Saturday, 31 March 2012

The Closing of Hull House

A month ago, announced the Hull House Association, the closure of programs and their insolvency. Most people probably shrugged his shoulders and walked on, hardly taking time to read the article accompanying notes. But the closure of one of the oldest institutions of social services has a profound impact not only served on the lives of individuals and neighborhoods, but also for professionals and the fabric of the social network for the help the most vulnerable in our society.

As a newcomer to my MSW at UC-Berkeley, I took a class that discusses the history and context of social protection in the United States. The work of Jane Addams was presented as an important event in this story. Mrs. Addams came from a family of upper class and was set up, just like many of his colleagues, something about the social ills they saw in his city to do. But it was not easy to keep, fundraisers or volunteering. His idea was a house in a slum where they live and other volunteers to serve the needs of the population will be opened.

She wanted to be part of the community it served. His feeling was that it was only by getting to know who she was she able to provide what was needed. Hull House, a national historic treasure, was the settlement house and through the next century was in a range of services, the most recent estimate provided services to 60,000 people a year in the greater Chicago area. Extended

Although they originally financed privately, the Hull House had come to rely on public funding for their programs. At one point he had almost completely dependent on the whims of the political groups and what they think about the basic needs of people in this country. The debate over the size of government, which currently prevails in the Republican primary campaigns seem like the death knell for organizations like the Chamber of Hull, to serve the poor in our communities.

To go in the last few years, including the recent recession, I worked as a social worker in a medical setting. Services and programs for older and disabled people in this country have been gradually reduced to matrices. While programs such as Medicare Part D drug involves or facilitates recent changes in Medicare laws people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage helped them do not change the fact that resources for people who are vulnerable, rare and frightening to those people with disabilities to day.

In a recent outbreak, a prominent GOP leaders presented that he was not concerned about the very poor in our society. This is what is the safety net, he joked. Looks like he is not sure what happened to the safety net payment in our country because it is becoming frayed and tear completely.

There are those who have this as a good thing. They believe that those who use the benefits of the programs funded by the government must be lazy or malingerers. People have the right to found worthy to deserve help in any way. This is a direct affront to the ideal Jane Addams, ?that all men are by nature dignity dignity and respect, and a part of treating people in such a manner is important, needs, when an individual or a family can not do it yourself .

Help social workers and other professionals are encouraged to do more with less. The options that are available are not sustainable for most of their clients and acts as an affront to anyone who has not had to deal with any part of the safety net social welfare. They also suffer from loss of friends and colleagues to layoffs. Hull House in Chicago means closure for the loss of jobs and an additional burden on social services in order ? a burden that they probably will not be able to take over completely.

It may seem like a local problem in Chicago, but the same is happening in cities across the country. And despite the optimism of the trickle-down effect, there are no major donors, in which government programs are cut away. The middle class will also be given about his own financial security in large quantities, and most have not necessarily increased their donations.

So what does all this mean? This means that we create a class more desperately poor. This means that those who are closer to the middle class to be poor than ever before. This means that we have a government that lies back and allows those who suffer most in need to choose.

When I went to school social work, it was recommended that students read Unfaithful Angels by Harold Specht. The book condemned the flight of trained social workers in private practice, therapy ? they were the ?Unfaithful? angels. But social workers and other helping professions, are not angels. We are people, like most of the tools that we know how to make a variety of situations. The book by Specht missed the larger social trends, however, that our country has become ?disloyal? to the poorest people in the community.

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