Newburgh Heritage

Where to live when the money runs out?

By Mary McTamaney
Posted 10/22/20

Endless political debate has been swirling around the topic of another federal COVID relief bill. Will congress come to any agreement on ways to support the many Americans who have lost their …

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Newburgh Heritage

Where to live when the money runs out?

Posted

Endless political debate has been swirling around the topic of another federal COVID relief bill. Will congress come to any agreement on ways to support the many Americans who have lost their livelihoods during the pandemic crises?
Today’s news reported on the success the City of Los Angeles housing people in shipping containers that have been retrofitted with doors and windows. At least that gives some temporary independence back to families who have been bunking with relatives and friends since they ran out of rent money.
The story reminded me of the barracks housing that was built in 1946 on the grounds of the City and Town Home (the almshouse) for returning, and newly-married WWII soldiers. Veterans were back in their hometown seeking work and seeking shelter. Houses were subdivided but still everyone didn’t have a safe, sanitary place to get back on their feet.
Over in Beacon, that city bought old army barracks from a decommissioned camp upstate and paid to ship and reassemble them as little “apartments” for their returning vets. In Newburgh, we saw that and built our own on almost the same design as barracks: longhouses that could accommodate four small apartment units.
The use of almshouse grounds for emergency housing tied history together across the centuries. When Newburgh was a colonial settlement, its residents accepted an obligation to the needy. In the act that created the Precinct of Newburgh before the Revolutionary War, there was a provision for care of the poor by a “Poor Master” who would dispense alms.

The precinct’s budget in 1770 dispensed 50 pounds for relief of the poor. By 1778, that was 200 pounds. As the village was incorporated in 1800, a vote was taken to construct a poor house and a temporary one was erected immediately. In 1805, children were distinguished as needing special care and someone was put in charge of their welfare. Sadly, that often involved finding them quarters as indentured servants or apprentices, but it got homeless children fed and housed in temporary quarters at least.
By 1830, the village’s welfare budget was $2,500 and for 23 years, from 1830 to 1853, Newburgh merged its welfare services into the new county-wide welfare system. Newburghers didn’t find its residents served as well by that merger (its poor taxes were dispensed in a formula it thought unfair to the needy here) and it reestablished a welfare commission of its own, in collaboration with the Town of Newburgh, in 1853. It was the only collaborative municipal pairing for such services in its time. The City, by the late 19th century, had a 4/5 interest with the Town in the ownership and operation of the City and Town Home, successor to the old Alms House.
Two great depressions hit Newburgh and the area: one in 1893 and one in recent memory in the 1930’s. Both times, the city issued bonds and borrowed money to provide relief for the swollen ranks of the needy. Newspapers from those years show no public controversy at either time. In the Great Depression of the 1930’s it was local banks that made all the loans for public welfare. In 1934, an article in the Newburgh News reports that welfare payments had now topped $1,000 per day and the 1934 total expenditure was over $371,000. There was certainly “workfare” in Newburgh’s welfare system. In the Great Depression, such projects as repairing bridges over Lake Street and Little Britain Road, grading the NFA playing fields and the Recreation Park, fixing the dam feeding our reservoir system on Silver Stream and building public garden plots were accomplished.
Private charities are another aspect of public welfare. Like today and all the efforts of citizens to check on their neighbors and organize food deliveries and more, church guilds, leagues to guide needy boys and girls, orphan asylums, veterans organizations and “friendly visitor” societies to aid the sick all played a significant role.
The classic 1891 history of Newburgh by John Nutt has a chapter entitled “Benevolence.”
Its introduction is a lesson still worth reading.
“To what degree does a city meet the highest demands of our modern civililization? Does it stimulate and satisfy men’s higher and more intellectual wants? Does it relieve the dread that hangs around helpless infancy and helpless old age? Does it guide its youth in the paths of rectitude? Does it help the poor, visit the sick, heal the wounded? These are the higher tests by which intelligent people estimate the degree of advancement, culture and moral worth of a population.”