Nyc Welfare Official Pledges Better Services to Jewish Poor

Rabbi David Haymovitz, director of the office of special projects of the city’s Social Services Department, said today that a marathon meeting earlier this week with a wide variety of representatives of Jewish organizations was the first in a series of fact-finding meetings to enable his office to formulate recommendations for better service to the Jewish poor, particularly the aged poor.

The almost seven-hour meeting was arranged after charges were made by Sanford Solender, executive vice-president of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, that the Jewish poor, particularly Hasidic Jews, were being ignored by anti-poverty agencies and were being harassed at welfare centers by other minority groups who resented their presence. Solender aired these charges earlier this month at the biennial convention of the Workmen’s Circle.

Rabbi Haymovitz, who was named director of the office a few weeks ago, said the meeting Monday was attended by representatives of the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, the Jewish Family Service, the Jewish Community Services of Long Island, the Jewish Association for College Youth, the Federation Guidance and Employment Service–all affiliates of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies–and the New York Board of Rabbis and representatives of a number of Hasidic sects.

Max Waldgeir, first deputy commissioner of the Social Services Department who attended the meeting as an observer, had acknowledged several days earlier on Victor Riesel’s WEVD “Talk of New York” program that Jews, especially Hasidic Jews, “don’t know how to navigate in the system,” but added, “That is being changed.” On the same program, Waldgeir defended his department against charges made during the course of the program by Solender and Jerome Becker, president of the New York Metropolitan Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, that Jews, particularly in multi-racial areas, were harassed at welfare centers and that, in one case, a child welfare center in Brooklyn was being phased out despite protests by Jewish residents in the area. He said that whatever had happened before “would now be rectified.”

COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION STILL LACKING

Rabbi Haymovitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that despite many studies made in recent years under Jewish auspices concerning the problems of the Jewish poor in getting access to government aid, he felt that there was not sufficiently comprehensive information for his office to make detailed recommendations to the Human Resources Administration for efforts to resolve the problems.

He said he was aware of the problems of elderly Jews living in neglect in deteriorated areas of the city and of those poor Jews living outside the city’s 26 designated poverty areas who were neglected in city poverty aid programs for that reason. But, he added, he believed there was still a gap between available information and the kind of comprehensive, city-wide detailed data needed to make recommendations to the HRA, the city’s super-agency which handles welfare and anti-poverty programs.

Rabbi Haymovitz said the task of his office was to obtain an “overview” of the city’s entire welfare program and that the action planned for the Jewish poor was part of the total program. He said his office would meet in about two weeks with representatives of local Jewish community councils to continue to gather the facts he said were needed.

ROLE OF OEO ASSAILED

During the WEVD program last Friday, Solender criticized the Office of Economic Opportunity programs with the assertion that “Jews did not get elected to boards of so-called community corporations,” the agencies elected in each of the 26 poverty areas to receive and dispense funds for anti-poverty projects. Solender also charged that “Jews are not considered a minority under OEO regulations; Yiddish is not considered a minority language; welfare centers are inadequately staffed and not well located; and there are long waits and elderly Jews are harassed by other people waiting.”

He noted that the Federation was an amicus curae in a suit against the New York State Department of Welfare to force all centers to be more adequately staffed and to be located in better access areas. Becker said the coordinating council be heads had an application pending for $800,000 “and with OEO funds coming to an end, what will happen to those poor Jews whom we have been able to help?” Waldgeir responded that he would not comment on the pending application and said the city was in an economic crunch.