Our Biggest Accomplishments and Our Biggest Failures

Preface: All social policies, institutions, strategies and programs have:

Benefits

Limits

Opportunity costs

Problems

Unanticipated consequences.

A. BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS of OEO/CAA’s

  1. BROUGHT SOCIAL MOVEMENT VALUES AND PEOPLE INTO GOVT. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
  1. Federal has a role and can be a positive force for change, OEO was the focal point
  1. SOLIDARITY and linkages among, civil rights, labor, churches, etc.
  1. Expanded access to services, hammered unresponsive services and providers, from AFDC, supplemental security income, Employment Security, schools.
  1. Maximum feasible participation

community participation in shaping institutions

hiring in CAA’s

  1. TRI-PARTITITE BOARD. A great problem solving bridge -- if it used.
  1. MISSION to “eliminate theparadox of poverty in the midst of plenty.”
  1. TERRIFIC PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT MACHINE, HS, WX, Job Corps, NYC,

VISTA, Foster Grandparents, Adult Basic Education, Food stamps

Upward bound. Picked up ideas of the 1930's -- 1950's and made them work

  1. EEO internally. Promotion and human development were strong.
  1. Political power redistributed in American through the Voting Rights act. Voter registration
  1. Access to public accommodations, lunch counters, buses through the Civil Rights Act.
  1. Helped create Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps
  1. OEO $ was the first Federal money to Planned parenthood

B. BIGGEST FAILURES

  1. Equated civil rights, equal opportunity with automatic economic gain. The economy is what your teenagers do for entertainment, what significant other bought last weekend. The economy is not driven by rational acts.
  1. Too much emphasis on entitlements to: decent housing, income, food, clothing,etc. You didn’t have to do anything except exist. (Legal Services role in Supreme Court cases)
  1. Income redistribution over-emphasized.
  1. Assumption that the only way out of poverty was a j-o-b instead of self employment. The Koreans, Vietnamese and other immigrant groups left the domestic poverty populations behind on self-employment as an avenue out of poverty.
  1. Checkpoint form Chicago, ESEA Act, 1968, Lost the coordinating role
  1. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, there were a few well publicized cases of failure to keep books straight, and the media damage was enormous
  1. Spread too thin -- concentration might have been a better approach.
  1. Community organizing on geographic basis instead of other community of interest
  1. Never addressed the public sector bypass issue. We just ignored them
  1. Family disintegration/community building, No theory of why people are poor or what to do about it. No operating theories of sociology or political economy. No theory of social class, social mobility.
  1. Blended role of cop and helper. AFDC social worker. Separation of income maintenance and social services. Threw out man in house rule, threw out idea of his responsibility too, took 25 years to get child support enforcement going.
  1. Opposed the 1972, family assistance plan, Moynihan insisted on uniform national standard. CAA’s opposed it. Should have supported it.
  1. Guaranteed Annual Income proposed by Nixon and Moynihan. Experiments by OEO. Should have done more.
  1. Lost E&T when we “let” DOL shift CETA prime sponsorship from CAA’s to cities, 1975 -- 79
  1. Lost the program development machinery in 1981.
  1. 1988, opposed Moynihan’s plan again. We were not in the room when the deal was cut.
  1. Failure to rigorously evaluate ongoing programs.
  1. Low capacity to analyze racial causes of poverty.
  1. Shifted from institutional change to anti-destitution work.

THREATS in 2016

  1. Political response to immigration
  1. Assumption that a little something is better than nothing, here's some stuff
  1. We subsidize consumption versus develop capacity
  1. Ways to make a living have not kept up with the economy. Insufficient understanding of the changed world of work, globalization.
  1. No evaluation,
  1. No national planning or program development function, so no way to catch opportunities in the early phases,

asbestos removal

lead paint, radon, healthy homes

reuse of items, recycling

thrift shops

drug prevention

black youth

national youth service

  1. 2% of CAA that fail each year usually convert to public agencies
  1. No ownership of any one problem or population group.
  1. Government job to fix problems; no clear statement about personal responsibility.
  1. No capacity building (HUD 107 million dollars per year)
  1. Belief that next administration will save us, instead of focus on Congress

OPPORTUNITIES in 2016

  1. Welfare reform, federal and state levels. Guaranteed annual income.
  1. Asset development
  1. Going Local, Michael Sherradan. Local economies.
  1. Child care development block grant
  1. HOUSING – cheap, small, varied.
  1. EITC
  1. Rural -- sustainable communities
  1. Health and wellness
  1. Recycling
  1. Profit making ventures operated by CAAs
  1. Health homes, conservation
  1. Climate change

Contact: Jim Masters at , or 510.459.7570