ABSTRACT
Routinization has increasingly become a way for front-line practitioners to make unwieldy caseloads manageable. Neoliberalism often institutionally manifests itself through New Public Management (NPM), which organizes and manages non-businesses according to business principles. The term new managerialism is often used synonymously with NPM, particularly when institutions do not take an expressly NPM approach. Caseworkers facilitated client movement through the system from entry to departure, coordinating with other city agencies to ensure clients had a stable legal income prior to housing placement. Documentation created conversational blueprints for verbal interaction between the caseworkers and clients in intake assessments and housing application meetings, as well as psychosocial assessments. Substantial pauses brought attention to documentation as an interactional participant, albeit an inert one. This finding, in conjunction with question-answer sequences, highlights the ways in which policy and administration constrain casework practice. Routinization was often collocated with efficiency and speed.
