Planning and designing universal access to social services. A pioneering local program on welfare spaces in Italy

Introduction

Devolution processes played a significant role in reshaping European welfare systems since the 1980s onwards, stressing the relevance of the local scale in the design and governance of welfare policies and the provision of social services. Policy rescaling and territorialization (Kazepov, 2010) were introduced both as a way to reduce the gap between the citizens and the State (Laws, 1988 in: Deverteuil et al., 2010) and as a strategy to devolve risks and responsibilities from the traditional governmental bodies to more local ones (Peck, 2001). These processes are grounded in the “permanent austerity” (Pierson, 1998) that characterized the post-Fordist European welfare systems and paved the way for the increasing involvement of private actors (for profit and non-profit) in welfare services provision, affecting both the regulative framework of their action and the public-private partnership patterns (Ascoli and Ranci, 2003; Bifulco and Vitale, 2006).

These changes also entailed a shift in the position of citizens towards welfare policies, from passive recipients to active participants and promoters of self-rehabilitation processes (Castel, 2003). Participation, activation and empowerment became the “magic wands” of welfare policies, for they aimed at reducing economic and social costs of unemployment and poverty while enriching the human and social capital of the assisted (Kazepov and Carbone, 2007: 129). Local governments started to operate alongside different institutional levels in these fields of intervention, in the direction indicated by these new keywords, and by increasingly involving citizens and communities in the design and implementation of local welfare delivery programmes (Bifulco, 2003; Raco et al., 2006). The creation of these new “statutory spaces of planning” has been accompanied by the introduction of new models of governance at a variety of scales (Haughton et al., 2009). From this perspective, the concept of multi-level governance - implying both a mix of different actors and a spatial scattering of authority (Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Piattoni, 2009) - represents a milestone in the analysis of the contemporary welfare services provision.

The 2008 and 2011 economic crises and the related introduction of strains in public expenditure affected both welfare services provision and their organisation at the local level. Austerity measures did not directly translate into simple reductions of provision. In many cases, they inspired processes of social innovation (Oosterlynck et al., 2013), as well as of policy innovation, intensifying the hybridization of the State and further fostering the implementation of networked forms of governance (Davies and Blanco, 2017) basically searching ways to meet more serious and more diversified needs with fewer resources.

As a consequence of economic reorganisation processes, of increasingly flexible and precarious labour conditions, of growing family fragilization, as well as of the erosion of Fordist social protection, in fact, individuals and households experiencing vulnerability and being in need of welfare support have increased in numbers and their profiles have diversified. Therefore, the whole issue of how to access social services becomes relevant. Beyond an abstract metaphor, accessibility recalls issues of threshold, proximity and visibility, and the quality of spaces becomes a key element.

This contribution starts from the assumption that the mentioned reconfigurations of welfare policies and services also entail meaningful spatial implications that are often underestimated. Basing itself on the general reorganization of welfare services in the city of Milan (Italy), the article focuses on a collaborative research experience the authors carried out within a pioneering program - WeMi (an acronym for Welfare Milan and We Milan) - that has developed digital and physical platforms to reform access to social services.

The article is organized as follows. Firstly we set a theoretical framework on the spatial features of welfare spaces at the crossroads between urban planning and social sciences. The following section analyses the reform of the municipal social services in Milan and the WeMi experimental project.Then the research actions on which the article is focussed. are described, followed by a presentation on the variety of the spatial configurations of the WeMi spaces. by a discussion of the spatial qualities of WeMi spaces and their coherence with the policy innovation objectives of the project. Finally the last section draws some conclusions and highlights potentialities and criticalities.

Understanding spaces for welfare: A theoretical framework

Against the mentioned processes of policy territorialisation, the current welfare systems should be analysed as “multifaceted, spatially distributed and defined phenomena” (Cochrane and Etherington, 2007: 2958). Indeed, the rescaling of social policies mainly fostered studies on local geographies and power redistribution at different scales (Milbourne, 2010) while the spatial dimension mainly remained an abstract reference with no physical evidence. This section aims at analysing the relation between welfare provision and space assuming different disciplinary viewpoints. In particular, it positions this contribution along the edge between urban planning and social sciences, whose theoretical debates have rarely tackled the relationships between spaces and welfare services provision. In both these research domains, studies on welfare services in urban areas have mainly focused on specific programs and contexts, with a particular emphasis on underprivileged neighbourhoods. As analysed by MacCallum et al. (2012), neighbourhoods have been a privileged scale of observation, especially due to the “high tangibility of [their] decline”, that revealed the existing “cracks in the system”, eased the identification of governance models and actors’ responsibility on welfare services and allowed to start glimpsing possible alternatives (MacCallum et al., 2012: 16). On this behalf, many scholars have focused on the spatialization of poverty and social exclusion dynamics with specific reference to unfair planning policies/programmes or unequal redistributive welfare measures (Benassi and Alberio, 2014; Bourdieu, 2015; Cassiers and Kesteloot ,2012; Musterd and Ostendorf, 2013). More recent contributions have also investigated the rise of place-based post-crisis social innovation initiatives (Blanco et al., 2016). In general terms, in these analyses, very little investigation is dedicated to the concrete spaces in which welfare services are provided, and to their physical features. By contrast, in the Italian urban planning academic debate, stemming from Bernardo Secchi’s pivotal analysis on the morphological changes of 20th century cities and, more specifically, of the “material dimension of welfare provision” (Secchi, 2005), the definition of welfare spaces included far too broad a spectrum of urban facilities, that ranges from spaces of collective gatherings to parking lots and churches (Baioni et al., 2021; Cáceres et al., 2003; Caldarice, 2018; Tosi and Munarin, 2009, 2011). Despite the relevance of this debate, our focus rests more specifically on the spatial features of “social services”, i.e. of the agencies and facilities through which in-kind or in-cash social assistance interventions that help households and individuals to cope with different forms of vulnerability are organized and delivered (UNRISD, 2019). We will then refer to these structures as spaces for welfare, i.e. the set of physical features that allow welfare services provision and, by extension, the recognition of the right to social protection.

While the social policy literature has long neglected the analysis of the physical characters of these spaces, and the urban planning literature has often adopted too broad a definition of welfare spaces, the interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic have also been rare. A meaningful exception in this sense is the book Il Genius Loci del Welfare (‘The Genius Loci of Welfare’), edited by Lavinia Bifulco in 2003. The concept of Genius Loci refers to the set of socio-cultural and architectural features that characterize a place and how they are intertwined in defining its identity as well as the people’s experiences of a specific environment (Norberg-Schulz, 1980). Spatial features, social interactions, organizations and institutions are bound together in shaping welfare services provision and people’s experience of welfare policies. These should be understood against the backdrop of a twofold shift that reshaped spaces for welfare at the beginning of the 2000s: ‘from quantity to quality’ and ‘from structures to processes’ (Bifulco, 2003: 10; Bifulco and Vitale, 2003). The first refers to the inadequacy of quantitative-based planning tools to satisfy people’s needs in cities. The second concerns the mentioned challenges of local welfare systems and the ever-changing nature of social needs, that entailed a reinterpretation of the traditional structures of welfare provision towards flexibility and diversification.

This understanding of the spatial dimension is also grounded in organizational studies and refers to the “generative power” of spaces in organizations (Weick, 1995). Spaces can be interpreted as drivers of and at the same time as the tangible results of organizational working practices and “sense-making processes” (Bifulco and Vitale, 2003; De Leonardis and Bifulco, 2003).

According to this viewpoint, spaces contribute to give a form and a meaning to the interactions that develop within them. In doing so, they define the identity of those – recipients and users as well as staff – who frequent those spaces (Bifulco and De Leonardis, 2003). Spaces that are strongly medicalized tend to define users as patients; spaces that are strongly securitized tend to define residents as inmates; spaces that are poor tend to define the users, as well as the staff, as marginal (Sabatinelli, 2017). And since, conversely, the features of spaces also contribute to define the identity of those who don’t frequent them, based on such perceptions many may decide to avoid them, even though they may well need the support they may find there.

Therefore, spatial and organizational features may be jointly analysed through the observation of contexts (i.e. welfare services localisation), settings (i.e. their architectural and interior design arrangements) and artefacts (i.e. objects, lights, colours) (Bifulco and De Leonardis, 2003).

A similar perspective has been addressed by a number of scholars within the Street-Level Bureaucracy theoretical debate, who interpreted spatial settings as a tool to convey an institutional message and a key element in users’ experience (Brodkin, 2008; Dubois, 2018; Lipsky, 1980; Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2012; Zacka, 2017). Street-level bureaucracy theorists analysed welfare provision in different countries through empirical studies and direct observations. While dealing with the behaviours of recipients and providers in public services, these contributions often report on the role that spatial features play in the provision of social welfare services. From this perspective, organizational studies remain a major reference: space is hereby considered as the physical platform in which services provision takes place, but also as a tangible representation of an institutional message, conveyed through the street-level encounter (Dubois, 2018; Lipsky, 2010; Zacka, 2017).

Against this body of literature, this contribution focuses on the spatial features of social assistance services and considers contexts, settings and artefacts as key elements of both welfare provision and organizational structures, particularly in terms of the coherence between policy approaches and objectives on the one side and the physical features of the spaces where such policies are developed, provided and met by the citizens. Among these physical features, from our viewpoint we focus on the services’ localisation, visibility, and versatility of spaces and of uses. These are recognised as core elements for welfare provision and for the experience of its beneficiaries. As discussed in the conclusive sections, these factors are increasingly reconsidered in the redesigning and modification of local welfare systems, while challenging the traditional urban planning strategies and tools.

The multi-scale framework

Research design and data

This article is based on the research activities that the authors carried out during and after the WeMi project.

The Welfare di Tutti project was structured in different phases and actions, developed by parallel and heterogeneous working groups, both in terms of professional backgrounds and competences. The Department of Architecture and Urban Studies was involved in various steps of the project, with a particular reference to counselling the conception, design, and implementation of the WeMi spaces. This allowed close observation of both organisational and spatial changes through the constant participation to roundtables and meetings between different actors, coordinated by the City Welfare Department. To support the design of these innovative spaces, the authors organized an intensive co-design activity that aggregated all the social workers involved in the project, both employed in the municipal services and in the third-sector partner organizations. The activity was aimed at exploring and exchanging knowledge on the working practices of social assistance services and their spatial drawbacks, as well as at identifying the goals to be pursued within the experimentation. References to case studies, field visits, and open discussions fed the elaboration of frontline design orientations that were shared and discussed with the wider board composed by the 16 different actors of the project partnership. The general inappropriateness of many existing spaces for welfare in the city, both in terms of unwelcoming settings and aesthetics, scarce functional compliance and visibility, in some cases severe conditions of decay of either the structures, the inner spaces and/or the equipment was discussed as a main issue to be dealt with and targeted by the project.

A collective design workshop more specifically focused on the implementation of the first three WeMi spaces, inaugurated between 2015 and 2016: WeMi San Gottardo, WeMi Capuana and WeMi Trivulzio. In particular, the authors had a close view of the development of the WeMi San Gottardo space, which was the first to be activated and where the informative point of home-based services was associated with a bar run by a social venture. This unprecedented coexistence deserved an in-depth observation of service methodologies and their use of the space, but also of the interactions between social workers, bar managers and tenders, patrons of the bar and users of the WeMi service in a single space. In order to gain a better understanding of these complex dynamics, the authors developed a one-year participatory observation activity (2016–2017) in this space.

Following the implementation of the project, between 2018 and 2019 the authors have carried out, on behalf of the City Welfare Department, a large investigation on the spaces for welfare in the city of Milan, aimed at providing some background knowledge on the physical features of such facilities that was then included as a research reference in the new Welfare Development Plan (the Milan Piano di Zona for the years 2018–2020). Within this investigation, two specific foci have been developed respectively on the existing spaces of the “ordinary” municipal social services and on the evolution of the WeMi spaces. This research entailed 15 semi-structured interviews to managers of the City Welfare Department, coordinators and social workers from different sites of municipal social services, as well as social workers from different third-sector bodies working in the WeMi spaces; visits of the spaces, a photographic survey and graphic representations of the spaces and their uses. ⁴

The WeMi spaces: accessing the same services through different spatial features

Following the launch of the first three pilot spaces – WeMi SanGottardo, WeMi Capuana, WeMi Trivulzio – other WeMi spaces were activated. In November 2022 they reached an overall number of 20. The concept of the WeMi spaces allows those local actors with available spaces interested in integrating their (diverse) activities with a WeMi space to submit a proposal to the City. Along with the formal approval of the Municipal administration, the organisations need to follow specific standards concerning their activities, as well as to conform to precise guidelines regarding their spatial configuration, defined by the experts of the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano, who developed the visual identity of the project and managed its communication design (Bucchetti, 2017).

In this section the features of seven WeMi spaces are presented, selected as typologically representative of the variety of the specific functional mix they host and of their diverse physical and spatial traits. The main morphological features of the spaces and their localisation in the different neighbourhoods of the city are outlined in the following map (Figure 1).OPEN IN VIEWER

WeMi San Gottardo is the most emblematic example of the new Milanese welfare spaces. Here the partners of Welfare di Tutti project aimed at developing a hybrid space, in which WeMi activities should co-habit with a cafeteria. The co-habitation of the two functions was deemed to ensure continuity beyond the duration of the project’s funding. For this purpose, the space of a former grocery shop was selected, located on a main commercial street, with two shop-windows facing the street, close to several schools and to a popular public park. The bar is managed by a social cooperative that employs people with mental impairments and it immediately became an attractive spot for students and for a younger crowd. The design and organization of the space emphasizes its double identity through the creation of two distinct but communicating areas (Figure 2) and the WeMi services, managed by social workers hired by a small partnership of local cooperatives for some hours a day in shifts, are active during the opening hours of the bar. WeMi San Gottardo was designed by the architectural studio Consalez Rossi Associates, through an intensive co-design process involving the social workers from the City Welfare Department, those from the cooperatives as well as the bar’s social entrepreneurs.OPEN IN VIEWER

The double identity of the space can easily be seen from the outside: the bar counter on the one side and the WeMi graphics on the opposite side. Elementary geometric shapes and bright colours call for the attention of passers-by, while an interactive wall encourages the clients of the bar to discover the WeMi programme. These graphic tools are likewise repeated – as a brand – in all the WeMi spaces, even if they adapt to the specific physical features of each of them.

The twofold space identity is also linked to the necessity expressed by social workers of an intimate corner to be possibly used for user-provider private talks when needed. At the same time, the municipal urban planning regulation required a distinct calculation of the square metres dedicated to the commercial activity and of those devoted to social services. Such a hybrid configuration had no previous reference in the local land use plan, and created a precedent for further experimentations. Still, the use of the different portions of space is not exclusive, and remains open to any of the two uses, meaning that out of the WeMi opening hours, that corner can be used by the patrons of the bar and, conversely, a WeMi interview could in principle take place at any of the bar’s tables.

WeMi Capuana is located on a small square, in a space managed by a small network of associations and social cooperatives that provide general services in a peripheric public housing neighbourhood, and particularly educational and parental support. Getting involved in the opening and management of a WeMi space gave the network a chance to experiment innovative welfare services, aggregating citizens’ needs and providing them with a collective and shared answer. As previously mentioned, the provision of shared services was one of the goals of the WeMi project, aimed at enhancing people’s empowerment and socialization, as well as cost-saving strategies. The design challenge in this case was related to the limitations and features of a space that was given, not selected for the purpose. The intervention aimed at reinforcing the flexibility of the space, in order for it to be adaptable for different activities at different hours of the day and on different days of the week.

WeMi Trivulzio was located inside the largest nursing home of the city of Milan (Pio Albergo Trivulzio), that extends for two huge blocks in a densely populated residential area. The WeMi service was in the offices of a social cooperative that provides home-based services for the elderly. Located deep into the block of the nursing home, it was necessary to cross the entire length of the structure to reach it. In the overall process of increasing the permeability of the nursing home, overcoming its inward-looking structure and fostering its exchanges and provision of services targeting the population of the surrounding urban area, the opening of the WeMi space added a lot of value in terms of relevant offer of services and of a lively flow of users.

WeMi Voltri was created in a large new social housing estate in a peripheral area south of Milan. The space is located on the ground floor, easily accessible from the street. Managed by a non-profit firm entrusted with the social management of the housings that are rented at a below-market rent level, the place hosts the orientation points of two different projects. Besides, thanks to a large space and movable and foldable pieces of furniture, it is available for different activities dedicated to and/or developed by the residents of the neighbourhood (e.g. gym courses, parents meeting, leisure activities with children, etc.).

A different location characterizes WeMi Loreto, positioned in a rather ordinary condominium. The visibility from the street is guaranteed only by an external plaque on the intercom, while a doorman can give indications to users, but only during the morning hours. WeMi Loreto is located in the offices of the social cooperative that promoted its opening in partnership with the municipality and that manages it. The social cooperative has more than 30 years of experience in the field of social assistance and care services.

In a very different context, a central and wealthy area, WeMi Stelline is situated in an outstanding monumental building, a former orphanage from the 16th century that now hosts a variety of private and public services, courses and recreational activities. Similarly to the previous case, the WeMi space is located in the rooms of the social cooperative that promoted it, and is not visible from the outside. Plaques and signs aim at supporting users’ orientation, also due to the structural articulation of the building.

The last example is WeMi Venini, located inside a fancy “hub”, HugMilano, on the site of a former chocolate factory hosting multiple activities: Thus, the organisational model resembles the one of WeMi San Gottardo, but the place is not facing the street, but is, on the contrary, situated in an inner courtyard (Figure 3). The WeMi services, currently relocated to another site, were located in two areas, one closer to the entrance, the other in a more private spot.OPEN IN VIEWER

The spatial features of new spaces for welfare: Diverse, multifunctional and accessible

In this section we delve further into the physical quality of the new spaces for welfare by applying the analytical dimensions introduced in Section 2 – namely localisation, visibility, versatility of spaces and mixed uses – to the WeMi spaces presented in Section 5.

A first analytical dimension to be considered is localization. The insertion of WeMi spaces in differentiated locations, in co-existence with a diversified set of other services/organizations has multiple goals. It allows to multiply and disseminate the spaces for welfare, despite the reduced availability of resources. It also creates the conditions to reduce the separation between the spaces of social services and the city, to interpret an “ordinary” character of social services. This has at least a twofold meaning. First, to upgrade the spatial quality of social services’ spaces from the marginal conditions that very often characterize them; second, and connected, to reduce the stigmatizing effect of frequenting them.

A second analytical dimension considered is visibility. In the WeMi project the visibility of the new spaces for welfare is a major objective. Coherently with the variety discussed in the previous point about localization, visibility is pursued in different ways within each context, according to their specific features: a showcase on the street (WeMi San Gottardo); the use of signs and visual indications when the space is not directly visible from the street (WeMi Venini, WeMi Stelline, WeMi Loreto); the intermediation of a doorman when the space is located in a big and articulated structure (WeMi Trivulzio, WeMi Stelline). Moreover, the development of a precise, common visual identity for the WeMi spaces (Bucchetti, 2017) has signified a marked difference as opposed to the configuration of the existing sites of municipal social services which –differently from other municipal services, such as day-care and pre-schools – lack even a unitary plaque as a sign indicating the entrance. In WeMi spaces the signs are also used to mark the co-existence of different organizations in the same space, and therefore the multiple identity of the place. In WeMi San Gottardo the official plaque from the City and the special wall with the specific WeMi forms and colours declare the presence of the WeMi space, while the store signs on top of the shopwindows refer to the existence of the cafeteria.

At the same time, the artefacts can become means of conflict. Collaboration between the actors within the project, although desired, may turn out to be difficult and to require mediation and conflict management. In the case of WeMi San Gottardo, the managers of the cafeteria applied a large opaque decoration on the shopwindow from which the WeMi wall is mostly noticeable, strongly reducing the visibility of the wall from the outside. Somehow what is typical of a bar as an entrepreneurial activity is also the freedom to arrange and rearrange spaces in reference to events and to the taste of the patrons. In this case, a balance had to be struck between the sensitivities and attitudes of the bar managers and the presence of the WeMi service. After a series of talks, the problem was solved, and the decoration removed. After several years, the co-existence of two entities with such a different nature is still enduring, as the official agreement underlying it has been renovated after the end of the experimental project and of the related funding.

The third element analyzed is the versatility of spaces, which allows them to host different functions and activities. Versatility of spaces was a clear objective in some of the WeMi spaces. In WeMi Capuana, also building on some pre-existing features of the space, a masterly use of sliding doors, portable partitions and flexible furniture (like foldable and stackable tables and chairs) allows to rearrange the space each time for activities reserved to various age ranges: pre-school children playing, school-age children doing homework, adults’ meetings.

When the co-existence of different functions in the same space is synchronous, as in WeMi San Gottardo, a further issue arises, that of the privacy of citizens asking for information on welfare measures and eventually providing details on their personal situation to the social workers. This represented quite a concern for the social workers who were supposed to work there. In the traditional institutional settings, interviews and meetings between the social workers and the beneficiaries take place in separated offices. Nevertheless, the limitations of such settings were collectively disentangled during the co-design phase. Formal separation does not, in fact, guarantee actual respect of privacy. In presence of old-fashioned, non-sound-proof metal and glass walls, or outdated airducts, citizens passing by or waiting in the corridors or in neighboring rooms do hear the details of other people’s cases. Moreover, in particular circumstances social workers need to carry out their meetings in different settings, like in rooms with multiple occupied beds when beneficiaries are hospitalized. In the design of WeMi San Gottardo, a discussion initially developed around the hypothesis of closing a portion of the space with a floor-to-ceiling wall and a door. This would have strongly reduced the co-existence of functions and the versatility of the space. Such a solution was superseded; instead, it was built upon the hypothesis that the very co-existence of uses, by embedding the exchange with the social worker in a mixture of different sounds – background music, clients chit-chatting with each other or on the phone, noises from the street – would afford the WeMi users their privacy.

A further degree of versatility of spaces is the one that is apt to host activities that have not been foreseen yet, and that may be proposed by different actors than the ones managing the space. A case in point is the way in which one room in WeMi Voltri can be booked by local organizations or groups residents for different activities, that over time have varied quite extensively, including various kinds of parties and even tap-dance courses. Such a use is only possible if spaces are not hyperspecialized, but instead maintain a degree of looseness (Franck and Stevens, 2006).

Conclusions

The Welfare di Tutti project aimed at improving access as a key element of the renovated welfare system and at branching out welfare services to a wider arena of users. The virtual and physical WeMi platforms have been introduced for this purpose, to orient citizens through the increasingly complex offer of welfare services and its providers. The aim is to “lower the threshold” of social assistance services (Vitale, 2003), fostering the direct contact between citizens and social workers and the users’ involvement in welfare provision Crouch et. al., 2000. The WeMi spaces have been introduced to attend to people’s needs; to orient them towards the existent services or to gather their demands in order to provide collective answers; to tap into their availability for volunteering, or ideas for initiatives. This project signified a step forward for local welfare services towards the overcoming of the traditional category-based organization. Improving the quality of spaces and their image also had another goal: to de-stigmatize services which are usually poorly designed and arranged, along with the longstanding assumption that the poor don’t care for any better. Welfare di Tutti also highlights how contemporary spaces for welfare increasingly rely on time-limited projects and rise where spatial, human and economic resources are made available (Bricocoli and Sabatinelli, 2017). The “material infrastructures for welfare provision” (Cochrane, 2003) that have characterized the 20th-century welfare provision, are now accompanied and sometimes substituted by new spaces, managed by a wider variety of actors and hosting multiple functions. WeMi spaces represent an example of this change and bring along further considerations on contemporary welfare and urban planning policies. These hybrid and flexible spaces can be considered the new frontier of welfare provision, promoting more inclusive access and shared forms of assistance. Such spatial welfare mix embodies the mentioned shifts from ‘quantity to quality’ and from ‘structures to processes’ (Bifulco, 2003: 10), as it calls for reframing the design strategies of both urban planning and social policies and brings along a renewed attention to the physical features of welfare provision. In particular, the hybridization of functions, services, citizens and providers, calls for a revision of the traditional urban planning tools, that still rely on parametric assessments and zoning practices which were defined in a time of city growth when quantities of new services were required to be located to meet the increase in population. The case of WeMi San Gottardo, whose combination of functions created a precedent for considering a larger number – and variety – of welfare services in the land-use plan is a very promising term of reference for renewing the debate.

At the same time, it should be underlined that the broadening of services’ providers through both physical and virtual platforms eases the implementation of a quasi-market strategy, particularly promoted by the Lombardy Region. In particular, the virtual platform might become a showcase for private and third sector against which the shortcomings typical of a freedom-of-choice approach might well be observed, especially the information asymmetry, potentially further deepened by the digital divide. One of the roles of the territorial platforms – the WeMi spaces – is, exactly, to mitigate such risk, offering support and orientation to those who cannot autonomously solve their need by surfing on the website. At the same time, though, the fact that the WeMi spaces are managed by some of the bodies accredited for home-based services (and indeed, in many cases, located inside their headquarters) might upset the competition/coordination approach at the basis of the whole programme. The risk is for them to become promoters of their own activities and to neglect the universal access to the overall panorama of services of the city. In order to monitor third-sector bodies’ activities and to prevent this risk, the City of Milan collects data on people’s accesses to both physical and virtual platforms and monitors to which service they have been orientated. While representing a form of control on third-sector bodies, this is also a tool to monitor people’s demand for social assistance services and to steer policy decision. From this perspective, the coordination role of the local administration represents a fundamental requirement to avoid the risks of an uncontrolled market of welfare services.