Community Action Agencies
Encyclopedia
In the United States and its territories
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Community Action Agencies (CAA) are local private and public non-profit organizations that carry out the Community Action Program (CAP), which was founded by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act to fight poverty by empowering the poor as part of the War on Poverty
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent...

.

CAAs are intended to promote self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...

, and they depend heavily on volunteer work, especially from the low-income community. The Community Services Block Grant
Community Services Block Grant
The Community Services Block Grant provides U.S. federal funding for Community Action Agencies and other programs that seek to address poverty at the community level...

 (CSBG) is the agencies' core federal funding. Agencies also operate a variety of grants that come from federal, state and local sources. These grants vary widely among agencies, although most CAAs operate Head Start
Head Start
The Head Start Program is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families....

 programs, which focus on early child development. Other programs frequently administered by Community Action Agencies include Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) utility grants and Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funded through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Each CAA is governed by a board of directors consisting of at least one-third low-income community members, one-third public officials, and up to one-third private sector leaders. This board structure is defined by federal statute and is known as a tripartite board.

There are currently over 1,000 CAAs, engaged in a broad range of activities; typical activities include promoting citizen participation, providing utility bill assistance and home weatherization for low-income individuals, administration of Head Start pre-school programs, job training, operating food pantries, and coordinating community initiatives.

History

The most controversial part of Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

's landmark Economic Opportunity Act was its Title II, establishing Community Action Programs. A Community Action Program was defined as a program "... which provides services, assistance, and other activities of sufficient scope and size to give promise of progress toward elimination of poverty or a cause or causes of poverty through developing employment opportunities, improving human performance, motivation, and productivity, or bettering the conditions under which people live, learn, and work."

Although Johnson and other architects of the legislation expected Community Action Programs and Agencies to be an effective weapon in his so-called "War on Poverty
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent...

," many of them were riddled with problems. In many cases the poor were unable to effectively control or manage CAPs which ultimately failed. In more extreme instances, local political regimes were threatened by the empowerment of poor political activists with funding and resources from the federal government.. One of the most dramatic episodes resulting from these clashes between CAA leaders and local governments occurred when, following cuts in funding for a summer youth CAP, black activist Charles Sizemore and thirty others barged into San Francisco Mayor John Shelley
John Shelley
John Francis "Jack" Shelley was a U.S. politician. He served as the 35th mayor of San Francisco, from 1964 to 1968, the first Democrat elected to the office in 50 years, and the first in an unbroken line of Democratic mayors that lasts to the present .Shelley earned a law degree from the...

's office demanding resources and threatening that if the CAP was not funded once again, "this goddamn town's gonna blow." Thus, many Community Action Programs were extremely controversial and ultimately lost funding.

External links

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