Service Agencies Report Increase in Families Receiving Aid During Past 10 Years

A 30 percent increase in the number of families receiving assistance from Jewish family agencies in the United States and Canada over the past ten years was reported in the “1970 Yearbook of Jewish Social Service,” compiled and published here by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. According to AIvin Chenkin, supervisor of the CJFW’s statistics unit which compiled the Yearbook from reports of Jewish agencies throughout the U.S. and Canada, the number of families receiving financial assistance only has remained constant during the decade although the number receiving general aid has risen dramatically. In 1969, the Yearbook noted, more than 74,000 families received assistance from 61 Jewish agencies, an increase of 2.5 percent over 1968. But only 2000 families received direct financial assistance, in the amount of $2.5 million in 1969, a one percent rise over direct financial assistance in 1960.

Chenkin said that almost 40 percent of the families aided financially were immigrants. They received approximately $1 million, or almost 50 percent of the aggregate agency expenditures for the year. This figure was double the amount expended for assistance to immigrants ten years earlier but reflected in part the rise in costs due to inflation, Chenkin said. Another major grouping of families receiving assistance were in the 60 years-and-over age bracket and represented almost a quarter of the total. At the other extreme, the Yearbook recorded that the number of children receiving services from specialized Jewish care agencies changed little during the 1960s. “The bi .k of children receiving assistance are served outside their homes, with the majority of these in foster-parent homes and more than one-third in residential treatment centers,” Chenkin said.