The Appalachian Volunteers (AV's), conceived of by Federal, State, and private interests in February 1964, were sponsored by the Council of the Southern Mountains. The organization undertook weekend and vacation projects using college students to repair and renovate one-room schools in isolated areas of eastern Kentucky, later including summer…

The purpose of this project was to attempt to assist chronically unemployed and underemployed individuals in Evansville, Indiana, and the surrounding southwestern Indiana rural counties toward greater productivity. The objectives of the project included: (1) motivation of unemployed individuals and their families to make use of available…

The purpose of the one-day working conference, held November 12, 1968, was to examine constructively the ways in which the present educational systems must change, the strategies for change already underway, specific steps that can be taken, and by whom, to make health careers more available to the poor. The accessibility of post-secondary…

This report examines the quality and rigor of evaluation practices at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), and the extent to which evaluation results have influenced program design and operation. Because of the innovative nature of the programs, and a resulting lack of reliable data, past attempts at comprehensive evaluation have been…

This report provides an overview of the poverty problem and possible solutions. The available statistics and their limitations are summarized. The complementary roles of income-maintenance and employment policies are discussed. Because employment policies are limited to those who can be made employable, the report concludes that liberal changes in…

The main objective of this project is to demonstrate how a community action agency can operate manpower and economic development programs with continuing impact. The program offers: (1) training in four areas, (2) supportive services, including counseling and basic education, (3) youth programs, (4) economic development efforts to help the local…

Systematic data on the life satisfaction of persons living in a rural county of the Southern Appalachian Region and in a metropolitan center located outside the region were reported. Data were collected by means of structured interviews with 400 persons who comprised probability samples of men and women aged 20 to 29 and 60 and over. Life…

An empirical analysis of the effects of alternative income maintenance programs, The Survey of Economic Opportunity, was used to obtain estimates of the labor supply parameters required to assess the implications of these programs for hours of work of male family heads. Labor supply response to changes in the family heads' net wages and in family…

A field study was conducted to determine whether a general systems model was applicable to an antipoverty agency. The primary criterion for auditing the effectiveness of such an agency was "communication adaptation." The uniqueness and universality of the methodology employed allowed for accurate auditing. Ideal and empirically-derived…

Before 1944, when Great Britain's local education agencies were empowered to ensure that students were adequately clothed and fed, the Boots for the Bairns Fund sponsored by the Yorkshire Evening Post provided shoes for poor children in Leeds. This article reviews the fund's history from 1921 to 1939. (PGD)

A review essay focusing on two recent books, The Politics of Neglect: Urban Aid from Model Cities to Revenue Sharing, by Bernard J. Frieden and Marshall Kaplan (The MIT Press), and Between the Idea and the Reality: A Study in the Origin, Fate, and Legacy of the Model Cities Program, by Charles M. Haar (Little, Brown). (JM)

Assessment of welfare gains from a targeted social program can be seriously biased unless the endogeneity of program participation is addressed. Bias comes from two sources of placement endogeneity: the purposive targeting of geographic areas, and the targeting of individual recipients within selected areas. Partial decentralization of program…

Child welfare services currently operate in an environment characterized by increasing need for services, and calls for cost containment and system reform. To survive in this environment, foster care agencies will have to reexamine their use of resources to ensure that they are used to achieve the best possible outcomes for the children in their…

An analysis of the President's budget message to the Congress and the provisions of the budget itself which sees the policy therein expressed as the by-product of a view of society and of the proper role of government that is incompatible with the implementation of the precious rights won by minorities in recent years. (Author/JM)

Casts doubts on the current belief that poverty leads to less medical care, and results in diminished health. Holds that level of education is a causal factor in individual health status and medical care utilization; the observed correlation between income and medical deprivation appears to be a consequence of education's relationship with both…