This happens in jobs programs for welfare recipients and it happens in housing programs for the homeless. Others will try to qualify because they need those benefits too. Jobs are not just needed by welfare recipients and housing is not just needed by the homeless. We need to take a broad view and see isolated problems in the broader context and how they are related to larger structural issues of poverty. Yet, the comprehensive vs. incremental policies distinction may be overdrawn.
Small steps are often the only things that can be done.
Yet, they can be done in a way that promotes broader change. Therefore, macro v. micro, preventive v. reactive , and structural v. individual may be overdrawn too. The solutions lie not in choosing one over the other but in seeking out ways to intervene that also build in ways that prevent problems from arising in the future by promoting structural change on a macro level. Ending a protracted dispute, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced Wednesday that they had reached a compromise on expanding a landmark program for housing mentally ill homeless people in New York City. The first phase began in 1990 under an agreement reached by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Mayor David N. Dinkins.