Dismantling the Community-Based Human Service System

Abstract

As a result of the community-based human services movement in the 1960s and 1970s, massive numbers of dependent people moved out of large-scale institutions and returned to community life. Clients and their support services concentrated in inner cities, forming “service-dependent population ghettos” there. Recently, however, new urban economic development patterns, local land use policies that limit housing supply, and reductions in funds for social programs have begun to dismantle the service-dependent population ghettos in some cities. These changes may force dependent clients back into institutions, into service settings that do not suit their needs, or onto the streets. Using a case study of Santa Clara County, California, this article describes the forces that contributed to development, and now to decline, of the service-dependent population ghetto there. The authors argue that planners and policymakers need to address the problems of service-dependent groups before those problems worsen. Part of the answer may lie in a renewed effort by social and physical planners to integrate their efforts.