For the present, the Municipal Emergency Home stands, or rather
should stand, on the one hand as a link in the chain of governmental
institutions, not only as a public policy and agency which supports
the individual who either fails in life or is compelled to be one in
the ranks of destitute men because of economic conditions, but as an
institution wherein one may receive temporary relief under the rights
of citizenship. On the other hand, it should stand for the protection
of society from the degradations, annoyances and misdemeanors of
the individual who would thus be a burden upon his fellows and upon
society as a whole. In other words, the Municipal Emergency Home should
be one maintained and conducted _strictly by the municipality_ as a
governmental institution. It should be the tiding-over place for the
man or the woman without a job, a refuge to satisfy immediate needs, a
hospital in certain cases of sickness, an asylum in case of destitution.
ESSENTIALS TO SUCCESS.
The author believes that there are two factors essential to the success
of a Municipal Emergency Home; first, the co-operation of all public
departments in the city government, and second, the cooperation of the
public itself. When because of politics it has been found difficult
to introduce improvements and progressive ideas in a municipality
for relieving the temporarily distressed, it has become the custom
to recommend religious or private charities for the management of
relief-granting institutions. But no one can question the success and
the need of a Municipal Emergency Home who is willing to investigate
the wonderful success of the New York Municipal Lodging House and
the Buffalo Municipal Lodging House. These are conducted strictly
under city and County supervision and management. As such results as
have been obtained in New York and Buffalo, and which may come into
existence in any large city, under public management, why should
other cities question the popularity and success of a Municipal
Emergency Home under such management or doubt its advantages over
those mismanaged by religious and private charity, the latter not
infrequently run for profit?
USE OF APPROPRIATION.
The people of our cities may expect, and should forcibly demand from
its public officials, that the money expended in municipal "charities"
should be well adapted, elastic in its application, based upon wise,
scientific conclusions, and on a thorough exhaustive experimentation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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