Newly established agencies actively recruit clients to justify their budgets.

Evidence

Agencies are likely to try to increase their clientele when they are newly established and have to prove their ability to put services into operation. Thus the tripling of service complaints when Boston introduced its Little City Halls program was particularly welcome by its sponsors. Efforts to increase clienteles were generally noticeable when central funding sources launched many subordinate service agencies, which saw themselves competing for funds in the next fiscal cycle. Such agencies would “beat the bushes” for clients in order to demonstrate that they were worthy of future support. Community action agencies and neighborhood mental health centers have been cases in point. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 680

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the chapter’s earlier claim that organizationally-induced demand inflates measured client need; relevant to the reader’s mechanism of practice-driven institutionalization. — connects to: Agencies under budget threat inflate client numbers to prove worth; Threatened agencies inflate client rolls to defend themselves in budget cycles. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 681; Street-level agencies expand services or clients rather than refuse demand, ensuring chronic understaffing — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 326

Broader Connections

• Agencies under budget threat inflate client numbers to prove worth #corroborates (0.95)
• Threatened agencies inflate client rolls to defend themselves in budget cycles. #corroborates (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 681
• Street-level agencies expand services or clients rather than refuse demand, ensuring chronic understaffing #expands (0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 326