Some reflections on community control: a commentary on Nassi

Community control of social agencies already exists. The question is who from the community is to be in control. Human services agency managers are in the middle between those now in control who sponsor and fund their agencies, on the one hand, and those who are the recipients of their services, on the other. The consumer control movement proposes a radical shift in the equilibrium of power--from community patron-sponsors to community consumer-recipients. Few agency directors identify with disadvantaged groups. Moreover, their agencies typically are part of a service delivery pattern that maintains social inequities, including institutional racism, which pervade the entire society. Therefore, only a few agency heads can be expected to embrace consumer control and to view it as a step towards a more socially just distribution of the human services for which they are responsible.