A model for measuring the need for services in a district

Administrators of social programs are often faced with decisions regarding how to distribute available funds. An important factor in this decision is the geographic location of the population in need of the agency's services. One would assume that those areas of the community where there are more people in need of the agency's support would receive a larger portion of the budget. However, in many cases, dollars are apportioned without adequate knowledge of what parts of the community are in the greatest need of services.This paper presents a method that can be used by most agencies for making a determination of the service need in different parts of the community. The agency used in the model construction is the Office of Community Services (OCS). The mandate of OCS is to implement a comprehensive plan for the delivery of social services in New York City. The “community” (New York City) is divided into forty Human Resource Districts (HRD's). In each of these districts there are outstations that provide a range of social services.In the past, misleading population characteristics of the districts were used to represent the need for OCS services. The characteristics were misleading because they did not represent the number of persons who would be in need of the services. For example, the number of persons receiving public assistance would not adequately represent the number of persons who needed child health services. This is especially true because some persons who are not eligible for public assistance are eligible for child health services.