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REPORT

OF

VISITATION OF ALMSHOUSES IN

JUDICIAL DISTRICT.

THE SECOND

VISITATION OF

OF

ALMSHOUSES IN THE SECOND

JUDICIAL DISTRICT.

To the State Board of Charities:

Your Commissioner begs to report having visited during the past year all of the almshouses of the district, some of them several times. The condition of most of the institutions was found to be satisfactory.

At Suffolk County Almshouse the addition to the hospital is completed and provides for the isolation of tubercular patients. A new 8-inch and 10-inch tile sewer was laid to a new cesspool one-half mile distant, new floors were laid, and some metal sheathing applied. This institution is first-class in administration but the lack of a proper day-room for men, and of improved bathing facilities prevent it from being graded first-class in plant. No important change was noted in the Suffolk County Children's Home.

The New York City Farm Colony on Staten Island is under new management and has entered upon a period of expansion. The two-story stone dormitory for employees is ready for occupancy and will accommodate thirty men. Two hundred thousand dollars is available for the erection of two new dormitories for inmates, one for women and one for men, and $20,000 for a new pavilion for suspected cases of insanity. Steam heat will be installed in the cottages to replace the hot air system, which never gave satisfaction. The discipline, both of employees and inmates, is strict, and the bookkeeping system has been improved. The rapid enlargement of this institution is desirable that it may provide for the excess almshouse population of Kings and Queens counties. The greatest need is for an improved water supply.

The New York City Home for the Aged and Infirm, Brooklyn Division, is overcrowded and has no further room for expansion. The "annex," formerly a part of the Kings Park State Hospital for the Insane, has been equipped to accommodate 420 men, but the dormitories for women inmates are very much crowded. Tubular fire escapes have been placed on the men's almshouse, and the plumbing in the women's building overhauled.

At the Kings County Hospital a new training school for nurses and a morgue are being erected, and an addition to the hospital on the men's wing is provided for. Two frame cottages have been repaired for the use of tubercular patients. With the rapid growth of the hospital, the laundry and bake shop have become inadequate, and an addition to the staff-house is needed.

Cumberland Street Hospital is kept in good repair. New sterilizers have been provided and the elevator shaft run up so that patients may be taken to the roof garden by elevator. A neighboring site should be acquired for the erection of a nurses' home. power-house and service building.

A new hospital will soon be erected to replace the Bradford Street Hospital, an emergency hospital from which transfers are now made to Kings County Hospital. The distance is too great, and a larger hospital is needed near Bradford street, to accommodate patients in that section of the city. The Coney Island district will soon have a fine new hospital, and an emergency hospital is contemplated at Greenpoint. On Staten Island Seaview Hospital is in process of erection near the farm colony.

With regret your Commissioner again reports that no proper provision has been made for the Nassau county poor. On December 2, 1908, the superintendent of poor in Nassau county reported thirty cases under his charge. Of these six were in Jones Institute, eight at the Hempstead Poor Farm, and sixteen at the Brunswick Home, Amityville, a private institution which charges the county $5 a week for each inmate. The price of board at the almshouse is $3.25. Jones Institute at Oyster Bay, and the Hempstead Poor Farm, at Hempstead, are among the poorest almshouses in the State. Their inmates are not properly protected in case of fire, nor well cared for when sick, and equipment and administration are not such as to secure them reasonable comfort. Nassau county is abundantly able to provide an adequate almshouse for its dependent sick and aged poor.

A statistical table of the almshouse population (except for New York City) is added.

Respectfully submitted,

(Signed) AUGUSTUS FLOYD, Commissioner, Second Judicial District.

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