Social Work Commons^™

The Role Of Regulation In The Control Of Housing Conditions, Roger Burridge, David Ormandy

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Historically the control of housing conditions was based upon a concern for the health of the community and was safeguarded by the enforced repair and improvement of substandard property. In the United Kingdom the high cost of repair eventually induced a policy based upon subsidy to both home owners and private landlords as the price of healthier housing. This paper outlines the process by which the legislative standards invoked to protect health were modified to distribute subsidy. In 1989 the standards are poised to become criteria for the measurement of poverty rather than the identification of unhealthy housing conditions. In …

Housing, Health And Well-Being: An International Perspective, Gregory Goldstein, Robert Novick, Morris Schaefer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

At present around 1,000 million people live in grossly inadequate housing, and 100 million have no shelter whatsoever. Adverse trends in housing status and environmental conditions threaten the health and well-being of additional millions of people world-wide. The relationships between housing and health are reviewed, with an emphasis on the house structure, sanitation, pollution, and overcrowding. Possible approaches to improved housing and municipal planning are examined, and the key requirements include new policies of municipal and national governments, intersectoral coordination, the mobilization and "enabling" of communities, and strengthened environmental health services.

Building Citizen Support For Planning At The Community Level, Barry Checkoway

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Planning practice is changing. Previous years of economic growth contributed to an increase in federal, state, and local planning agencies, in addition to regional and special purpose bodies with territorial or functional responsibilities. In times of growth, planning was viewed by many as a type of urban engineering and applied social science characterized by objective fact-finding and the so-called rational model. Leading texts emphasized technical research methods and "hard data" analysis, while government guidelines described scientific application of facts (Krueckeberg and Silvers, 1974; Spiegel and Hyman, 1978). Planners were akin to technical experts who analyzed data for other people who …

The Yorkville Emergency Alliance: One Community's Response To The Federal Budget Reductions, Michael J. Smith

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A case study of one community's response to the Reagan budget cutbacks reveals the strengths and weaknesses of local voluntary initiatives for funding social services and replacing federal funds. The development and growth of the Yorkville Emergency Alliance is described as a private initiative of citizens living in a wealthy area of New York City. In about one and a half years, this group of residents raised over a quarter of a million dollars to attempt to replace federal funding reductions for the social services.

Technology, Corporate Mobility, And A Decline In Urban Services, Marcus D. Pohlmann

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Technological changes have produced a postindustrial economy which has both facilitated and encouraged the flight of capital and well-to-do people from the older industrial cities. Left in their wake are increasing levels of unemployment, poverty, and crime. Service needs have Increased accordingly, but at a time when these cities have not only smaller tax bases but also less electoral clout with which to acquire additional financial assistance at the state and federal levels. In a nearly futile attempt to reestablish a healthy degree of private investment in their cities, municipal governments let service levels decline and focus on spurring capital …

Three Models Ofsocial Planning For Human Services In Energy-Impacted Communities, Bernie Jones, Janet Benson Jones

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Human service workers encounter many challenges as they face energy boom town situations in the Western United States. Currently, they respond following one of two models, corresponding to the role reserved for human services in the conservative laissez-faire and liberal enlightened capitalism models of American corporate behavior.

Consumer Participation - The Case Of Public Housing, Padi Gulati

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The participation of consumers, especially those from the deprived segments of society, in administrative decision-making, poses some perplexing dilemmas for public officials. Can the demands for participation be reconciled with the exigencies of administrative efficiency and effective service delivery. Our study focuses on consumer participation in public housing, an institution that today serves three million of the most deprived groups in society. The data used in the study came from a national sample of housing projects and was collected in 1978 by IWD's division of Policy Studies. It was used to test the hypothesis that tenant participation would explain part …

An Examination Of Public Housing In The United States After Forty Years, Mary Jo Huth

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article first briefly reviews the history of public housing in the United States since its inception in 1937, noting that growing obsolescence of public housing units, the deterioration of inner-city neighborhoods surrounding public housing projects, racial tensions, and inflation have aggravated public housing problems in recent years. Moreover, public housing tenants are no longer predominantly white, upwardly-mobile, two-parent, working-class families, but predominantly non-white, non-mobile, female-headed, lower-class families. The remainder of the article presents the findings of a 1978 field survey of public housing in the United States conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in preparation for …

Factors Distinguishing Urban And Rural State Mental Hospital Patients In Florida, Elane M. Nuehring, Robert A. Ladner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study compares the patients of two state mental hospitals, one serving an urban region, the other a rural district. The purpose is to explore urban and rural patient differences on background, hospital history and experience, post-release living situation, use of community mental health services, and postrelease functioning. A summary attempt to distinguish urban from rural patients using discriminant function analysis established that rural-urban differences exist in symptom manifestation, the patient's personal and social environment, and institutional processing patterns. These patient differences have implications for the development of aftercare services.

Reactions To The Stigmata Of Inner City Living, Jerome Krase

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper discusses the problem of living in a stigmatized inner city community. The reactions of residents are categorized into "Four Moral Careers", and implications for the community of each career are discussed. Major attention is focused upon the "activist" career which aims to overcome the stigma of the community. The activists are discussed and described through the use df materials from intensive interviews of local community leaders who have tried to cope with the stigma of the area. Some suggested implications are made for the application of the ideas presented herein to urban research in general and the provision …

Community Control Of Urban Schools - Lessons From The Suburban Experience, David W. O'Shea

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Community control of inner-city schools first was proposed by parents in the Harlem section of New York City in 1966. The proposal aimed at improving the quality of public schools serving low income minority youngsters by providing for school accountability to parental representatives. In practice, the two cities that have tried to provide some measure of community control - New York City and Detroit - have utilized for this purpose decentralized sub-districts based upon the suburban school district model rather than upon the original school staff accountability model. It is argued here that while suburban districts do facilitate community control, …

Housing As A Process Of Community Development, Gary D. Askerooth

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In this essay, I shall outline a strategy that could lead to the initial stages of developing a society in which human needs are not dependent on residuals from the market. By using cooperative, mutual selfhelp methods to develop local community power, we may provide examples applicable to other sectors as well.

Toward A Working Model For Community Organizing In The 1970'S, John L. Musick, Nancy R. Hooyman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The authors critique the service delivery model for solving community problems and stress the value of citizens developing their capabilities to attack the source of problems. A model for grass roots, autonomous, multi-issue citizens organizations is presented.

Community Planning Organizations Coping With Their Problems: The Case Of The Welfare Council, Fred M. Cox, John E. Tropman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Community welfare councils, sharply attacked in the 1960's, have survived, while many of their competitors have lost ground. Understanding their survival may help community planning agencies and planners. This study combines data from a survey of community welfare councils with data from a longitudinal study of a single council. The basic problem of councils is conceptualized as value precariousness, following Clark and Selznick, and data are provided that tend to confirm the existence of this problem among councils. The ways in which councils cope with the problem are described in some detail. Finally, the findings are compared with three similar …

Dilemmas Of Planning And Self-Determination, Charles D. Cowger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Self-determination is examined as the premier social work value. It is argued in this paper that the positive or negative impact of planning is dependent on who is planning what for whom, and that not planning may be a more serious threat to self-determination than planning.

The Sociology Of The Inner City--*Functionality For Practice, Ivor J. Echols

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Many aspects of the future seem imponderable, in the sense that they are impossible of reckoning, and into this category falls the plight of cities. That portion of the cities which is marked by physical blight, continuing property and human deterioration, and myriads of problems of survival-the so-called "inner city" is even more elusive of future prediction and remedy. Theoretician and practitioner alike appear to be enmeshed in an endless web of conceptual gossamer, and palliative ministrations to a relative few targets within their purview.

The intent of this paper, however, is not to castigate but rather to challenge the …