The extent of citizen participation is influenced by local community factors, the character of Federal agency policy, and the purposes of Federal legislators and administrators. The latter include: decrease of alienation, engagement of the "sick" individual in the healing process, creation of a neighborhood power force able to influence the distribution of resources, and development of a constituency for a particular program which will agree with its intentions. Various suggested intensities of participation include: employment-information, dialogue-advice giving, shared authority, and control. The acceptance of citizen participation as a goal may facilitate discussion of the options for participation, while experimentally trying to learn which of the currently exercised options best achieve certain kinds of goals. Federal policy may be contributing to separation rather than integration through the allocation of responses to competing community structures. Black communities given control resources do not have the option of using these resources for integration, and may have to "win" them from other communities of poor people. New policies may be needed to provide the individual poor person maximal opportunity apart from any establishment or neighborhood leadership to develop his life opportunities. (JM)