Hank Leland Service Employees International Union
Michael Hoover wrote:
> Carrol Cox sent me an off-list message recounting his Bloomington-
> Normal experience with commnunity action programs established under
> the auspices of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in the
> mid-60s. Created to coordinate the Johnson administration's
> poverty policies, OEO owed its existence to the 1964 Economic
> Opportunity Act. As I mentioned in a previous post, initially,
> Title II of the EOA called for 'maximum feasible participation'
> of those that federal funds & programs were intended to serve.
> Carrol mentioned that above local government refused to
> participate and very little money was ever forthcoming, save
> some for Head Start.
>
> Same was true here in Central Florida, some money for HS but
> little else, and HS served only 600 children in 1967 out of 10,000
> families living on incomes of less than $60/wk. The local program
> had a waiting list of 3000 children. Refusal of municipal (Orlando)
> and county (Orange) governments to participate resulted in the loss
> of funds for a neighborhood center, employment assistance, public
> health clinic, and day care and recreation centers. Almost no
> money existed for housing at all. Ira Katznelson has pointed
> out that southern politicians opposed economic opportunity programs
> because they feared they would hasten integration. As a former local
> community action agency activist here in Orlando has said, 'People
> like to say that the poverty programs were a great waste of money;
> really, they were never given a chance to work.'
>
> First, opponents stripped attempts to 'empower the poor' through
> 'maximum feasible participation.' Secondly, money was never
> available. In 1967, less than 2 cents of each federal tax
> dollar went to finance economic opportunity programs. The
> much ballyhooed 'war on poverty' was waylayed for a number of
> reasons, the 'conservative coalition' of southern Democrats &
> Republicans and the escalating costs of Vietnam among them.
>
> As for another kind of 'maximum participation,' AFDC participation
> of those eligible in 1995 (year prior to program's elimination) was
> about 50% nationally. At the low end were Alabama & Arkansas (Prez
> Klingon's state) at 21% while Alaska & Rhode Island were at the high
> end with over 80%. Others included South Dakota (21%), North
> Dakota (31%), Wyoming (36%), New York (56%), and California (59%).
>
> Michael Hoover