Michael R Sosin
Biographic Data
| ID | 4229116 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael R Sosin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael R |
| FAMILY NAME | Sosin |
| SIGNATURE | SOSIN M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 161 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Service Content as a Determinant of Homeless Adults’ Perceptions of Program Efficacy
This work analyzes the relationship between the services clients receive in treatment programs and client ratings of program efficacy. It relies on data from a random sample of clients served by Chicago's homelessness system (N = 554). Regressions utilizing that data suggest that ratings of program efficacy are positively predicted by program ambiance, the ambiance of referral arrangements, residence in programs providing housing, and receipt of …
Decentralization, Devolution, Financial Shortfalls, and State Priorities in Service Programs in the Early 2000s
Although decentralization and devolution in some ways increase state governments' discretion, they in other ways may limit that discretion. The current study tests the thesis that, at least in the early 2000s, discretion declined in some states' substance abuse service systems; states experiencing a financial shortfall came to adopt the federal government's service priorities. These states largely acted because of the institutional dominance of t…
Temporary Crises and Priority Changes: The Case of State Substance Abuse Systems
Many doubts have been expressed about the capacity of states to administer federally supported social service programs. This article relies on institutional theory, punctuated equilibrium theory, and evidence from two states to analyze the way states administer the programs in times of fiscal crisis. The particular context is the fiscal crisis of the early 2000s in substance abuse programs. The analysis suggest that, during the crisis, state admi…
The Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize
Previous articleNext article FreeThe Frank R. Breul Memorial PrizeMichael R. SosinMichael R. SosinEditor Search for more articles by this author EditorPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreI am pleased to announce that the 2011 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize has been awarded to Lenna Nepomnyaschy and Irwin Garfinkel. Established by the…
Perceptions about services and dropout from a substance abuse case management program
This article uses event history analysis to examine certain determinants of dropout from a case management program that serves homeless adults with substance abuse problems. The examined determinants are perceptions of conventional treatment services: (a) client perceptions concerning the value of the conventional services that case managers help them to obtain, (b) the views of use services held by social contacts, and (c) client perceptions of …
New Responsibilities of Faith‐Related Agencies
Nonprofit agencies with a religious base may be strongly affected by recent public policy changes; they tend to deliver services in areas where federal resources are further declining and are eligible for the special government purchase of service contracts that now may be provided to religious entities. Religious agencies also are now widely expected to deliver uniquely beneficial services and to mobilize social capital to compensate for increas…
Explaining adult homelessness in the US by stratification or situation
In the US, the most widely accepted individual‐level explanations of homelessness suggest that adults lose their dwellings when they cannot compete in the marketplace for the monetary resources needed to pay for housing, and cannot compete in a non‐market struggle for compensatory resources. Such resource problems allegedly typically reflect myriad lifetime and current personal problems or deficits. However, the causal role of the problems and de…
Negotiating Case Decisions in Substance Abuse Managed Care
In substance abuse managed care, the number of treatment sessions that a provider can deliver is constrained by the policies and procedures of the specialized managed care organizations (MCOs) that typically administer the substance abuse portions of healthcare plans. Managed care organizations commonly are alleged to control treatment providers through rules, but they also might rely on a particular patterned authorization of discretion, whereby…
The Varieties of Faith‐Related Agencies
Although some recent literature suggests religious social service agencies can help governments reach important social program goals, the true social organization and services of the agencies remain in dispute. This article interviews officials in the wide class of “faith‐related” agencies in two cities to consider two aspects of this issue: the ties or “coupling” of agencies to faith, and the impact of coupling on agency structure and service pr…
Personal and situational perspectives on rejection of a homelessness and substance abuse program: An exploratory study
Services rejection is of special concern for outpatient substance abuse programs that treat adults who have experience with homelessness. Rejection is alleged to occur with alarming frequency among members of this population, and there is evidence that it has the potential to limit progress on drinking, drug, and homeless problems. This article tests the contribution to rejection of two sets of factors: (1) special personal attributes, which are …
Case management routines and discretion in a program addressing homelessness and substance abuse
Checkerboard Square: Culture and Resistance in a Homeless Community . David Wagner
The Duration of Homeless Careers: An Exploratory Study
In this article, we examine the duration of homeless careers. We build a model of career length based on four conceptual frameworks: institutional disaffiliation, psychological dysfunction, human capital deficit, and cultural identification. Using survey data from a sample of 331 individuals in Minneapolis, we estimate a structural equation model of homeless career onset and duration. We find that, conditioned on age, people who have less consist…
Response to Herman and Barrow
Homeless and Vulnerable Meal Program Users: A Comparison Study
Even though individuals generally become homeless after living in an impoverished but domiciled “vulnerable” state, few quantitative investigations consider determinants of the decline from vulnerability. This leaves in question the rather common claim that personal deficits are direct determinants of the lack of a domicile. Using data on a sample from Chicago, the study tests whether homeless and vulnerable domiciled individuals are differentiat…
The mental health system and the etiology of homelessness: A comparison study
Previous research suggests that former psychiatric hospital patients become homeless due to (1) their inability to make use of treatment services, (2) the lack of available services, or (3) the lack of available tangible economic supports. However, supportive studies tend to examine the homeless in isolation and therefore do not fully determine whether the three factors differentiate those former patients who become homeless from the large group …
Down and out in America: The Origins of Homelessness . Peter H. Rossi
Decentralizing the Social Service System: A Reassessment
In recent years, Title XX of the Social Security Act and the Social Services Block Grant decentralized the social service system. This is claimed to be an improvement because decentralization strengthens the match between needs and services, adds to the flexibility of workers and agencies, and increases efficiency. However, it is argued in this article that decentralization also contributes to some problematic service delivery patterns, such as s…
Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Homelessness
This paper reports on the methods and findings of a six‐month panel study of homeless individuals in a Midwest city. Patterns of homelessness are described, focusing on exits from and returns to homelessness as well as the types of dwellings obtained upon exit. The findings call into question (a) the commonly accepted proposition that homelessness involves the lack of a dwelling and ends as soon as a dwelling is attained, (b) prevalent characteri…
Author's Reply
Delivering Services under Permanency Planning
Many authorities favor the use of permanency planning procedures in substitute care systems. Designed to limit the proportion of children who remain in substitute care for long periods, the recommended procedures include the extensive delivery of services by workers. This paper uses survey data from Wisconsin's counties to analyze the effect of delivering services. It discovers that permanence is more readily achieved in agencies in which workers…
Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship . Lawrence M. Mead
Administrative Issues in Substitute Care
Although 1980 federal legislation mandates some new administrative procedures for substitute care (foster care, group care, etc.), the implementation of the mandates in a representative sample of local agencies has not been studied in detail. Using survey data from Wisconsin county offices, this paper examines whether local administrative systems are now consistent with the mandates and whether they implement the general philosophy of the legisla…
Last Resorts: Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in Public Welfare
Social Problems Covered by Private Agencies: An Application of Niche Theory
Some scholars claim that the types of social problems that private welfare agencies deal with vary according to whether administrative control is national or local, religious or secular. This paper makes use of a recently developed perspective, "niche" theory, to develop and test hypotheses concerning this issue. Data analysis supports hypotheses derived from niche theory and suggests that the interests of constituencies tied to each form of ausp…
Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Homelessness
This paper reports on the methods and findings of a six‐month panel study of homeless individuals in a Midwest city. Patterns of homelessness are described, focusing on exits from and returns to homelessness as well as the types of dwellings obtained upon exit. The findings call into question (a) the commonly accepted proposition that homelessness involves the lack of a dwelling and ends as soon as a dwelling is attained, (b) prevalent characteri…
The Duration of Homeless Careers: An Exploratory Study
In this article, we examine the duration of homeless careers. We build a model of career length based on four conceptual frameworks: institutional disaffiliation, psychological dysfunction, human capital deficit, and cultural identification. Using survey data from a sample of 331 individuals in Minneapolis, we estimate a structural equation model of homeless career onset and duration. We find that, conditioned on age, people who have less consist…
Homeless and Vulnerable Meal Program Users: A Comparison Study
Even though individuals generally become homeless after living in an impoverished but domiciled “vulnerable” state, few quantitative investigations consider determinants of the decline from vulnerability. This leaves in question the rather common claim that personal deficits are direct determinants of the lack of a domicile. Using data on a sample from Chicago, the study tests whether homeless and vulnerable domiciled individuals are differentiat…
Decentralizing the Social Service System: A Reassessment
In recent years, Title XX of the Social Security Act and the Social Services Block Grant decentralized the social service system. This is claimed to be an improvement because decentralization strengthens the match between needs and services, adds to the flexibility of workers and agencies, and increases efficiency. However, it is argued in this article that decentralization also contributes to some problematic service delivery patterns, such as s…
Decentralization, Devolution, Financial Shortfalls, and State Priorities in Service Programs in the Early 2000s
Although decentralization and devolution in some ways increase state governments' discretion, they in other ways may limit that discretion. The current study tests the thesis that, at least in the early 2000s, discretion declined in some states' substance abuse service systems; states experiencing a financial shortfall came to adopt the federal government's service priorities. These states largely acted because of the institutional dominance of t…
Temporary Crises and Priority Changes: The Case of State Substance Abuse Systems
Many doubts have been expressed about the capacity of states to administer federally supported social service programs. This article relies on institutional theory, punctuated equilibrium theory, and evidence from two states to analyze the way states administer the programs in times of fiscal crisis. The particular context is the fiscal crisis of the early 2000s in substance abuse programs. The analysis suggest that, during the crisis, state admi…
Explaining adult homelessness in the US by stratification or situation
In the US, the most widely accepted individual‐level explanations of homelessness suggest that adults lose their dwellings when they cannot compete in the marketplace for the monetary resources needed to pay for housing, and cannot compete in a non‐market struggle for compensatory resources. Such resource problems allegedly typically reflect myriad lifetime and current personal problems or deficits. However, the causal role of the problems and de…
Personal and situational perspectives on rejection of a homelessness and substance abuse program: An exploratory study
Services rejection is of special concern for outpatient substance abuse programs that treat adults who have experience with homelessness. Rejection is alleged to occur with alarming frequency among members of this population, and there is evidence that it has the potential to limit progress on drinking, drug, and homeless problems. This article tests the contribution to rejection of two sets of factors: (1) special personal attributes, which are …
Advocacy: A Conceptualization for Social Work Practice
Advocacy may have a long-established and honored place in the social work canon, but relatively little is known of what strategies of advocacy are effective, and social workers often practice advocacy without a clear conceptual scheme to guide their work. This article redefines the advocacy role and provides a typology to clarify practice
New Responsibilities of Faith‐Related Agencies
Nonprofit agencies with a religious base may be strongly affected by recent public policy changes; they tend to deliver services in areas where federal resources are further declining and are eligible for the special government purchase of service contracts that now may be provided to religious entities. Religious agencies also are now widely expected to deliver uniquely beneficial services and to mobilize social capital to compensate for increas…
Case management routines and discretion in a program addressing homelessness and substance abuse
Social Problems Covered by Private Agencies: An Application of Niche Theory
Some scholars claim that the types of social problems that private welfare agencies deal with vary according to whether administrative control is national or local, religious or secular. This paper makes use of a recently developed perspective, "niche" theory, to develop and test hypotheses concerning this issue. Data analysis supports hypotheses derived from niche theory and suggests that the interests of constituencies tied to each form of ausp…
Perceptions about services and dropout from a substance abuse case management program
This article uses event history analysis to examine certain determinants of dropout from a case management program that serves homeless adults with substance abuse problems. The examined determinants are perceptions of conventional treatment services: (a) client perceptions concerning the value of the conventional services that case managers help them to obtain, (b) the views of use services held by social contacts, and (c) client perceptions of …
Negotiating Case Decisions in Substance Abuse Managed Care
In substance abuse managed care, the number of treatment sessions that a provider can deliver is constrained by the policies and procedures of the specialized managed care organizations (MCOs) that typically administer the substance abuse portions of healthcare plans. Managed care organizations commonly are alleged to control treatment providers through rules, but they also might rely on a particular patterned authorization of discretion, whereby…
Down and out in America: The Origins of Homelessness . Peter H. Rossi
Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship . Lawrence M. Mead
Administrative Issues in Substitute Care
Although 1980 federal legislation mandates some new administrative procedures for substitute care (foster care, group care, etc.), the implementation of the mandates in a representative sample of local agencies has not been studied in detail. Using survey data from Wisconsin county offices, this paper examines whether local administrative systems are now consistent with the mandates and whether they implement the general philosophy of the legisla…
Juvenile Court Commitment Rates: The Role of Organizational Factors
This paper examines the impact of organizational factors on the rate at which juvenile courts commit referred youth to institutions. Analyzing data from a national sample of courts, the paper demonstrates that both the rate at which cases are handled informally and the rate at which judges commit those youth who appear before them independently influence the overall commitment rate. It also discovers determinants of each of these two components o…
Due Process Mandates and the Operation of Juvenile Courts
This paper assesses the impact of three Supreme Court Decisions mandating due process guarantees in juvenile courts: the Kent decision, the Gault decision, and the Windhip decision. The results imply that the rulings have increased formal legalism in juvenile courts, but that they have done little to alter either patterns of influence in decision making or aggregate case outcomes. Due process reforms are best viewed as promoting conditionally vol…
Legal Orders and the Dynamics of Change
Social Welfare and Organizational Society
The dominance of the large-scale formal organization is a central feature of contemporary American society. This article overviews those societal trends that are bound up with organizational dominance and presents some implications for social welfare. It argues that the combination of large-scale organizations and traditional industrial arrangements results in the formation of a stable yet chronically underfinanced welfare system whose level of s…
Juvenile Court Commitment Rates: The Role of Organizational Factors
This paper examines the impact of organizational factors on the rate at which juvenile courts commit referred youth to institutions. Analyzing data from a national sample of courts, the paper demonstrates that both the rate at which cases are handled informally and the rate at which judges commit those youth who appear before them independently influence the overall commitment rate. It also discovers determinants of each of these two components o…
Organizational Maintenance, Sensitivity to Clients, and Vulnerability: Some New Suggestions About a Traditional Concept
Maintenance, an important concept in the organizational literature, is often assumed to be a key factor in the low levels of sensitivity to client needs and demands apparent in many human service organizations. This paper uses data from a national sample of juvenile courts to demonstrate, however, that maintenance may relate to other variables in ways that are at variance with the common assumption. The maintenance of internal organizational oper…
Models of Organization and Commitment Rates in Juvenile Courts
This paper uses national data to assess four models of organization that are claimed to account for the rates at which juvenile courts commit youth to institutions: parens patriae, community protection, organizational maintenance, and due process. It finds only three evenly stressed models, as a youth concern model combines elements of the due process and parens patriae orientations. None of the models bears a simple, statistically significant re…
Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in the AFDC System
This paper studies emergency assistance and special needs programs that are tied to the AFDC grant system. It notes that the specialized programs are currently more common in states that have high AFDC benefits and reduced commitments to a standardized calculation of income-maintenance grants. On the other hand, it finds that AFDC emergency programs are apparently larger in states with low AFDC benefits and more emphasis on standardization. These…
Advocacy: A Conceptualization for Social Work Practice
Advocacy may have a long-established and honored place in the social work canon, but relatively little is known of what strategies of advocacy are effective, and social workers often practice advocacy without a clear conceptual scheme to guide their work. This article redefines the advocacy role and provides a typology to clarify practice
Last Resorts: Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in Public Welfare
Social Problems Covered by Private Agencies: An Application of Niche Theory
Some scholars claim that the types of social problems that private welfare agencies deal with vary according to whether administrative control is national or local, religious or secular. This paper makes use of a recently developed perspective, "niche" theory, to develop and test hypotheses concerning this issue. Data analysis supports hypotheses derived from niche theory and suggests that the interests of constituencies tied to each form of ausp…
Administrative Issues in Substitute Care
Although 1980 federal legislation mandates some new administrative procedures for substitute care (foster care, group care, etc.), the implementation of the mandates in a representative sample of local agencies has not been studied in detail. Using survey data from Wisconsin county offices, this paper examines whether local administrative systems are now consistent with the mandates and whether they implement the general philosophy of the legisla…
Delivering Services under Permanency Planning
Many authorities favor the use of permanency planning procedures in substitute care systems. Designed to limit the proportion of children who remain in substitute care for long periods, the recommended procedures include the extensive delivery of services by workers. This paper uses survey data from Wisconsin's counties to analyze the effect of delivering services. It discovers that permanence is more readily achieved in agencies in which workers…
Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship . Lawrence M. Mead
Author's Reply
Decentralizing the Social Service System: A Reassessment
In recent years, Title XX of the Social Security Act and the Social Services Block Grant decentralized the social service system. This is claimed to be an improvement because decentralization strengthens the match between needs and services, adds to the flexibility of workers and agencies, and increases efficiency. However, it is argued in this article that decentralization also contributes to some problematic service delivery patterns, such as s…
Toward a Longitudinal Analysis of Homelessness
This paper reports on the methods and findings of a six‐month panel study of homeless individuals in a Midwest city. Patterns of homelessness are described, focusing on exits from and returns to homelessness as well as the types of dwellings obtained upon exit. The findings call into question (a) the commonly accepted proposition that homelessness involves the lack of a dwelling and ends as soon as a dwelling is attained, (b) prevalent characteri…
The mental health system and the etiology of homelessness: A comparison study
Previous research suggests that former psychiatric hospital patients become homeless due to (1) their inability to make use of treatment services, (2) the lack of available services, or (3) the lack of available tangible economic supports. However, supportive studies tend to examine the homeless in isolation and therefore do not fully determine whether the three factors differentiate those former patients who become homeless from the large group …
Down and out in America: The Origins of Homelessness . Peter H. Rossi
Response to Herman and Barrow
Homeless and Vulnerable Meal Program Users: A Comparison Study
Even though individuals generally become homeless after living in an impoverished but domiciled “vulnerable” state, few quantitative investigations consider determinants of the decline from vulnerability. This leaves in question the rather common claim that personal deficits are direct determinants of the lack of a domicile. Using data on a sample from Chicago, the study tests whether homeless and vulnerable domiciled individuals are differentiat…
The Duration of Homeless Careers: An Exploratory Study
In this article, we examine the duration of homeless careers. We build a model of career length based on four conceptual frameworks: institutional disaffiliation, psychological dysfunction, human capital deficit, and cultural identification. Using survey data from a sample of 331 individuals in Minneapolis, we estimate a structural equation model of homeless career onset and duration. We find that, conditioned on age, people who have less consist…
Case management routines and discretion in a program addressing homelessness and substance abuse
Checkerboard Square: Culture and Resistance in a Homeless Community . David Wagner
Personal and situational perspectives on rejection of a homelessness and substance abuse program: An exploratory study
Services rejection is of special concern for outpatient substance abuse programs that treat adults who have experience with homelessness. Rejection is alleged to occur with alarming frequency among members of this population, and there is evidence that it has the potential to limit progress on drinking, drug, and homeless problems. This article tests the contribution to rejection of two sets of factors: (1) special personal attributes, which are …
The Varieties of Faith‐Related Agencies
Although some recent literature suggests religious social service agencies can help governments reach important social program goals, the true social organization and services of the agencies remain in dispute. This article interviews officials in the wide class of “faith‐related” agencies in two cities to consider two aspects of this issue: the ties or “coupling” of agencies to faith, and the impact of coupling on agency structure and service pr…
Political science (23 works) · Business (17 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works)