By Verona Middleton-Jeter, CSW, ACSW, Executive Director, Henry Street Settlement & Staff
October 2003
The strength of the Henry Street Settlement (HSS) lies in its ability to balance the strong tradition of it's past history and its continuing ability to adapt to the ever-changing populations and needs of the Lower East Side community, which it has served for over 100 years. Founded in 1893 by Lillian Wald as the Nurses Settlement, and succeeded in 1934 by Helen Hall, these two pantheons shaped not only the history of the HSS but that of the whole settlement house movement in this country. In the 75 years of directing the settle ment, they laid a foundation and developed a culture much of which guides the work of the settlement to this day.
Ms. Wald, a nurse by training, was appalled by living conditions and came to the Lower East Side to deliver healthcare to the immigrant community. By living in the community, she quickly became aware of other needs, so the HSS was started. In addition to the nursing, it also began to deliver many other services. The notion of quality services meeting needs and delivered in the community was born.
Secondly, Ms. Wald also wanted the settlement to be a place where everyone could come. She was careful to design a program which would not be seen as only for people and families with problems. A strong principle for her was that people had to be seen in their totality and not only in terms of their problems. They also had strengths. Someone who used HSS in those days was called a “neighbor” and not a “client.” This thinking was best exemplified by the role that the arts have always played in the life of the agency from piano lessons in the dining room at the settlement's outset to the building of a block long arts center in 1975. Offering training and performances in all the arts, the settlement has combined the arts with its long list of social services. Poor people had the same needs for creative expression as the rest of society and opportunities were always provided for this.
Thirdly, Wald and Hall realized that providing quality services, while important, was not enough. Individuals would be helped but societal conditions and problems would persist. If the settlement wanted things to be different, it would have to be involved in social change efforts. And, so, the settlement has in its history involvement in the founding of the NAACP, the meeting place for unions after the Triangle Shirt Waist fire, drafting of the Child Labor Laws and the advocacy which resulted in the development of Public Housing, to name a few.
Lastly, settlements could be critical of government policies or lack there of, but they also had a responsibility to not only point out problems but to develop approaches that might help solve them. Thus, there has been a long list of innovations identified with settlements in general and HSS in particular. This included development of the public health nurse, the school nurse, playgrounds for children and development of Mobilization for Youth, the prototype for community action agencies in the war on poverty.
This is our tradition but much has also changed in the past 40 years. In the early 60's settlements were relatively small, were mostly privately funded, and were not primarily staffed or led by professional Social Workers. They still had some elements of a “calling” or a movement. After the war on poverty and the great society things rapidly changed. Entitlements and programs were greatly expanded.
At HSS, a budget of about of 1 million dollars at the beginning of this period grew in large and steady increments to over thirty-three million dollars today. Where staff was well under one hundred, mostly part time, the staff now numbers over a thousand with over four hundred employed full-time in seven large program divisions. Where there were very few trained social workers in the past, every major program division except for the arts is now headed up by an MSW or someone working for the degree. Where there were a hand full of sites in the past, today services are delivered from 18 different locations. The sources of funding have also dramatically changed. From nearly 100% private funding the agency now receives more than 80% of its budget from the various levels of government.
While these changes have provided many opportunities they have also come with problems and new challenges. The infusion of new government dollars has enabled the settlement to develop new services and service more people but at the same time often has changed the way they can be served. Many of these dollars are targeted to a particular problem, which has to be addressed in a specific way. The funds are “categorical” in nature and often make it difficult to serve a whole person or family. We can give an hour of therapy to a family in our mental health clinic but may not be able to give a reimbursed hour of case management. With much of the money coming from government, it often has made it difficult to take advocacy positions, when these may be seen by a funding source as contrary to their policies. Direct confrontation with government has become a tension producing exercise at best for settlement houses that have become quasi-government agencies in terms of their funding. Though government dollars have enabled us to expand our service delivery, money from government to provide the infrastructure to support these services is not as readily forthcoming. Thus we often have the paradox of the more money we get, the deeper the hole becomes and the more private money we have to raise to provide these government funded services.
In spite of these difficulties, HSS continues to find ways to function within the boundaries of its long tradition and current realities. The agency continues to develop many new firsts –Urban Family Center—the first facility for homeless families created in 1972, the first publicly funded Battered Women's Shelter in 1977 and one of the first community mental health clinics in the 1960's. Though it is impossible for all the workers to live at the settlement as was true at its inception, the agency makes every effort to hire from within the community. The settlement also takes pride in “growing its own staff”, often taking people who have received services, hires them and helps them attain college degrees. The settlement continues to struggle with the advocacy/change aspect of its work and if there is not as much direct confrontation as there was in its past, there is certainly a more directed and focused attempt to do community building and empowerment activities for people who use its services. The settlement still remains the place to be for professional social workers that want to do work in a community setting with a service/change orientation.
Perhaps settlement work is no longer a movement but it has been able to attain enough elements of this tradition from its past to make a difference, both for its workers and the people that they serve.