URBAN POVERTY AND THE SOCIAL-CONSEQUENCES OF PRIVATIZED FOOD ASSISTANCE

Urban affairs research has not examined how broad social forces and po licy changes affect daily life in urban communities, organizations, an d families. Drawing on ethnographic field work in urban food assistanc e sites as well as analyses of the comparative roles of government and the voluntary sector in responding to social problems, this study pro vides evidence that: (1) voluntary organizations (in this case food as sistance providers) have been drawn into a growing institutionalized ' 'shadow government'' (Welch, 1990); (2) this newly institutionalized v oluntary bureaucracy closely parallels the bureaucracy, the rigidity, and the depersonalization of government agencies; (3) willingly or not , this increasingly institutionalized food provision network contribut es to the continued view of poverty in America as primarily the result of personal defects and temporary misfortunes requiring only an ''eme rgency,'' albeit virtually permanent, response from society; and (4) t hese changes have consequences for the transfer of responsibility for assistance from the public to the private sector under welfare reform.