It is the purpose of this chapter to encourage and assist community and regional agencies to concentrate resources in order to develop greater capacity and foster the development of coordinated community programs to help older people by entering into new cooperative arrangements with each other and with providers of social services for planning for the provision of, and providing, social services and, where necessary, to reorganize or reassign functions, in order to secure and maintain maximum independence and dignity in a home environment for older people capable of self-care with appropriate supportive services and remove individual and social barriers to economic and personal independence for older persons. [PL 1973, c. 630, §1 (NEW).]