JOBLESS WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 50, 28 February 1934, Page 13

JOBLESS WOMEN

GIVING THEM A HOME

AN AMERICAN PLAN

Realising that something more than a roof, bed, and breadline are needed;to restoro to "normal" the homeleijs,'jobless woman who has perhaps drifted around' for days ~ without money, Chicago's municipally employed' social workers have- conducted a l^rge-scale experiment in "sympathetic relief" for non-family women, states the "Christian Science Monitor." ; .X 'With two years of experience, they feel now that they have- .found a way to help this class whoso peculiar, pathetic needs are: too generally overlooked in emergency relief, programme. "Flop-house" care given in some large cities, they say, comes heartlessly far from meeting the needs of these women. The answer, as worked out-here, is to make possible community living- for 200 women at a.time, in a shelter which so resembles a home that the women have their days filled with wholesome activities. They do the housework, sew, mend, and perform other domestic tasks for theinselve... and others which tends to restore morale and set them back on the road to "normal." •'. . ■ This' shelter, the Woman's Municipal Home, is fortunate in "inheriting" -the buildings of an orphan asylumil They have been.put to wise use for unemployed women by Miss Dorothy B. ,de la Pole, director, who works under the city's department of public welfare, of which Mrs. Elizabeth A. Conkey is commissioner. ~;',' - Miss de la Pole offers no formula for tho care of tneso women. The visitor to the home soon sees that kindness, understanding and tact on the part of tho social workers arc first" essentials to the programme. ' ''".'.'•" Women are judged ".. eligible for residence here only if they, are .found.to havo no kin to help "them.' and no means of self-support. There is one other qualification. They must appear to be "re-employable." These are women who are not expected to bo permanent residents butwho 'can bo' tielped to go; out into the world again to makij their own living. NEW VIEWPOINT NEEDED^ * What many need to fit them ifor re-employment, Miss do la Pole finds, is a new viewpoint. Some, after "'continual hardships, have- developed an attitude of selr'-ilefosn-e which makes it difficult fur them to get along'with people. They .'need, lo learn.again the art of living with.others; of co-operat-ing, Miss do la Pole said.V : Every "resident" is expected to do three .hours' work each day for the house, preferably along the lines of her past experience!" Many of the lesidouts urgently, need •to get their own clothes mC order,, members of the staff find, It is. iiif--i&colt for a /woman to fiucl - iToiiieStic work,' for example, if her 'clothes are ragged and perhaps dirty. Yet' how ran a homeless ' womnti whose' "funds have run out replenish or '.even freshen her wardrobe* At.the "Municipal, homo phe finds the answer. She. can ■wash, in thei. Inundry, ■repair her garments in the workshop, anc 1 even get material to make new ones; , - ... ~t i Here, too, she can give herself that personal grooming so important,ffbr the job r seeker. .-. .; , "■.''...'"■': .'•.•■