While the New England tradition of individual communities taking care of their own has many benefits, the geography of human need doesn't always fit neatly inside a town border. For this reason, the decision by Lebanon and Enfield to share some social service functions merits praise and, perhaps, emulation.

Given Lebanon's role as a regional hub for not only shopping, employment and housing but also for social services, the city's Human Services Department has long served as a beacon for people seeking help in troubled times. The city is now taking steps to formalize that role by exploring partnerships with neighboring towns whose residents might find the sort of help they need in Lebanon.

The Upper Valley's biggest city is joining with Enfield in the first such partnership, formalizing an arrangement that since 2007 has had Lebanon's human services director shuttling between both communities. “(O)ne human services director can participate and coordinate with local agencies,” the city's new director, Shannon Hastings Fox, told staff writer Martin F. Downs for an article published in the Sunday Valley News. “You get more bang for your buck.”

You also get an enhanced ability to match people with the kinds of services that best fit particular needs, regardless of home address. Given that many agencies providing services such as credit counseling, family assistance and help in paying rent and fuel bills are headquartered in Lebanon, a coordinated approach should make it simpler for residents to do one-stop shopping for the help they need.

Lebanon City Manager Gregg Mandsager and Enfield Town Manager Steven Schneider come from places where county government plays a more active role in meeting regional needs, and they see potential in Lebanon collaborating with other neighboring towns, such as Canaan and Plainfield in New Hampshire and Hartford and Windsor in Vermont.

There couldn't be a better time for a regional approach, as area social service providers find themselves dealing with dramatically expanded caseloads because of the deepening recession. The director of Lebanon-based Listen Community Services, for instance, reports that the agency has helped 54 families with housing they might not have been able to afford. “Last year at this time,” Marilynn Bourne said in mid-December, “we had helped five or six families.”

Bourne sounds a cautionary note about regionalizing human services, saying there is a risk in creating such a large bureaucracy that staff members don't get to know their clients on a personal level. “Those people who are providing services don't know the population they’re serving,” she said of overly large agencies. “You can’t see the trees for the forest.”

The point is well-taken, and is perhaps the reason that the partnership between Lebanon and Enfield will not mean that Enfield will shut down services or force residents to travel to the city for help. While Lebanon will in 2009 pay the salary of Hastings Fox, she will continue to spend significant time in Enfield. Meanwhile, Enfield will supply her assistant, continue to run its food pantry and provide rent and fuel aid to residents. And with the strong tradition of local control in both New Hampshire and Vermont, we doubt that individual towns would support any regional approach that might compromise the needs of a particular town and its residents.

If Lebanon's regionalization of human services works well, the city and its neighbors might explore ways to coordinate efforts in other areas of overlapping concern, such as housing and transportation. Such coordination could be particularly important as the slumping economy forces more people to turn to government and private agencies for help, even as those agencies have fewer resources on which to draw. As English playwright and poet John Heywood famously said, “Many hands make light work.”