United States. Office of Economic Opportunity. Community Action Program.

The Community Action Program (CAP) operated on the principle that poor persons should be involved in the development and operation of the programs that were intended to help them. Therefore, under CAP, the Federal Government made grants to public or private nonporofit organizations that were broadly representative of the community. These groups were authorized to coordinate antipoverty programs developed locally for housing, health, civil rights, employment, training, and education. OEO provided no blueprints for the programs; the community action agencies (as they were called) could devise solutions to local problems derived from or causing poverty. Among the specific services or institutions for which grants were made were job training, employment counseling, day care, family planning, job developemnt, vocational rehabilitation, homemaking, health and legal services, and neighborhood multipurpose service centers. To get a grant, however, a community had to structure programs of sufficient size and scope to guarantee progress toward eliminating the causes of poverty.

State Technical Assistance Offices were established to aid communities in developing and administering Community Action Programs. Early in 1965 the responsibility for this activity was divided among seven OEO regional offices. The amendments of 1967 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Act provided for even greater emphasis on local management.

One of the major nationwide programs administered by the CAP Office was Head Start, an early-childhood education program. The program offered a curriculum for preschool education and arranged for medical and dental examinations. Head Start was transferred to the Office od Education, HEW, on July 17, 1968.

Special programs for Indians, migrants, and farmworkers came most often under the direction of the CAP Office, but these groups also participated in some of the programs that were delegated to other Government agencies. Assistance programs for migrant workers and their families were addressed to their needs for education, job training, homemaking and health services, sanitation facilities, housing, and day care. Other farmworkers were offered similar programs. The programs for Indians varied, depending on the priorities established by each tribe, but they were similar to those for migrant and other farmworkers.

Other nationwide Community Action Programs were Upward Bound, Legal Services, National Health Affairs, and Older Persons Programs. Upward Bound was a college preparatory program for potentially successful but disadvantaged high school students. Legal Services was structured to provide legal representation for those who could not usually afford it. The National Health Affairs Program helped supply medical services and health facilities to the poor. In the Older Persons Program, efforts were directed toward alleviating the problems of the elderly poor through various employment and housing programs. One of the earliest programs was the Foster Grandparants program, under which aged persons were paid to assist neglected or retarded children in public institutions.

From the description of Records of the Community Action Program Office, (a subgroup introduction.). (National Archives Library). WorldCat record id: 86123301