In the morning the destitute women are given a meal of coffee and bread and margarine. The residents, at a payment of twelve shillings a week, get board and lodging. There is no sectarian distinction, and, where possible, work is found for the destitute, either in factories or as domestic servants.
But here, as elsewhere, there remains that section which, for the time being, is unable to be employed. As I have said, only a gentle course of kindly treatment can restore their self-confidence, without which nothing in life can be attempted.
In Union Street the time allowed for the homeless to recover themselves is, of necessity, too short to accomplish any definite alteration in their status. They drift out as they drifted in, washed to and fro on the sea of destitution.
It will be seen that there are present two distinct problems, one of which is in a fair way of being solved—the problem of the woman whose income, earned, or received as a pension, is too small to allow her to start a home for herself. This type in the main is catered for, but for those others, my sisters of the bleeding feet and broken wills, but little has been done. An occasional free night’s lodging at one of these shelters, is the sum total of what they may expect in the present; and for the future, bounded by the terror of an institution, life holds no sort of hope.
There is this distinction between the Refuge in Union Street and the Salvation Army Shelter in Hackney. The last named receive and look after unmarried and expectant mothers. The activities of the first do not cover this particular problem. The funds at command are not sufficient. Moreover, it is felt that there are already organisations ready and willing to assist women in this pathetic predicament. And, in the main, I think this argument is true. There are homes for expectant mothers; homes for unmarried mothers; homes for old age pensioners; and those who can secure a weekly certainty, can always find a bed. The army of the night, however, still remains at the outposts of security; disinherited, unclassed, they stand, an eternal reproach to well-fed womanhood.
The small shelter in King’s Road, Chelsea, is run upon lines of such kindliness and understanding that if it were possible to apply these on a larger scale very much would be accomplished. It was founded fourteen years ago, as a home for discharged prisoners, and for police court cases under remand. Some twenty-four women are accommodated, of which three are recruited from the destitute. Here, also, there are some semipermanent inmates, girls who have obtained daily work and have come to regard the hostel as their home. But so long as a bed is available, no one is turned away at any hour of the night, and very often the matron will make up a shakedown for those who otherwise would have to tramp until the morning.
I found no trace of officialdom in the refuge. The beds are clean and comfortable, while the washing accommodation is all that can be desired. The homeless are given a meal of cocoa and bread and margarine for supper, and tea and bread and margarine for breakfast, and a dinner on Sunday. The matron makes it her business to keep in touch with every kind of employer. Mistresses ring her up for domestic help daily, but if the homeless women cannot obtain work she arranges for their reception at various convents, where the unemployable are fed and tended until they become fitted, morally and physically, to enter the labour market once again. It will be seen that this particular home has gone a considerable distance towards the solution of the problem raised above, but of necessity it is circumscribed by the smallness of its establishment—three destitute women a night—supposing that one of the three is permanently put upon her feet, makes but little difference to the vast battalions of the forlorn. But, though it be small, the home is extraordinarily efficient; and I do not use the word merely in its mechanical significance. It is efficient in dealing with spiritual as well as material hurts, and it is good to know that those women and girls who have been placed out under the matron’s kindly help, keep in touch with the shelter, and make it their headquarters for their holidays and recreation hours.
There may be, as I have said, other places similar to this, but they have not come under my notice, nor have I heard of them in conversation with my fellow down and outs. The homeless woman gets a keen scent for places where she receives human treatment, and, save in instances where self-interest is involved in the keeping of the information private, a tramp can always tell a tramp where to get food and shelter.
It is my aim and hope to enlist sufficient support to start a number of these small homes, where the destitute can unite mind, body and estate, and, given time, to shed their sense of inferiority. My other ambition is to awaken public opinion to the shameful inadequacy of public lodging houses for women—inadequacy not only of numbers but of accommodation.
In regard to my first ambition, it is interesting to note that a shelter for the accommodation of say—twenty to twenty-five women, could be run for an astonishingly small amount. I have before me the report for 1924 of the hostel at 497, King’s Road, Chelsea. The upkeep of the hostel, including the discharged prisoners and the destitute women, for the year ending December 31st, amounts to £609 1s. 2d. This sum covers subscriptions, monies paid by women residing in the hostel, and gifts from those who have already stayed there. The total includes salaries and wages, which amount to the amazingly small sum of £125 9s. 4d. The whole work of the house is done by the two matrons, assisted by the inmates, who take their share in
