What brought the end to Poor Farms and Poorhouses was not Social Security but
Medicare and Medicaid passed in 1966, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society
Progams. These added to Social Security made it possible for business people
to open nursing homes and rest homes and run them at a profit. Social Security
alone was not enough in the 1940s,50s and early 1960s. Before this most
nursing and rest homes were run by various churches or faternal organizations as
nonprofits. Those run for profit were for the rich. Poor and most working class
people could not afford what it cost to be in one of these. This was just the
way it was and has nothing to do with politics, it's just part of our social
history. I would suppose most politicians would have been more than happy to get
out of the Poor Farm business.

The County Poor Farm here in Surry County NC was not closed until late 1960s
as a poor farm. It housed people from babies to the very old and the
physically and mentally disabled. Back then there was no safety net, if someone in your
family did not take care of you when you were not able to care for your self
then you went to the Poor Farm operated by the county. The buildings are still
in use today as Hope Valley a drug and alcohol rehab unit. Most of the land
is a county park.

In researching about my great-great-grandparents who moved from Fairfax Co.
VA to GA in 1800 then to Jackson Co. AL in 1816 I discovered part of the land
they settled on extended up a mountain named Poorhouse Mountain where Jackson
County's Poorhouse was located from mid 1800s until it closed. So while
poorhouses/farms may be gone today their memory lives on in place names.

Clay Gullatt Mount Airy NC

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