Relocated Families: A Study of the Adjustment of One Hundred Fifty-Eight Public Assistance Families, Three to Five Years After Their Relocation From Single Furnished Room Accommodations, New York City 1965-1966

Albert J Rodriguez, Fordham University

Abstract

Throughout our literature, the geographic mobility of the American people has been portrayed as an outstanding cultural pattern in their way of life. Much of history is dedicated to the enterprising and courageous people who have been willing to pull up stakes in response to economic pressures and the desire to make a better living elsewhere. Even though we may not feel that there still remain frontiers to be crossed, the mobility of the American people continues. Each year about thirty-five and a half million people, or twenty percent of the population of the United States, move to a new location. William H. Whyte, Jr., points out that the family who ventures from home is not the 2 exception in American society, but the key to it. The "organization man” generally moves by choice to achieve increased status. He takes with him the security of steady employment or professional standing. Wherever he goes, there will likely be other new residents belonging to his or another industry or profession. The more limited the individual’s financial, occupational, psychological and physical reserves, the greater the risk factor in mobility. When the poor move, problems tend to multiply. The impact of complexity and centralization and the increasingly impersonal nature of our society, falls most crushingly on the weak who need outside assistance in coping with the pressures of existence. The purpose of this study was to study 158 families forcibly relocated under legal obligation, almost four years prior to the time of the study, to determine how these people were affected by their relocation. Our objective was to elicit information from these subjects regarding their feelings as to whether or not they felt the family was better off in the neighborhood from which they were forcibly relocated or in the neighborhood to which they were relocated.

Subject Area

Social work

Recommended Citation

Rodriguez, Albert J, "Relocated Families: A Study of the Adjustment of One Hundred Fifty-Eight Public Assistance Families, Three to Five Years After Their Relocation From Single Furnished Room Accommodations, New York City 1965-1966" (1966). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30308748.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30308748

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