Giving Them The Dickens

Go directly to the poorhouse

The squat, mustard-colored building known as Bannon Street sits on a bend in the road, framed by railroad tracks, warehouses and an industrial park. Inside, the mood is as grim as the dull yellow walls. Rows of double bunk beds line the dormitories. "This reminds me of Dickens," grumbles Resident David Erickson, 33, an unemployed carpet layer. Indeed, Sacramento County in northern California has borrowed a page from the English novelist and revived a 19th century solution to economic hard times: the poorhouse.

In October the county cut off all cash grants and food stamps to single, employable adults without children who were applying for welfare, and instead began offering basic room and board in its Bannon Street shelter. It is the first poorhouse established in California since the institution fell into disrepute in the mid-1930s. House rules are strict: residents are awakened every day at 6 a.m. and receive a "bed check" at 9 p.m. Liquor, drugs and sex are forbidden, and smoking is not allowed in the dormitories. For entertainment, the shelter provides Bible classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. For up to seven days a month, the 70 or so men and women who live at the shelter must work at menial tasks around the county.

According to county officials, an alarming rise in welfare costs, combined with a cutback in both federal and state aid, forced the move. "Our general-assistance case load had increased 55% during the past two years," says Dennis Hart, director of the county's social welfare department. "We had to find a way to do some screening of the people we were getting." The throwback has already spurred a lawsuit and a blast of criticism from Bannon Street residents, lawyers and sociologists. Says Harry Specht, dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley: "It's medieval. We gave up the notion of the poorhouse before the Depression." Warehousing the poor, he says, "stigmatizes them, creating a subculture of people who are considered disreputable -- bums."

County officials, who avoid the word poorhouse, maintain that their emergency shelter is better than the usual alternative facing the poor: having to live in seedy and often dangerous transient hotels. Says Hart: "Here at least you can get a hot meal and clothes and not be worried about getting mugged." In addition, he says, the shelter, which is run on a contract basis by a Christian service organization called the Volunteers of America, is achieving the desired effect: trimming the county's dole roll. In November 1981 the county had 805 applicants for welfare. In November 1982, shortly after the new policy started, 317 people applied. "A lot of people refuse to go through the application process when they see that Bannon Street is the option," says Hart.

One of those who refused was Arthur Robbins, a migrant farm laborer who applied for general assistance last fall. After being told to go to Bannon Street instead, he filed a lawsuit with the aid of two legal-services groups, charging that the new policy discriminates against single citizens and violates the constitutional rights to privacy and freedom to travel. "It's a jail," says Robbins. "You can't live like you want to live. You can't watch TV all night if you want to." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.