4. Appropriate funds for experiments by competent groups outside the educa tional system to test new ventures in urban education.

5. Increase the cooperation betwen public assistance agencies and the Chicago Committee on Urban Opportunity to take employable people off public assistance and place them in jobs.

6. Fund viable community organizations to organize people at the grass roots in the areas of consumer credit, credit unions and cooperatives.

7. Fund projects in cooperation with Chicago Housing Authority to make high rise housing projects more livable by provision of family care services on various floors in these buildings and thus strengthen family life.

8. Fund the training of homemakers to meet demands for these services by the aged, working mothers, etc. These training projects can focus on ADC mothers who want to work or able bodied women on general assistance.

9. Expand the Neighborhood Job Corps and audit carefully the leadership and project assignments so that youth are prepared for future placement in training or jobs.

10. Fund Voluntary Legal Service Clinics in neighborhoods outside the Urban Progress Centers.

11. Fund immediately the birth-control project which was submitted by the Chicago Affiliate of Planned Parenthood.

I am grateful to come here at your invitation to testify as the voice of the voiceless poor of my city whom I desire to see in the process of escaping the grinding poverty which overwhelms them.

I want to see poverty money spent for poor people who can become articulate and free to participate in their destiny. Poverty is more than the lack of money. There can also be those who are poor in spirit. Give them new hope and they will experience the exhilaration of a new sense of self esteem and dignity. It is unhealthy to play politics with the poor.

Memorandum concerning community workers at Montrose Urban Progress Center. From: JOIN Community Union, 4533 North Sheridan, Chicago, Ill.; Contact: Rennie Davis (334-8040).

JOIN Community Union believes that the hiring and dismissal practices at the Montrose Urban Progress Center discriminates against individuals associated with civil rights, peace or social action activities. Individuals critical of the indigenous community participation are unrepresented on the Montrose UBC staff. "Community representatives," the low-income people who come out of the neighborhood, often express hostile attitudes of contempt for "hillbillies" and poor people. One community worker who attended a meeting of tenants striking against their landlord (by withholding rent for building improvements) insisted that the entire responsibility for the property deterioration lay with the tenants who were "stupid hogs." The idea behind indigenous community participation in the war on poverty has been undercut by the hiring procedures at the Montrose Center. The community workers do not, on the whole, reflect the concerns of the community. Instead they reflect the values of "outsiders"-values of cleanliness and education-which restrict the opportunities for the poor community to work with the OEO staff in combatting neighborhood problems.

The restricted personnel practices were brought into sharper focus in early June when one program aid was dismissed and two applicants for community representative were denied. The program aid, James Osbourne, was employed by OEO and assigned to work with the Wilson Avenue Project, a Presbyterian streets program. Mr. Osbourne was dismissed for attending a Citizen Crusade Against Poverty conference held in Washington, D.C. on April 13 and 14, 1966. Several dozen other community workers in the same sub-professional category as Mr. Osbourne represented different OEO agencies.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DOVIE COLEMAN, CHICAGO, ILL., ON "A FAKE ON POVERTY" JUNE 23, 1966

This is how the War on Poverty is set up and how it has worked here in Chicago. They will hire what they call the best classes of "poor" white people, just a few of them-and a few Spanish people, maybe some Indian people, and, of course, the Negro comes last of all.

The Negro has to be twice as good in qualifications as the white man in order to be considered at all. He has to be what I call “middle class," with a very high IQ and a very good education. They will hire a few of them and spot them about in places and say, "Well, we are doing a big job here, just call Mr. Shriver and see for yourself." They will say "just let poverty money come on in because we are fighting poverty here."

Really the Negro who gets hired, are hired because they are qualified to get hired anywhere. But I thought that War on Poverty was for poor uneducated people who had never had a chance in life to do something for themselves. As far as I am concerned and 20 million other people who are just like me, they can take their War on Poverty money back where it came from because the poor are not being reached by the War on Poverty money, especially the Negroes who have never had a chance.

The first thing that stops the Negro from getting a job, he is not "qualified." They use qualifications because they know it is going to limit Negroes from getting the jobs and they won't have to be bothered by them. And the Negroes fear that, and they will not seek employment through the War on Poverty. And when one has the nerve to do so, all he gets is the run around. I feel that War on Poverty should be helping the poor people with a limited education to a better way of life, instead of refusing them because of “qualification." How are they going to get people out of poverty when the ones who are in poverty are the ones with the limited education at the CCAP conference. For example, the umbrella poverty organization in Syracuse sponsored 14 people to the meeting; 11 were paid by OEO while at the conference. The Director of the Montrose Urban Progress Center, Don Smith, insisted that a conference of this kind in no way could be considered legitimate activity for OEO staff. He charged Mr. Osbourne with "falsification of his time sheet," and had him dismissed. Mr. Osbourne's supervisor, Rev. George Morey, approved Osbourne's trip and publicily took responsibility for the decision. Against the objections of Rev. Morey, JOIN Community Union, and many members of the Montrose UPC Advisory Council, the dismissal was sustained by Mr. Smith (see attached letter from the Advisory Council of the Wilson Avenue Project).

JOIN believes the real reason for Mr. Osbourne's dismissal was his criticism of Mr. Shriver following the CCAP conference. At the conference, community workers protested against Mr. Shriver for failing to give a large voice to poor people in the OEO program. Mr. Osbourne wrote in the JOIN newsletter subsequent to his attendance in the April conference that he thought the protest was healthy and the criticism of OEO sound.

The Negro women, Dovie Coleman and Dovie Thurman, who have been active members of JOIN, were denied jobs as community representatives in early June. Both women have demonstrated leadership of the highest quality in JOIN's community work. Numerous people, including professional social workers and respected community leaders, will testify to their intelligence and their capacity to help people in need. These two women represent the kind of indigenous community leadership OEO has claimed it is in search of.

When Mrs. Coleman suggested to the Montrose UPC Director that the Center needed Negro community representatives, the Director insisted that there were "Negroes on our staff." (A later check showed there are no Negroes in community representative jobs.) The Director also told Mrs. Coleman that "this Center does not discriminate against you people. We have one of your members on our staff, Mr. Osbourne." Mr. Osbourne is not an employee of JOIN, but of the Wilson Avenue Project.

JOIN urges that structural changes be made in the personnel procedures of the Montrose Urban Progress Center to ensure that the neighborhood workers be people who represent the concerns of low-income people and that they have the freedom to associate with "poverty causes" and be critical of the OEO program without jeopardizing their employment. JOIN thinks that the recipients of OEO service should be able to apply checks on the administration of the services. We are recommending the establishment of an "appeals board" of 10 people receiving less than $500 annually to be elected by a constituency comprised of all the people who have gone through the UTC "intake" in the last year. This election would be organized and supervised by the present Advisory Council of the Montrose UPC.

The Appeals Board would study the present personnel policy of the UPC and recommend changes in the Chicago Committee on Urban Opportunity. Furthermore, the board would be empowered to veto personnel decision after a full hearing. Thus, decision not to hire a community worker could be revised and changed. A decision to dismiss a worker could also be revised.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND M. HILLIARD, DIRECTOR, COOK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID, COOK COUNTY, ILL.

Mr. HILLIARD. First of all, Senator Javits, it is a little embarrassing. I did not know Mr. Robinson was going to be here. I am a member of the Chicago Committee on Urban Opportunity. I only had occasion to read this diatribe immediately before coming up here. I would like to put on the record I disagree with just about everything that Mr. Robinson said, whether it be factual, opinion, or conclusions, but rather than debate here, I should like merely to say that Chicago's record speaks for itself. You name the area of an antipoverty effort, and I think that you will see Chicago in the forefront. But rather than ask you to accept my say-so, I would urge that you, Senator Javits, and your colleagues on this subcommittee, at an early opportunity come to Chicago, or if you are not able to do that, that you ask the heads of any public or any private agency from Chicago to appear before this subcommittee and give you their opinion.

In reference to what I intended to say before this committee, I should like to begin by commenting that Sargent Shriver appeared before your honorable body earlier and said that he believed that the war on poverty could be won in 10 years and poverty eradicated. From 32 years of experience, with nothing except poverty, I would agree most emphatically with Mr. Shriver with a few "ifs." One "if" would be that an all-out greater emphasis be placed on assuring that all of the people of the United States learn to read, an emphasis on fundamental literacy, particularly as related to adults.

This Congress has done just about everything that could be done and all manner and sorts of programs and funds even are available for the teaching of illiterate Americans to read, figure, and write. I believe that nothing is possible until this first step is taken.

The one thing that is lacking at the present time is utilization of facilities that exist and can be brought into existence. I do not see that there is anything that this committee can do except be aware of the fact that greater support from community organizations, representatives of the people could accomplish this result.

I have been personally concerned with the efforts to eradicate poverty for quite some time. It is my belief, based on experience, that the time now should be to consolidate efforts many of which are just beginning to take shape. I do not believe that this is the time to tinker or to change or to switch, as is proposed in section 502 of H.R. 15111 which I understand is still in the Rules Committee of the House.

This is the provision that would transfer from the U.S. Department of Health Education, and Welfare to the Department of Labor the administration of title 5, of the Equal Opportunity Act. I believe that this would be a very serious step and an unfortunate one because just in Chicago, if this were to occur, I think we would have problems that would take an unconscionable length of time, perhaps years, to over

come. If people in Washington wanted to mess things up in Chicago, I could think of no better way to do it than to follow this provision of transferring to the Department of Labor.

Not that the Department of Labor does not do a splendid job; it always has, and this is particularly true in Illinois where we have topnotch leadership and staff, but poverty cannot be eradicated or even dented by a mere job placement or even a job training program alone.

We have learned this and we have learned it by bitter experience. If this were so, poverty would be nonexistent in Chicago today because we have an abundance of jobs, but the people who are our concern simply cannot fit into these jobs; they have not been prepared. So the job, as I tried to point out in the paper that I have left with you, is to prepare people to prepare themselves for jobs.

This involves their families. This involves their health. This involves their culture. This involves their motivation. This involves the removal of all of the manifold problems that crush down and render hopeless the present people who comprise the hard core of poverty. The people who have been engaged with the poor, who are the constituency of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, have been doing this, they have been living with these people for years; they know them; they know how to do it. And to propose to set up, as eventually would happen, a competing Welfare Department within the Department of Labor, I think would be most unfortunate.

In my paper left with you I use an illustration of one case, and I would hope that you might have the time, Senator, to read it because it tells a story in terms of one gentleman from Appalachia who came up to Chicago and got in terrible trouble. There was a breakup of his family. Under the title 5 program with long and patient effort this breach was repaired, but it was not until this was completely repaired that we came to the end of the line.

The end of our line was when this man entered a program where he would learn to become a driveway salesman, which is the latter-day name for a filling station attendant. This man is now making close to $700 a month running a leased Sun Oil service station. Arrangements are afoot to have him take over the ownership of this station. It is a real success story. But the whole route was title 5 a la Department of Health, Education, and Welfare with the arrival at a successful culmination which was a short span of job training and job placement. We are much admiring of Headstart as an investment for the immediate future. We are proud of the fact that Chicago had a marvelous Headstart program last year and plans a bigger one this year.

I would say again that I would hope that for the future all Americans could become literate and this should be the first order of business. I think back to Thomas Jefferson's expression so appropriate to today when he said, "When the press is free and when every man is able to read, all is safe."

Thank you.

Senator JAVITS. Thank you, Mr. Hilliard.

Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

Each of you has made an important point, on the political side of this matter by Mr. Robinson and on the case history under title V

by Mr. Hilliard, and I am sure it will be be called very sharply to our colleagues' attention.

Without objection, the statement of Mr. Hilliard will be included in full.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Hilliard follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RAYMOND M. HILLIARD, DIRECTOR, COOK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID, COOK COUNTY ILL.

OPPORTUNITY AND THE NEEDS OF THE POOR

My name is Raymond M. Hilliard, Director of the Cook County Department of Public Aid, a county that includes the city of Chicago. In April 1964, I testified before a subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor of the United States House of Representatives in favor of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. I felt then, and I feel now, that this act is an important part of the goal of making the American form of government and the American way of life true for all Americans rather than just for 70 or 80 percent of them. I believe (and the proposed amendments and the testimony concerning them demonstrate this) that the essential goals and principles of this legislation have now been accepted. The War on Poverty is supported by Congress and by th Nation. It would, therefore, be redundant for me to give testimony in suppor of the Economic Opportunity Act. Rather, I shall give testimony confined to certain aspects of the amendments that have been proposed.

This subcommittee, I understand, has before it a number of bills outlining amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. I shall, however, confine my remarks to House of Representative bill H.R. 15111, "Economic Opportunity Amendments of 1966" as reported by the Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives. In doing so, I should emphasize that I support most of these amendments. There are, however, a few proposals with which I firmly disagree. My disagreement is based upon the simple fact that these proopsals negate the true and essential goals of the Economic Opportunity Act as it was originally passed and as it has developed.

The House committee in making its report stated that: "No war on poverty can be successful unless there is a healthy economy. Never in our Nation's history has there been as fruitful an opportunity to win a war on poverty as the present time. We must exploit this opportunity to its greatest potential. Job training and work experience programs, together with a massive assault on the problems that lock young children into poverty, are believed to be the wisest use of the limited resources made available under this act." I agree with this general statement. For it is clear that training for jobs will not succeed unless the jobs exist. But job training and work experience are not the whole of the problem.

We have today reached a low level of unemployment. But this is not the whole of the picture. This low level of unemployment means that we are today faced with two difficult but most significant groups. The first of these consists of those who are actively seeking employment but cannot find it. These have been termed the hard core unemployed. They are unemployed, of course, because they cannot find jobs. But they cannot find jobs for reasons above and beyond mere lack of training. They are hard core primarily because of many personal and psychological problems combined with a lack of basic education and job experience and training. This group is today small, and it is particularly small when compared to the second of these two groups. I am certain that the members of this subcommittee know that unemployment means, in the statistics of the Department of Labor, those actively seeking employment. This second group is not covered by this definition because they are not actively seeking employment. These are the invisible poor, the invisible unemployed. They are not seeking employment, and they are not visible, because they have been without work for months and years and have given up hope and no longer seek that which they want but which they feel they cannot get.

These are the people who cannot merely be prepared for a job. They must be prepared to prepare for a job. And it is this prior preparation that is most important. This need for prior preparation arises from the very nature of those for whom this affluent society is not affluent, a society which all too fre