All ETDs from UAB

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

1980

Abstract

Although nearly 11% of the population of the United States is over 65 years of age, there is, to date, no coherent national policy coordinating services to the elderly (Peterson, Powell and Robertson, 1976) . It is widely acknowledged that the elderly are the victims of inflation, rising crime, and lack of incentive to participate meaningfully in the nation’s economy. Nevertheless, Congress continues to plan for Federal assistance in a piecemeal fashion, treating senior citizens as a categorical group (Etzioni, 1976). Government services ranging from food stamps to crime prevention comprise 134 separate Federal programs administered under five executive departments and five independent agencies which come ultimately under control of 49 Congressional committees and sub-committees (Satchell, 1980). These services, seldom coordinated at the highest administrative levels, often reach the elderly through multiple local agencies in a fragmentary form with many categorical restrictions. Service coordination at the local level, as at the Federal level, has been plagued by formidable bureaucracy which forces the elderly into a dependent state in which they "... feel compartmentalized, subordinated, confused, and ’left out’" (Lowy, 1972, p. 28) .

Comments

MA - Master of Arts; ProQuest publication number 31751825

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.