Broome County Alms House

The Broome County Alms House, was located in the town of Dickinson, three miles north of Binghamton in Broome county, New York. The red brick building operated as a shelter for the poor, take care of the sick, disabled, mentally unwell, widowed, and orphaned persons in the community until c. 1960. The goal of the almshouse was to both help break the cycle of poverty and to care for members of the community who had no means of caring take of themselves. The building was demolished on February 5, 2010.

History

In the early 19th century New York communities sought a more permanent and centralized solution for paupers, a group which included the poor, sick, orphaned, homeless, and the mentally ill. The Broome County Poor Farm was created in 1833, opening with 19 inmates that were declared wards of the state by the Superintendents of the Poor. In the early decades of its creations, “the courts would send those without a fixed residence or income either to jail or to the poor farm for “pauperism”‘. Other reasons for residency included idiocy, lunacy, blindness, sickness, old age, children with sick or destitute parents, deaf and dumb and "women with sick husbands”.

During the mid 19th century, the diagnoses, treatment, and attitude towards mental illness, mental and physical disability allowed for and was found to be practical to lump people with a wide vary of incapacities together with the sick and poor. Young orphans and the elderly were large percentages of the early inmates.