Most popular conceptions of the U.S. safety net focus on public cash assistance or welfare. In his book, Scott Allard forces his readers to think more broadly and offers a compelling case for considering the growing importance of social services, provided by public and private entities, as the most critical element of the contemporary safety net. Indeed, recent policy developments aimed at addressing poverty in the United States have changed the focus of antipoverty programs. Cash-based entitlements have been replaced with temporary assistance, coupled with service provision supporting work activities and addressing barriers such as substance abuse, low literacy, and mental health issues. In addition, working-poor individuals not on the welfare rolls are served by other support services, such as child-care and skills training programs. Other nonworking poor, such as those sanctioned from welfare, are similarly absent from welfare offices and may turn to local community centers for help.
Motivated by the centrality of social services in the modern welfare state, Allard's research examines the location, funding, and types of service providers at the community level. His book is a thorough investigation of what he calls the geography of the safety net. Its main argument is straightforward—“geography matters to the American welfare state” (p. 6). Because the location of social services greatly affects the ability of those in need to access and utilize services, “inadequate spatial access to providers is tantamount to a person's being denied assistance” (p. 6).
After Allard makes this bold claim in the introduction and urges all to consider the role of place in antipoverty programs, the second chapter provides a more detailed description of historical and recent policy developments in support of his argument. The policy history is well presented and articulately nonpartisan, and it highlights the major developments—including the current issues related to funding and faith-based organizations (FBOs)—while not boring the more informed reader. Although this movement toward supporting work and self-sufficiency through social services may be more palatable to the U.S. public, the author argues that it is also more challenging to policymakers and poses new hurdles to researchers accustomed to evaluating nationally homogeneous programs.
Allard's analyses are based on his own extensive survey data set, the Multi-City Survey of Social Service Providers (MSSSP), a key analytical component of the project and a major contribution to the field. Research on the question of service location has been limited due to the lack of reliable and accurate data on providers, their client population, and the location of services. The MSSSP overcomes this hurdle, containing recent data on about 1,500 public, nonprofit, and for-profit social service providers in three U.S. cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. The technical appendix provides a thorough explanation of the research methodology, including a full copy of the survey instrument. The discussion is straightforward and includes calculations of the analytical measures used. The main text of the book is written to a wide audience and does not bury the nontechnical reader in piles of data and computations. The appendix should satisfy those more curious about data collection and analyses.
In Chapters 3 to 5, Allard presents his findings on the spatial distribution of the safety net. In Chapter 3, service accessibility scores, based on a three-mile radius from the center of each census tract, are used to examine the extent of the mismatch between the location of providers and places where the greatest needs exist. The author finds that high-poverty neighborhoods have access to fewer resources than low-poverty neighborhoods, and that predominately African American and Latino neighborhoods are worse-off in comparison to predominately white neighborhoods. Chapter 4 presents findings on funding sources and the extent of an agency's dependency on sole sources of support. Allard uses similar score measures and finds that geographic gaps in service provision are exacerbated by the volatility of providers. The examination of faith-based organizations in Chapter 5 demonstrates that, similar to common assumptions, FBOs are more likely to locate in high-poverty neighborhoods. Using the MSSSP, he is uniquely positioned to contribute to current policy debates about FBOs, and he responsibly investigates the differences among subgroups categorized by the extent of religious activities present in service provision.
These findings on the geography of the safety net are valuable in their own right. But Allard does not stop here. Instead, in the next chapter he examines the local political institutions that shape this situation and convincingly argues that the political fragmentation of the safety net and the siloed nature of service provision and funding impede collaboration and cooperation. The resulting competition creates incentives to minimize expenditures on service provision and limit access by residence. The vast number of actors and the extensive formal and informal opportunities to block policy initiatives often result in a slow process favoring the status quo. This political analysis provides important insights into the reasons that spatial mismatches both arise and persist.
So, what can we do to address this spatial inequality? The concluding chapter offers a number of solutions. Allard suggests increasing efforts to link those in need with existing services, by expanding public transportation, addressing housing stability, and encouraging charitable giving. Although these suggestions meet the criteria of feasibility and practicality, I found his more ambitious and comprehensive recommendations better matched with the identified institutional barriers. His discussion of “more aggressive metropolitan and regional planning for the delivery of antipoverty assistance” (p. 182) more persuasively follows from his political analysis of the limits of current efforts. But, unfortunately, this idea is insufficiently developed, and winds up lost among his other more detailed suggestions. Of course, such comprehensive planning requires that a wide range of stakeholders come to the table. Such an inclusive approach should resonate with community development scholars and advocates who are already concerned with other place-based inequalities and whose expertise, especially on place-based political inequalities and capacity building, would surely add to the conversation.
Out of Reach is thought-provoking, and the message is compelling. Allard's findings have already been recognized as major contributions to the field of policy analysis. As noted, the limited amount of empirical research in this area is problematic in a very pragmatic sense, since nonprofit and public agencies are structured to deliver services to geographic areas. The book is a critical step in filling this informational void. It provides strong, empirical evidence that the safety net is undeniably out of reach to many in need, and that the services available in poorer neighborhoods tend to be more vulnerable and less formalized. Future research should build upon this foundation, and policies and actions should be informed by it. The book ought to be read by anyone interested in poverty policy. For political scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and frontline service providers, there is much to gain from its analysis and from its prescriptions.
