Poverty: Progress, Protest & Politics
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>In Chicago, dissidents charge that the anti-poverty program is but fresh pasture for Mayor Richard Daley's Democratic ward heelers. And Daley indeed keeps an iron hand on his 54-member Committee on Urban Opportunity, channeling most of the $19 million in federal funds committed so far to such "safe" organizations as SHARE (for "Student Help with Adult-Related Enrichment"). As for letting the poor help run the program, Daley bluntly differs with program policy. Says he: "It would be like telling the fellow who cleans up to be the city editor of a newspaper."
>In New York, Harlem's Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell has long ached to get control of the city's $25 million in federal anti-poverty funds, charged this spring that the anti-poverty program was being used to finance "giant fiestas of political patronage." In reply Mayor Robert Wagner, who dominates the program, offered to "expand" its leadership by setting up a 17-member supervising corporation. Two weeks ago, Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller vetoed the corporation on grounds that its charter was so far-reaching that it could "supersede" any state law. New York City officials rushed around desperately trying to devise a solution before the end of the fiscal year, after which the city would have had to win new approval of its allocation. Twenty minutes before the deadline, they announced the creation of a "committee" made up of the same members as the corporation, but requiring no state approval.
>In Austin and in Helena, Texas, conservative Democratic Governor John Connally and Montana's conservative Republican Governor Tim Babcock have rejected Youth Corps projects, which as proposed would have channeled nearly $1,000,000 through the liberal, politically activist National Farmers Union.
With so much money—and potential power—at stake, it is perhaps inevitable that Sargent Shriver's anti-poverty program should experience birth pains. However, the pains seem to be increasing as the delivery proceeds—and if this continues, it seems more than possible that the long-range effectiveness of the program will suffer.
*Key components of the many-faceted program: Project Head Start, which provides pre-school education and medical checkups for poor children; the Job Corps, which offers youths remedial education and job training in camps away from home; the Neighborhood Youth Corps, giving youngsters such training in centers near their homes; the College Work Study Program, which finances part-time jobs for needy students; the Work Experience Program, which creates make-work projects and provides vocational training for unemployed adults; the Adult Basic Education Program, designed to overcome educational deficiencies among adults; VISTA (for Volunteers in Service to America), the domestic peace corps; the Community Action Program, which finances local anti-poverty projects; the Rural Loans Program, which makes available financing and technical advice to low-income farm families.
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