When Social Problems Are Treated as Emergencies

Recent governmental responses to hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, and other social problems have treated these problems as emergencies. Typically, this means that governments will allocate funds to nonprofit community agencies to provide temporary relief. Emergency designation permits quick responses to ameliorate presenting problems, relaxation of concerns over eligibility and equity, and postponing confrontation with more deeply rooted underlying conditions. Emergency responses to social problems can be unstable, however. Their dramatic character may recruit people in need to seek relief, while the newsworthiness of emergencies attracts mass attention to the problem.