipt of a lump
sum in itself insufficient to establish a business, develop latent
resources. Such was often the result. Of the 93 cases mentioned above as
having no before-fire resources, 46 received cash gifts other than the
relief grant, negotiated friendly loans, or were allowed credit with
former dealers. The manifestly right function of a relief grant of money
for business is distribution such as will not supplant aid from other
sources. But what of the small grants given to persons who could by
neither hook nor crook obtain a supplemental sum? Forty-six of the 93
did succeed in getting help from other sources, and with three
exceptions, made a start. Forty-seven did not succeed in getting help
from other sources, 19 of whom failed to start. Of this 47, more than
one-third were past the age of fifty. It is precisely in the cases of
these individuals who have no other resources that supervising visitors
would prove useful in devising ways and means to get a venture launched,
arranging if necessary for a further committee grant.
An inspection of the case records seems to show that the members of the
small-grant low-capital group who increased their resources by borrowing
were, on the whole, more successful than those who did not borrow. Of
the 50 applicants who went into debt, 34, about two-thirds, were found
in business in 1908, while of the 70 who incurred no debt, only 30,
considerably less than one-half, were in business. In the two remaining
cases of the 122, the data were incomplete. The plan of the
Rehabilitation Committee then, which was to have applicants use their
grants as the means of a start on a credit basis, seems justified as
applied to those individuals who have the courage to assume necessary
debts.
The applicants who did not go into debt seem to have been
ultra-conservative persons for whom the rehabilitation program was too
strenuous. Doubtless for the most part they did well not to go into
debt. Most probably these were frugal souls who had never incurred risks
but had saved their wages and not made their original start until they
could equip a business for cash. Afterwards they had doubtless
continued, as they started, paying cash as they went along. It is not to
be expected of those who have done business on a cash basis all their
lives, that, when the passing years have done their work of lessening
initiative, they should cheerfully and confidently assume a burden of
debt. It would seem to be the duty of a relief committee to recognize
the handicap on those trying to earn their living through business who
never possessed the initiative of the typical business man, have been
robbed of it by age or ill health, or have been made conservative by
domestic responsibilities.
The 122 cases of the small-grant low-capital group comprise one-half of
the re-visited persons to whom aid had been given for enterprises in
personal or domestic service. In view of the fact that but 66 of the
122, slightly over one-half, were in business in 1908, it seems evident
that a considerable number of these families (1) should not have been
given money except for household rehabilitation, (2) should have been
given sums materially larger in amount, or (3) should have been given
the advantage of expert supervision.
Before leaving the subject of rehabilitation in personal service, it
will be well to note briefly the remaining 123 cases, which number
divide themselves into a large-grant low-capital group of 53 cases and a
high-capital group of 70 cases.
The occupations of the members of the large-grant low-capital group were
much the same as the foregoing; of the 53 in this group, 40 secured
grants for boarding and rooming houses, seven for barber shops, and six
for restaurants. As in the case of the preceding group, a number of the
applicants went into debt in order to increase their capital available
for business; and again the Relief Survey records show that those who
incurred debt were, in general, more successful than those who did not.
Extreme care must, however, be exercised in formulating conclusions
because of the small number of cases involved.
The 70 persons in the high-capital group represent higher standards and
more ambitious plans than the members of the preceding groups. The
grants were often small in amount because the applicant’s resources were
known to be substantial. Capital ranged in this group from $700 to
nearly $3,000. Again, rooming houses are in the ascendancy. There were
56 grants for this purpose, seven for restaurants, three for barber
shops, two for laundries, one for a towel supply concern, and one for a
window-cleaning enterprise. The families were constituted much as in
the small-grant low-capital group, over two-fifths being individuals or
couples living alone. Among the 175 cases of the two low-capital groups,
in which capital was under $700, only one-fifth of the number had
savings, insurance, or real estate available for business. In this
high-capital group 36, or more than half of the cases, had resources.
Twenty-five out of the 36 who had resources, and every one of the 34 who
were without resources, went into debt, and all but four of the 70
started business. In the low-capital groups those who stayed out of debt
exceeded those who incurred it. In this group, the great majority had
gone into debt, even including the greater number of those who had
insurance or savings in addition to their grant.
Of 11 applicants who avoided debt, three did not start in business, but
eight who did so remained in business; while of the remaining 59, who
borrowed, all but one started, and 49 remained in business. Because of
the small number of cases, and particularly of cases in which no debt
was assumed, these figures must not be construed as establishing a
relationship between success and borrowing or failing to borrow.
Some comparisons between these three groups are suggestive. It seems
that the families in the small-grant low-capital group must have needed
much more money than they had, or so many would not have failed to get
into business as planned. The small grants they received were not enough
to encourage them to incur a moderate debt and go ahead. Consequently,
only slightly over one-half succeeded in establishing themselves in
business.
Persons in the large-grant low-capital group appear not to have needed
much additional assistance, for while considerably over half of them got
along without incurring debt, over three-fourths were established in
business.
Those in the high-capital group needed sums of $700 or more to resume
business on anything like the old scale. The grants they received were
in many cases actually, and in most cases relatively, small. Even though
many had substantial resources, yet nearly all went into debt. That the
capital with which members of this group entered business was, in
general, sufficient, seems to be indicated by the fact that 57 of the
70 were in business at the time of the re-visit.
TRADE GROUP
The success of small trade enterprises is affected in the confusion of
post-disaster conditions and, in the absence of expert supervision,
almost as much by the amount of capital available as is personal and
domestic service. Like the keeping of rooming houses and other branches
of personal service, trade is looked upon by the unskilled as an easy
means of earning a livelihood. But the prizes in trade are, as a matter
of fact, reserved for those rare few who have the special sense for
perceiving the “elusive value that hovers now here and now there.” The
average citizen, if he is to make even a modest living by trade, needs
certain material advantages to compensate him for the lack of that keen
economic sense possessed by the shining few who started with the
traditional pack and are now numbered among our merchant princes. When
the everyday citizen sets out to peddle, he must have a horse, a place
to keep him, hay to feed him while he lives, and money enough to make a
payment down on another if he dies. If the business is to be in a shop,
it must be fairly well located, and decently equipped with fixtures and
stock. He can go into debt for fixtures, but as a rule he can get little
credit for stock, especially if it is a mixed stock, like that of a
notion store, or perishable stock, such as food stuff. In fact, the only
shop keeper sure of holding his own in the face of universal competition
is the one who can pay a fair amount of rent from the start, can buy
attractive fixtures for cash, pay cash for all goods,--thus avoiding
interest charges on deferred payments,--and have enough margin left to
extend credit, when necessary, to customers and to carry stock over a
dull season. Such business does not from the start necessarily include
shelter for the family as is the case with a rooming house. It is often
many months before the net income is sufficient adequately to support
more than one person.
So much for the average citizen, starting business on his own capital,
or given a lump sum by a relief committee and left, without supervision,
to run the risk of making costly if not irretrievable mistakes.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM NOB HILL LOOKING TOWARD HARBOUR AND FERRY
BUILDING, one year after the fire, April 18, 1907]
It has already been seen that, of the 175 applicants given assistance
for trade, 124, or about 71 per cent, were in business at the time of
the visit in 1908. In three cases satisfactory data relative to capital
could not be secured. The 172 remaining cases have been classified, like
the persons aided in personal and domestic service, on the basis of
capital and grants. Table 62 shows for the small-grant low-capital
group, for the large-grant low-capital group, and for the high-capital
group the number of applicants in business at the time of the Relief
Survey, those who started but discontinued, and the number who did not
start.
TABLE 62.--BUSINESS STATUS AT THE TIME OF THE RE-VISIT OF APPLICANTS
RECEIVING BUSINESS REHABILITATION FOR TRADE, BY SIZE OF GRANTS AND
AMOUNT OF CAPITAL[166]
==============================+===============+========+=====
Business status |CASES IN WHICH |CASES IN|Total
|CAPITAL WAS LOW| WHICH |
+-------+-------+CAPITAL |
|Grant | Grant |WAS HIGH|
|small | large | |
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----
In business at time of revisit| 54 | 20 | 50 | 124
Started and discontinued | 14 | 7 | 4 | 25
Did not start | 19 | 4 | .. | 23
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----
Total | 87 | 31 | 54 | 172
------------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----
[166] Information relative to amount of capital was secured for only
172 of the 175 applicants receiving business rehabilitation for trade
concerning whom data are presented in Table 60.
It will be seen that the proportion of applicants remaining in business
was very high for members of the high-capital group, and only very
slightly higher for the members of the large-grant low-capital group
than for the members of the small-grant low-capital group.
Of the re-visited applicants who were given rehabilitation for trade,
87, or about one-half, fall within the small-grant low-capital group.
Some of the 87 proposed to become peddlers, canvassers, or agents, but
the majority planned to be merchants or dealers. Notion stores, branch
bakeries, cigar stands, grocery stores, millinery stores, tea and coffee
routes, and stationery stores were among the enterprises contemplated.
Two-thirds of the families either had no dependents or had wage-earners
to supplement the income from the business. The proportion entirely
without resources is high, being 62 out of 87. Twenty-six incurred
indebtedness in order to engage in business; and of these, 23 were in
business in 1908. Of the 61 who did not borrow, only 31 remained in
business.
It seems that to start a small enterprise, grants of under $300 to
persons who could not bring their capital to a point between $500 and
$700 without assuming an unwieldy debt, were too small, in the absence
of close supervision, to assure their restoration within a reasonable
length of time to a normal standard of living.
The large-grant low-capital trade group had but 31 members. Nearly half
of the number were families with dependents and without wage-earners.
Their enterprises were of the same character as were those of the
small-grant group. Only eight of the 31 went into debt, and the amounts
they obtained were in no case as much as the grant. Six of the eight
remained in business. Of the 23 that did not borrow, 14 remained in
business. Because of the small number of cases involved, no conclusions
should be drawn as to the relation between success and borrowing.
There remain of the trade enterprises a high-capital group of 54 persons
in half as many different lines of buying and selling. Over half of
these families had dependents, most of the families having dependents
being couples with from one to five young children. Four-fifths of all
the families had before-fire resources. The persons who contracted
indebtedness numbered 42, and of these, 39 were in business at the time
of the re-visit. Eleven of the 12 families who did not borrow were in
business. Because of the similarity of the proportion of successes among
those who incurred indebtedness and among those who did not, and because
of the small numbers involved, conclusions would be worse than
valueless.
2. STUDY OF REFUSALS
One hundred and six persons who had applied for aid for business and had
been refused were visited in 1908, and most of them were located and
personally interviewed. The visitors had dreaded to meet these
disappointed applicants face to face, and were agreeably surprised to
find that most of them were quite willing to be interviewed and for the
most part bore the Rehabilitation Committee no ill-will. The many who
were doing well were proud to have achieved success without aid; and
those who had failed to get into business and were doing poorly, were
pleased to have some one on whom to lay the blame. Only one man refused
point blank to give an interview.
Except for showing a preponderance of married couples, the families to
whom aid was refused were constituted about as were those families to
whom aid was given. They had in general much more extensive resources
than the grantees, though 13 had no resources whatever and 22 others had
less than $500.
The reasons for which aid was refused were in general more technical
than those for which assistance of a less specialized nature was denied.
Six were refused, in fact, because their character and habits were
thought to be such as would militate against success; two were remitted
to the care of near relatives; and two were found to have rehabilitated
themselves unaided. Ten only were refused because they had not been in
business before the fire; and 20 because they presented no feasible plan
or because they wanted to start saloons, which latter proposal,
naturally, the Committee could not approve. Five were refused because
they wanted to be re-established on a large scale. The largest grant the
Committee could have given them would have been too small for their
needs. The remaining 61 were refused because they were judged able to
rehabilitate themselves, if not in business, then through wage-earning.
Of the 106 refused grants by the Committee, 42 did not start business,
but 62 started without the aid applied for. Two of those refused had
died. Of the 62 who entered business, eight failed and the remaining 54
were still in business in 1908. Failure to start was much more general
among the candidates for rehabilitation in personal service than among
those who sought aid for manufacturing or mechanical enterprises, which
serves to emphasize what has been said as to the greater expectation of
success in the lines involving mechanical skill.
As was to be expected from the fact that exhaustive investigation was
not attempted by the Rehabilitation Committee in 1906, a certain number
of the refusals appeared, in the judgment of the reviewer, to have been
unjustified. There were 23 such instances. In 12 of them conditions were
not without remedy. Reports on seven of the cases were submitted to the
Rehabilitation Committee, and grants of from $250 to $350 each were
promptly made. Five other families were found in which circumstances had
changed so as to make aid advisable. To the 12 families, the sum of
$3,090 altogether was distributed in 1908.
3. SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS OF BUSINESS REHABILITATION
Business rehabilitation was successful, then, to the extent that of the
894 applicants aided who were visited, 683 started in business and 543
were still in business in 1908.[167] Of the 211 applicants who received
grants, but did not enter business, 10 are known to have died; 63
abandoned altogether their plans for entering business; 21 modified
their plans as stated to the Committee, or substituted other plans; 10
spent their grants for housing, furniture, or living expenses; and one
invested the grant in his son’s business. Data as to the 106 remaining
cases are lacking.
[167] See Table 57, p. 186.
It seemed to the reviewer unlikely that any of the 63 applicants who had
abandoned the idea of going into business at the time of the grant would
ever enter business again. Thirty-nine were working for wages, nine were
housewives, and nine were dependent. Data concerning six are incomplete.
As to the causes of the breaking down of the plans for rehabilitation
presented to the Committee, the amount of capital available appears to
have played its part. While for nine of the 63 cases in which the plan
broke down utterly, the amount of capital was not known, in only nine of
the remaining 54 cases, or about 17 per cent, was the capital as large
as $500. Of those, on the other hand, who merely modified their plans,
or who substituted others, over half had $500 or more working capital.
In 57 cases it is known how the grant was spent: in 20 instances it went
for general living expenses; in 11 instances for illness and in six
others for funeral expenses; in 11 for household furniture; in three for
housing; in two for clothing; in two for old debts; in one for a
typewriter; and in one for transportation.
In 42 of the 63 cases of breakdown of the plan, there is strong
internal evidence that the grant was either inadequate (23 cases), given
too late (eight cases); or given without supervision, of which there was
an obvious need (11 cases). In six cases the applicant appears to have
been deficient in enterprise, and in 11 cases the applicant’s
circumstances changed after receiving the grant. Of the four remaining
cases little is known.
Sickness and death and household and personal needs consumed more than
three-fifths of the diverted grants. In the summer and fall of 1906 the
members of the Rehabilitation Committee often shaved down grants because
of a perfectly natural fear of a future shortage of funds. A mental
habit of caution was being formed during these months of uncertainty
which without doubt affected Committee VI in its later handling of some
1,690 cases. Some of these applications were very properly refused. The
894 re-visited applicants who were aided were given grants averaging
$247. With the half million dollars that Committee VI had on hand, the
grants could have been made to average $400 for the 1,226 grantees aided
by this committee. Doubtless grants of such an amount, augmented when
necessary to provide money for furniture and clothing, coupled with more
frequent supervision, would have reduced materially the number that
failed to re-establish. Failures would then have been largely confined
to those few persons who showed themselves deficient in enterprise, or
whose circumstances changed so completely after receipt of the grant as
to make re-establishment impossible.
PART IV
HOUSING REHABILITATION
PART IV
HOUSING REHABILITATION
PAGE
I. GENERAL PLAN OF HOUSING WORK 215
1. Introductory 215
2. Retrospective 216
3. The General Plan 218
II. THE CAMP COTTAGES 221
1. General Cost 221
2. Families Occupying the Cottages 223
3. Wages and Occupations 226
4. Housing Before and After the Fire 229
5. Two Cottage Settlements 234
6. Brief Comments 237
III. THE BONUS PLAN 239
1. The Plan Itself 239
2. Bonus Recipients 240
3. Occupations and Resources 244
4. The Houses--Character and Cost 248
5. Brief Comments 251
IV. THE GRANT AND LOAN PLAN 253
1. The Plan Itself 253
2. Relation Between the Department of Lands and Buildings and
the Housing Committee 256
3. The Number Aided and the Cost 257
4. Families Making Use of the Grants and Loans 259
5. Occupations and Resources 262
6. Housing Before and After the Fire 266
7. Status of Loans in 1909 and 1911 and Additional Aid 271
8. Cases of Expensive Building 273
9. Brief Comments 276
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON HOUSING PLANS 277
[Illustration: In the land of flowers
A simple but cozy home
COTTAGE HOMES A YEAR AFTER REMOVAL]
I
GENERAL PLAN OF HOUSING WORK
1. INTRODUCTORY
A specific housing study was undertaken as one feature of this Relief
Survey in order to ascertain the extent and character of the destruction
of homes, to review the efforts made to furnish temporary shelter, and
the policy and methods followed in the administration of the relief fund
for building purposes. Some effects of the disaster upon the applicants
were studied and the results recorded.
An attempt was also made to combine with the more specific study a
consideration of the social status of each family, the occupation and
earnings of the breadwinner and of other members, and certain facts
relating to race characteristics and to rent expenditures. The
investigation was begun in August, 1908, by a force of field workers who
during the following three months made visits to the families and from
personal interviews and corroborating inquiry obtained all or part of
the information desired. The time intervening between the fire and the
close of the study was therefore about two and one-half years. Though
the city was by no means entirely rebuilt at the time of the study there
was a demand for and a supply of labor which was in a large measure
normal. Those who had received aid from the relief funds to rebuild had
had time to consider what their permanent housing policy should be and,
in the majority of cases, had made determinate plans.
The general plan of the study was to secure information for three
specific periods: for the time immediately preceding the earthquake,
when it was assumed that conditions were normal; for the interval
between the disaster and the time the applicants built and occupied
their new homes, when conditions were abnormal; and finally, for the
period covered by the investigation, when most of the applicants had
been living for some time in their new homes, and when conditions were
again relatively normal.
Easy access was had to the fairly complete minutes of the various
committee meetings, and to the numerous and well-arranged letters of
instruction written by those who had charge of the housing work. Records
had been kept of every case aided, showing the nature, extent, purpose
of the grants, and the date at which the relief was given. This
material, together with reports of the auditor of the Corporation and
extensive files of newspaper clippings, was available for this study.
2. RETROSPECTIVE
There was delay in carrying out any comprehensive plans for housing
because, as has been told,[168] emergency needs had first to be met, and
because when the complex relief organization had taken shape,
rehabilitation was halted by the action of some of the eastern donors to
the funds. Another delaying element was the expectation that the
national government might be persuaded to place large deposits with
local banking houses, which might become available, on easy terms, for
building purposes.[169] To this end a delegation of San Francisco
citizens visited Congress to discuss the plan with the members. After
careful consideration by financiers and those socially interested, the
plan was decided to be impracticable.
[168] See Part I, pp. 22 ff., 69 ff., and 99. In page 69 ff., just
noted, have been incorporated some of the facts gathered for this
distinctive study. See also Original Housing Plan, Appendix I, p. 394.
[169] For account of the proposed $10,000,000 building fund, see
_Charities and the Commons_, June 16, 1906.
When the Department of Lands and Buildings began to work it needed large
quantities of lumber, but private interests had quickly purchased, at
the excessive prices asked, the large supply which had been brought to
the city. The Department was obliged at the beginning to secure from
outside firms an option on 3,000,000 feet of lumber and a proportionate
number of shingles. The option was secured at reasonable terms and the
lumber was speeded to the city by steamers; but so great was the demand
for teamsters that men had finally to be brought from nearby cities and
towns to transport it to the building sites. Many planing mills had
been destroyed, and those running were so crowded with private orders
that the Department to avoid great delay had to erect two planing mills.
These mills caused a saving not only in time but in expense.
The difficulty of securing reliable contractors was increased by the
number of private orders received by the local firms, so that additional
contractors had to be secured from adjacent cities. The expense of
construction was increased still further by the abnormal prices asked
for labor. The destruction of deeds and other evidences of title; the
difficulty and expense of re-surveys; the perplexity in trying to locate
building sites because of the uncertainty as to whether certain parts of
the city would in the future be used as business or residence sections;
the tardiness of insurance adjustments and the repudiating of liability
by not a few companies,--these factors combined to retard the work and
increase the cost of building.
In Part I[170] a brief account is given of the first efforts made by the
Department of Lands and Buildings to provide permanent cottages for some
of the refugees. As soon as it became known that building was to be
begun on a large scale, various real estate firms with vacant lot
holdings came forward with proposals to sell, lease, or rent to those in
charge of the relief fund. A typical proposition by a large real estate
company provided for the erection of 3,000 or more houses, to be well
equipped with sanitary plumbing, to be placed on graded grounds, and to
be supplied with an adequate water system. The price of each house,
complete, was to be $1,506. An objection raised against this and similar
schemes for re-housing was that large tracts of unimproved land were as
a rule situated in outlying and inaccessible districts. Practically all
of those who were seeking shelter had formerly lived near the business
center of the city, many at least within walking distance of their
places of employment. They naturally had no desire to take up permanent
residence in an outlying district where excessive expenses would have to
be incurred. All plans, whether submitted in good faith or not, that
seemed to be based primarily on a desire for personal profit were wisely
rejected by the Department.
[170] See Part I, p. 82 ff.
The proposition was not only seriously considered of aiding on a large
scale the applicants to build, but steps were taken towards the
purchasing, leasing, and renting of lots. Inspectors located all
available vacant lots and tracts of land within the city, and experts
determined their value. But as all such property was shown to be too
unsatisfactorily situated to justify a large expenditure, it was decided
after further discussion not to purchase, lease, or rent any lots, but
to confine activities either to erecting houses or to aiding those
needing help to construct their own. A further reason that led the
Corporation to withdraw the plan was that to carry it into effect would
require the Corporation to exist for five years at least, and probably
longer.
The Department considered the possibility of purchasing ready-built
houses, for example in Michigan, to be shipped to the city in sections.
A few such houses, as an experiment, were bought and set up on vacant
lots. Objections to the purchase of such houses were that the workmen of
the city, whose number was increased by the influx of outside workers,
needed to be employed as builders, and that large supplies of lumber
were soon to be available. The plan was quickly abandoned.
Though the general theory that people should be aided only to regain
their former standard of living was one that played an important part in
determining the question of shelter for the individual family, the
desirability of not restoring former bad housing conditions necessarily
meant that in many cases a family could be encouraged, by promise of
aid, to build and maintain a home of its own which would be much
superior to the quarters formerly occupied. The opportunity which the
city had to prevent the return of its people to undesirable homes was to
be determined, as far as the applicants for shelter were concerned, by
the work of the Department coupled with the applicant’s readiness to
make beneficial use of better conditions of environment.
[Illustration: Substantial and weatherproof
Commodious and attractive
HOMES FROM CAMP COTTAGES]
3. THE GENERAL PLAN
Any adequate plan for housing had to make provision for four classes of
people. First, the property owners, who had in the past acquired some
property within the burned district, should be helped to their feet
again. The carrying out of the bonus plan, intended to meet the needs of
this class, is fully described in Chapter III.[171] Second, the
chronic dependents should be accepted by the city as permanent charges.
The execution of the plan made for caring for this class is the subject
of Part VI.[172] Third, the non-property owners who were resourceful,
should be stimulated, by means of grants or loans, to acquire their own
homes either through the purchase of lots or through leasing the same at
a nominal sum for a period of years. The plan is dealt with in Chapter
IV.[173] Fourth, the non-property owners who had never lived in other
than rented quarters and who were not likely to make wise use of a grant
for the erection of a permanent home, should be sheltered until cheap
cottages could be erected for their temporary use. This last plan[174]
is fully described in Chapter II of this Part.
[171] See Part IV, p. 239 ff.
[172] See also Part I, pp. 23 and 87-88, and Part V, p. 305 ff.
[173] See Part IV, p. 253 ff.
[174] See Part IV, p. 221 ff. For beginning of the work of supplying
camp cottages, see Part I, p. 22 ff.
The work of the Department of Lands and Buildings divides itself into
three parts: first, the erection of camp cottages; second, the payment
of bonuses to property owners wishing to re-build; third, a sharing for
a time with the housing committee of the Department of Relief and
Rehabilitation of the work entailed in making grants and loans to
non-property owners for building purposes.
The number of houses erected directly by the Corporation or in part from
aid given by it according to the three plans which are fully described
in the following chapters, is shown in the following table:
TABLE 63.--HOUSES ERECTED BY OR WITH THE AID OF THE SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF
AND RED CROSS FUNDS, BY STYLE OF HOUSES OR PLAN UNDER WHICH RELIEF WAS
GIVEN
=================================+==============
Style of houses or plan of relief|Houses erected
---------------------------------+--------------
Camp cottages | 5,610
Grant and loan buildings | 1,572
Bonus houses | 885
Two-story tenement houses | 19
---------------------------------+--------------
Total | 8,086
---------------------------------+--------------
The camp cottages and the tenement houses were entirely constructed by
the Department of Lands and Buildings through its own contractors, and
were assigned for occupancy by the camp commanders. The capacity of
these camp cottages, allowing one person to the room, was 15,288
persons, and the greatest population at any one time was 16,448. The
tenement houses accommodated about 650 people. The grant and loan
buildings were erected partly by contractors of the housing
committee[175] of the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation, and
partly by the people themselves. Those applicants whose houses were
built by the housing committee made part payments to the amount of
$57,073.16 in cash. Each owner of a so-called bonus house received from
the Department of Lands and Buildings the promised bonus upon the
completion of his building, in the erection of which the Department had
no part.
[175] See Part IV, p. 253 ff.
The amount expended for shelter in the camps has been given in Part
I,[176] and expenditures for the aged and infirm will be considered in
detail in Part VI; but to gather the total expenditures from the relief
funds into one enumeration, the following inclusive table is given:
[176] See Part I, p. 86, and Table 26, p. 87.
TABLE 64.--EXPENDITURES FOR HOUSING MADE BY THE FINANCE COMMITTEE OF
RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS, BY THE SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF AND RED CROSS
FUNDS, A CORPORATION, AND BY THE UNITED STATES ARMY FROM CONGRESSIONAL
APPROPRIATION, FROM APRIL, 1906, TO JUNE, 1909
Housing the homeless (emergency shelter) $187,056.56[177]
Assistance in construction of permanent homes:
Through Lands and Buildings Dept.,
as bonuses $423,288.17
Through Department of Relief and
Rehabilitation, all grants of
Rehabilitation Committee, of Committee
V, or of other sub-committee, and all
loans whether repaid or not 567,300.85
----------- -----------
$990,589.02
Construction of camp cottages and tenements 884,558.81[177]
Construction of Ingleside Model Camp for aged and
infirm 36,230.59[177]
Construction and equipment of permanent home for
aged and infirm 374.722.22[177]
-------------
Total expenditures $2,473,157.20
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[177] Sixth Annual Report, American National Red Cross, pp. 73, 90,
96, 98.
[Illustration: A tent camp was opened here May 19, 1906
CAMP NO. 13, FRANKLIN SQUARE]
II
THE CAMP COTTAGES
1. GENERAL COST
The pressure to provide permanent shelter is shown to have been keenly
realized by the Corporation from the beginning of its work, and, before
the Corporation was called into existence, by the army officials, the
Finance Committee, and the American National Red Cross. On September 10,
1906, therefore, the Department of Lands and Buildings had ground broken
for the building of cottages in the official camps.[178] From that date
until March 19, 1907, the work was steadily continued, the contractor
being spurred by the offer of a bonus if certain houses were completed
within ninety days, and the threat of a forfeiture if a longer time were
taken. When the task was done 5,610 cottages had been erected; 4,068 of
three rooms and 1,542 of two rooms each. There had also been built 19
two-story tenement houses which sheltered about 650 persons. The total
cost of the cottages and tenement houses including painting, plumbing,
sewering, flush toilets, hoppers, water and gas connections, the moving
of tanks from the principal parks, the laying of sidewalks, and a
proportion of office expenses, was, as is shown in Table 64,
$884,558.81.
[178] See Part I, p. 82.
The total cost of the 19 tenement houses, including painting, sewering,
patent flush toilets, water, gas in each room and in halls, sinks in
kitchen, baths and public laundries, was $41,678.95, an average of about
$2,200 per tenement. The 15,288 rooms in the two- and three-room
cottages cost, on the average, about $55 per room.
The erection of these cottages was essentially if not entirely a
business proposition. Little machinery was demanded. A superintendent of
building construction, aided by a small clerical force, constituted the
actual working body. After purchasing the lumber in large quantities,
the Department contracted with five large constructing companies to
erect the cottages in camps situated in different parts of the city.
The contractors assumed the responsibility of supplying labor and other
service; the Department, that of inspecting the completed work. It was
planned to charge a monthly rental of $4.00 for the two-room and $6.00
for the three-room cottages, but the plan of collecting rent from the
cottages located on city property was vigorously opposed by the mayor
and made illegal by a special ordinance. However, the technicality was
avoided and the law satisfied by substituting, for the form of lease, a
contract of purchase and sale, whereby the occupant agreed to buy
outright the house occupied by him and to pay for it in monthly
instalments which equaled in amount the rent formerly agreed upon. The
amounts advanced on the cottages by the occupants were later refunded to
those who purchased lots on which to place their cottages. The total
amount collected was $117,521.50 of which $109,373 was refunded. The
amount of $8,148.50 was unclaimed at the date of the investigation.
About 5,343 of these houses were, upon the breaking up of the camps,
moved either by individuals or the Associated Charities to purchased or
rented lots and became the permanent homes of the owners. Thus ground
rent, hitherto practically unknown in the city, is now paid by many of
the camp refugees.
The cottages were moved to all sections of the city, even to surrounding
towns and counties, and in not a few cases ownership was exchanged many
times. Visits were made to addresses given for 1,137 of these removed
cottages, as a result of which a total of 680 fairly complete records
was secured and the findings tabulated. The investigators tried to get
the present location of the remaining 457 cottages from cottagers whose
addresses at the date of removal from camp were similar to those of
unidentified recipients, but the clue was useless, as the cottages
either had not been moved to the addresses given, or had later been
moved again by the owners. Eighty-seven cottages are known to have been
sold to others and their original owners to have effectually disappeared
from the community; 23 cottagers are known to have refused to pay, or
been unable to pay, ground rent, the lot owners in consequence having
seized their cottages; and nine cottages were rented and the owners
could not be found. The 680 families found and interviewed had, with few
exceptions, owned and occupied the same cottages in the camps. The
exceptions were the occupants of the houses moved by the Associated
Charities and the few who had not made their home in the official camps
but were given cottages.
2. FAMILIES OCCUPYING THE COTTAGES
The important questions to be considered in this review of the housing
situation are, who were the people who used these cottages, and what
difference did the effort of the relief authorities really make to them?
The proportion of foreign born persons among the occupants of the camp
cottages was very large, though not quite so large, as will be seen, as
was the proportion of the foreign born among the recipients of
bonuses.[179]
[179] See Table 74, p. 241.
TABLE 65.--NATIONALITY OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING AID UNDER THE COTTAGE
PLAN
===================+================+==============
| Native born | Foreign born
|applicants whose|applicants of
Nationality |parents were of |each specified
| each specified | nationality
| nationality |
-------------------+----------------+--------------
American | 193 | ..
Irish | 16 | 127
Italian | 6 | 73
German | 4 | 55
Mexican | 1 | 52
English | 2 | 34
Porto Rican | 0 | 27
French | 1 | 15
Other nationalities| 8 | 66
-------------------+----------------+--------------
Total | 231 | 449
-------------------+----------------+--------------
The three nationalities which will be found in greatest numbers among
the recipients of the bonus likewise appeared most frequently among
those who received camp cottages, though the order is different. The
Americans among the cottagers outnumbered the Irish, and the Italians
were in the third place.
The status of these families with regard to marriage, death, divorce,
and desertion was obtained in every case.
TABLE 66.--CONJUGAL CONDITION OF FAMILIES RECEIVING AID UNDER THE
COTTAGE PLAN
=====================+============================
Conjugal condition | Families of each
|specified conjugal condition
---------------------+----------------------------
Married couples | 402
Widows | 188
Single men or women | 44
Deserted wives | 25
Widowers | 18
Divorced men or women| 3
---------------------+----------------------------
Total | 680
---------------------+----------------------------
Though the number of families given as intact is 402, in 73 instances
either the husband or the wife had, at the time of the investigation,
gone from home in search of work, health, or for other reasons. The
large excess of women who had lost their husbands, over the number of
men who had lost their wives, is striking, and is certainly out of all
proportion to the number of widows in the city. No explanation is
offered other than to suggest the greater financial necessity of widows,
especially of those with children. It is known that some of those
included among the 44 single persons were members of a larger family,
and possibly in a few instances they supported an aged parent or others.
Six of the desertions occurred between April 18, 1906, and the time of
the investigation, and four persons were during that time removed from
family life to be imprisoned.
There were 1,312 children enumerated as members of these complete or
broken families, many of them born to young married people who had but
recently come to the city. More children[180] were found in the Italian
than in the American or Irish families, the proportion being 3.1
children to an Italian family, 2.1 to an Irish family, 1.8 to an
American family. Ages were recorded of the persons making application
for cottages.
[180] See Tables 38 and 39, p. 156.
TABLE 67.--AGES OF APPLICANTS RECEIVING AID UNDER THE COTTAGE PLAN[181]
===============================+====================
Age period | Applicants in each
|specified age period
-------------------------------+--------------------
Less than 30 years | 81
30 years and less than 40 years| 191
40 years and less than 50 years| 173
50 years and less than 60 years| 132
60 years and less than 70 years| 71
70 years and over | 24
-------------------------------+--------------------
Total | 672
-------------------------------+--------------------
[181] Of the 680 families investigated, eight failed to supply
information relative to age of applicant.
Sixty-six per cent of the 680 applicants were women. It is interesting
to compare this number with the 41 per cent of women among the
recipients of bonuses[182] and the 18 per cent among the families
receiving grants and loans.[183] The burden of making application fell
more and more on the women as the family moved down in the social and
economic scale. From April 18, 1906, to the date of the investigation,
138 persons in the group suffered the handicap of illness, 55 were
invalided, 28 met with accidents, and 89 were removed by death. These
data represent the carrying of unduly heavy burdens.
[182] See Part IV, p. 242. The fact that so many women had lodging
houses in the burned district before the disaster accounts partly for
the large proportion of women applicants for bonuses.
[183] See Part IV, p. 261.
The number of families in the group that supported other than their own
children, aged parents, or other relatives, was only 68, or 10 per cent
of the total. The size of the households was, however, further increased
by the presence of some persons who were self-supporting or who
contributed to the common income. The comparatively small number of
dependents both before and after the fire may have been due to poverty,
to lack of room, or to the fact that many were comparatively recent
arrivals and had no dependents in America.
3. WAGES AND OCCUPATIONS
The work and wages of this group of families before and after the
disaster were carefully studied.
TABLE 68.--OCCUPATION BEFORE THE FIRE, OF 415 OF THE MEN IN FAMILIES
RECEIVING AID UNDER THE COTTAGE PLAN
====================================+==========================
Occupational group | MEN IN EACH SPECIFIED
| OCCUPATIONAL GROUP
+-----------+--------+-----
|Proprietors|Employes|Total
------------------------------------+-----------+--------+-----
Personal and domestic service | 10 | 185 | 195
Manufactures and mechanical pursuits| 9 | 88 | 97
Trade | 15 | 105 | 120
Professional | 1 | 2 | 3
------------------------------------+-----------+--------+-----
Total | 35 | 380 | 415
------------------------------------+-----------+--------+-----
The incomes of the 35 men who conducted a business before the fire, as
estimated by them, ranged from $20 to $200 a month in 24 instances.
Eleven men gave no figures, but said they had gotten a living out of
their business. Certainly the living was precarious for the group as a
whole, for they had little if any savings. At the time of the
investigation, the number owning their own business was less than half
what it had been in April, 1906. The nature of employment suffered sharp
changes. The record is not complete, but for the 341 men whose
post-disaster occupation record as employes was obtained, 174 may be
classed under personal and domestic occupations, 92 under manufactures
and mechanical pursuits, 59 under trades and transportation, and two
under professional. Fourteen were classed as miscellaneous. It would
appear that the number employed at work demanding chiefly physical
strength, is somewhat increased; the number engaged at work requiring
skilled labor, slightly reduced.
[Illustration: A janitor’s comfortable home
Improved at small expense
CAMP COTTAGES AFTER REMOVAL]
The following table gives the wages received by the 380 male employes
before the disaster:
TABLE 69.--ESTIMATED MONTHLY WAGES RECEIVED BEFORE THE FIRE BY THE 380
MEN WHO WORKED FOR WAGES, IN THE FAMILIES RECEIVING AID UNDER THE
COTTAGE PLAN
=======================+==================
Monthly wages |Employes receiving
| wages specified
-----------------------+------------------
Less than $20 | 6
$20 and less than $30 | 21
$30 and less than $40 | 43
$40 and less than $50 | 49
$50 and less than $75 | 170
$75 and less than $100 | 60
$100 and less than $150| 21
$150 and less than $200| 3
“Made a living” | 7
-----------------------+------------------
Total | 380
-----------------------+------------------
Some few are shown to have made very good incomes, but it is not known
why they had been unable to acquire property before the fire. The actual
wages were in most cases, because of irregularity of employment,
considerably less than the amounts given above, which represent what
would be the wages for regular employment. It was impossible to
ascertain how irregular any given employment was. In comparing the wages
received after the disaster, practically no change is found. Previous to
April 18, 1906, 76 per cent of these men received less than $75 per
month, while at the time of the investigation 75 per cent of them were
receiving less than that amount. From the standpoint of income received
by the chief breadwinner alone, many families were practically on the
same financial basis as at the time of the disaster.
Of the 265 women who before the fire were either the entire support of
the family or were supplementing the earnings of their husbands, 162 had
been engaged in personal and domestic service, 88 in manufactures, 12 in
the trades, and three in the professions. Of these women, 213 were
widows. After the disaster the number of women employed was reduced to
258. Their wages before the disaster varied from less than $20 a month,
received by 71 women, to “$50 to $75” received by 11, and “above $75”
received by one. One woman claimed to have earned more than $75. A large
proportion, 49, gave their wages as “living expenses.” After the
disaster the number getting less than $20 a month was increased to 94;
but on the other hand, 14 were receiving from $50 to $75. As in the case
of the men, irregularity of employment meant that the actual incomes of
the women were less than their own estimates. Previous to the fire, in
216 different families, or 32 per cent of the total 680, children or
adults other than the principal breadwinner were contributing to the
home by their outside earnings; afterwards this number increased to 271,
or 40 per cent.
Sub-letting of rooms was a source of income to 113, or 17 per cent, of
the families before the disaster; afterwards the number was reduced to
46, or 7 per cent. The two- and three-room cottages were hardly large
enough for their own members.
TABLE 70.--ESTIMATED YEARLY INCOMES BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE OF
FAMILIES RECEIVING AID UNDER THE COTTAGE PLAN[184]
=========================+======================
Estimated yearly income | FAMILIES HAVING
| YEARLY INCOME
| SPECIFIED
+-----------+----------
|Before fire|After fire
-------------------------+-----------+----------
Less than $300 | 43 | 102
$300 and less than $600 | 168 | 179
$600 and less than $800 | 211 | 176
$800 and less than $1,200| 119 | 100
$1200 and over | 94 | 84
-------------------------+-----------+----------
Total | 635 | 641
-------------------------+-----------+----------
[184] Of the 680 families investigated, 45 failed to supply
information relative to income before the fire and 39 relative to
income after the fire.
Table 70 shows that after the fire the proportion of families in the
lower income groups was somewhat larger, and the proportion in the
higher income groups somewhat smaller than before the fire. It appears
from a further study of the data that 329 families had greater incomes
before the fire than after, while 215 had greater incomes after the
fire, and 92 substantially the same income at both periods. Families to
the number of 44 failed to report on this point.
The standard of living of the families of four to five members with a
smaller yearly income was extremely low. Some were aided by relatives
and others were assisted from time to time by philanthropic societies.
Those who had received regularly as much as $600 a year were probably
self-supporting but had put aside no savings. Only 6 per cent of this
group of families had savings at the time of the fire, and only 7 per
cent were to receive insurance for losses. They carried however only a
small burden of debt. Afterwards, 131 were reported to be in debt, in
the main for improvements made on their property or for the purchase of
a lot. They had, therefore, comparatively little insurance and savings
on which to draw, and received little aid from gifts and loans with
which to rebuild. In fact, only 10 of the entire number stated that they
had received gifts from relatives or from any other source, and an equal
number, that they had obtained loans. The gifts from relatives ranged
from $10 to $750, and the loans obtained, from $25 to $250. Two cases
are noted of large amounts received, one of $3,300, the other of $5,000,
for property sold or inherited after the fire.
In addition to the privilege of removing the cottages from the camps
without charge,[185] 415, or 61 per cent, of the applicants received
money grants from the Rehabilitation Committee. These amounts were given
for various purposes, but in the main for furniture, clothing, sewing
machines, and other general household rehabilitation. A certain number
were granted small amounts for housing purposes in order that they might
make improvements on their cottages or, in a few cases, to aid in the
construction of new homes.
[185] See Part I, p. 85, and Part IV, p. 232.
4. HOUSING BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE
Only 15 of these families had owned the houses in which they were living
at the date of the fire, though seven others possessed real estate for
which they received rent. One family claimed to have owned property
valued at $5,000. As the majority of the group had lived in rented
houses no attempt was made to learn the value of the rented property. At
the time of removal from the camps all but four owned the cottages in
which they were living. Table 71 shows the character of their previous
dwellings.
TABLE 71.--TYPES OF HOUSES OCCUPIED BEFORE THE FIRE BY FAMILIES
RECEIVING AID UNDER THE COTTAGE PLAN[186]
========================+==================
Style of house |Families living in
| houses of each
| specified style
------------------------+------------------
A flat or flats | 466
Small houses or cottages| 109
Furnished rooms | 67
Apartments | 15
Basements | 4
------------------------+------------------
Total | 661
------------------------+------------------
[186] Of the 680 families visited, 19 lived in other cities before the
fire.