Neighborhood services report

              ( social service programs expanded significantly. By 1990, unemployment assistance and AFDC were
still important components of social service spending. Added to the list of programs, however, were
housing assistance, food stamps, supplemental security income, nutrition programs, job training
programs, energy assistance, and a variety of block grant programs.
As a result, using inflation-adjusted dollars, federal social service spending was nearly four times
greater in 1990 than in 1960. Total federal spending in 1990 was just under S100 billion.
Allen County has participated in nearly all of the federally-initiated social service programs. In
1990, spending on these programs amounted to just under S70 million. Reflecting national spend­ing,
the largest local social service programs were AFDC, food stamps, the earned income tax
credit, and housing assistance.
Targets of Social Service Spending
In Allen County, as in most communities, social service spending is directed towards recipients
based on various ctiteria. These criteria generally fall into four (sometimes overlapping) categories:
Entitlements based on income, income-based non-entitlements, programs directed at targeted popu­lations,
and programs directed at neighborhoods.
The largest criteria by far is entitlement spending based primarily on income. Under this spend­ing
pattern, clients with income below a certain level are entitled to assistance. Other criteria -
such as the presence of dependent children in the home - may also be required. The major entitle­ment
programs include AFDC, food stamps, the earned income tax credit, and the WIC program.
Other social service programs are distributed based on need, but are not entitlements and, there­fore,
there may be some clients who are otherwise qualified for benefits but do not receive them due
to funding constraints. Housing programs usually fall into this category. Clients may qualify for
Section 8 or public housing units, but because of limited supply these recipients must wait until a
current client leaves the program.
A third method of distributing services relates to a specific characteristic of the client. Programs
may be targeted towards the mentally retarded, for example, or the physically disabled. Examples of
these include Association for Retarded Citizens, Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center, and Turn­stone.
F or the purposes of this study, the most important method of distributing services is based
primarily on the location of the client. Sometimes, the assistance is specifically targeted towards a
particular neighborhood: The Catholic Social Services program in the Bloomingdale neighborhood,
for example, or West Central Neighborhood Ministries.
Neighborhoods might also be targeted to create a more efficient delivery system. The Headstart
program, for example, is probably able to serve clients more thoroughly if they live close to a Head­start
location. The same probably applies to food bank sites.
In the remainder of the report, it is important to keep in mind that every neighborhood examined
is served by some of these programs, particularly those programs that are entitlements, income­based
non-entitlements, or those targeted towards a specific population. The purpose of this study,
in part, is to try to determine the effects of all social programs on neighborhood social and economic
conditions, with particular attention paid to those neighborhoods with targeted social service pro­grams.
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