Community Action FY 2000: EOS HIGHLIGHTS
(see the official versions of the report at www.nascsp.org\research)
 |
The FY 2000 CSBG Network:
Its Work, Its Resources, The People and The Comunities It Served
· Community Action Agencies(CAAs) use Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding to fight poverty by supporting their core operations and using these funds for developing and coordinating programs in 96 percent of the counties in the U.S. For FY 2000, fifty states reported they distributed 92% of their CSBG fundsto 1105 local organizations, and the majority of these, 86%, were Community Action Agencies;
· The network's funding from all sources totaled nearly $7.5 billion;
· More than $523.7 million was from federal and state CSBG appropriations for forty-eight states, DC and Puerto Rico. Of this sum, $508 million was from the federal Block Grant appropriation and the rest came from state funds;
· Nearly $7 billion of other federal, state, local, and private resources was mobilized and coordinated to combat local conditions that kept people in Poverty. This resource level represented real growth in every funding source over five years, but state and private contributions grew at the highest rates;
· Trends figures from the Fiscal Years 1997 – 2000 show how CAAs used the increases that Congress appropriated to the Block Grant. Increased CSBG funding led to:
o an increase in leveraged state, local and private funding;
§ while every CSBG dollar was matched by $15.10 from all other sources, $5 of that total came from state, local, and private donations. In fact, private donations alone, after inflation-adjustments and excluding the quantified value of growing volunteer hours, were 60 percent higher than in FY 1996, the year before the CSBG expansion. Private funding in the network exceeded FY 2000 CSBG resources; and
§ about 30 million hours of volunteer service were contributed to local CAA programs, the equivalent of nearly 13,000 full-time employees.
o more investment in activities not supported by other, less flexible, funding, including growth in:
§ family development programs that integrated multiple services to provide ongoing support to those seeking to become self-sufficient,
§ emergency responses to prevent family crises from becoming permanent suffering, and
§ other new initiatives, like heath services projects and programs for youth and elders
FY 2000 CSBG Network Clients
· Apparently, CAAS served as many as 22 percent of all persons in Poverty in 2000.
In the 46 states reporting client data, the CAAs provided services to:
o nearly 10 million clients, who were members of more than 4 million low-income families, most of whom were in great need,
o more than 1.6 million were families with incomes below their federal poverty threshold, including -
o 402,000 families who were “severely poor”, as they had incomes below 50% of the poverty thresholds; and
o another 1.2 million families with incomes between 50 and 75 percent of their poverty guideline; and
v 2.8 million children in Poverty; and
v over 2 million adult clients with low education levels, and
v other sub-populations with typically high poverty rates, such as the elderly living alone;
· Single parents headed 63% of CAA client families with children, but far fewer had any public assistance to help them support their family.
· CAAs reported there were 437,000 TANF recipients among their FY 2000 clients, a 40% drop from the number five years earlier, while client numbers had remained essentially constant over time.
· “Working poor” clients’ data shows the economic consequences of leaving TANF, and the impact of welfare-to-work provisions; including insufficient wages, lack of proper health care, child care, transportation, and stable employment.
FY 2000 CSBG Services
§ The top three service priorities as measured by CSBG expenditures alone were:
§ Linkage activities,
§ Emergency services, and
§ Self-sufficiency programs.
All three are activities that most other funding does not support, but for which CSBG is intended:
o Linkage activities include coordination among agency and communitiy programs and shared resources, community organization and advocacy to meet defined needs, and other formal efforts to bring resources together to bear on a single problem or creat tools that effectively integrate programs .
o All activities funded by the CSBG encourage self-sufficiency, but CAAs created Self-Sufficiency programs designed as a continuum of services to assist families in self assessment and the design and implementation of a strategic plan to become more financially independent. They typically included case management to track and evaluate progress, as well as a mix of the services and training needed by low-income workers and their families.
o The urgent needs, or the emergencies, of the ballooning population of uninsured, low-wage, working families and others struggling against poverty conditions. As the population that could tap TANF resources for support, or partial support shrank, CAAs found themselves compelled to shift more resources into responding and providing their traditional quick response and preventive services t o those in dire circumstances. The hardships of life that all families face endanger the stability and livelihood of those without assets or adequate income; their Community Action Agencies organize emergency services to prevent a crisis from becoming a new cause of impoverishment and to create opportunity to link people with the community’s resources.
Source: extracted from CSBG/IS Statistical Report for FY 2000.
See the full Report, prepared for the National Assoc. for State Community Services Programs at www.nascsp.org\research.
Give us YOUR examples of programs and clients whose stories illustrate these dry statistics at:info@opportunitystudies.org or send us your inquiries and ideas about Community Action and CSBG.