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38-635: CAAs are intended to promote self-sufficiency , and they depend heavily on volunteer work, especially from the low-income community. The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) is the agencies' core federal funding. Agencies also operate a variety of grants that come from federal, state and local sources. These grants vary widely among agencies, although most CAAs operate Head Start programs, which focus on early child development. Other programs frequently administered by Community Action Agencies include Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) utility grants and Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funded through

76-441: A person , being , or system needs little or no help from, or interaction with others. Self-sufficiency entails the self being enough (to fulfill needs), and a self-sustaining entity can maintain self-sufficiency indefinitely. These states represent types of personal or collective autonomy . A self-sufficient economy is one that requires little or no trade with the outside world and is called an autarky . Self-sustainability

114-514: A 0.1% decrease from 1983. Between 1993 and 2004, the U.S. poverty rate first declined (from 15.1% in 1993, to 11.3% in 2000), but then increased to 12.7% by 2004. The 2008 poverty rate was 13.2%. The 2022 metric is 12.6%. However, despite these challenges, around 1,000 CAPs (and their CAAs) still operate today, across the United States. Self-sufficiency Self-sustainability and self-sufficiency are overlapping states of being in which

152-447: A 7.9 percent decrease in 10 years, and the lowest it would be between 1959 and 2004. One of the ways in which the CAAs were clearly effective in combatting poverty––and unexpectedly so––was by increasing the public's awareness of already existing welfare programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children . Indeed, between 1960 and 1973, and especially in the years following the passage of

190-436: A Community Action Program was defined as a program "...which provides services, assistance, and other activities of sufficient scope and size to give promise of progress toward elimination of poverty or a cause or causes of poverty through developing employment opportunities, improving human performance, motivation, and productivity, or bettering the conditions under which people live, learn, and work." A controversial feature of

228-549: A black youth accused of auto theft. Shelley declared a state of emergency in the city for six days. After the riots ended, Shelley took several public steps to improve relations between city government and the African-American community. He appointed the city and county's first African-American supervisor, Terry Francois . Shelley took an aggressive stance against several prominent anti-development mobilizations during his tenure, including movements in opposition to development at

266-431: A board made up—initially—of residents of the target neighborhood or population being served. This gave poor, working class and minority citizens a voice in how they would be served by federal funds aimed at improving their lives. However, this caused some anger and frustration among the nation's power establishment, especially in local governments used to running their communities, and among the power elites (particularly in

304-753: A group supporting Washington state's minimum wage, while the Supreme Court was entertaining a constitutional challenge against it in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish . Beginning in the spring of 1937, Shelley faced two crises. First, there was growing labor unrest. Second, the Committee for Industrial Organization actively attempted to replace the AFL as bargaining agent for local unionized shops. Strikes and threats of strikes in Northern California followed first

342-631: A jurisdictional dispute between the AFL Longshoremen and the CIO Teamsters, a move that the San Francisco Labor Council strongly disapproved. In the midst of the hotel strike, 2100 elevators and janitors in buildings citywide voted to strike, but the work-stoppage was postponed by the international to continue negotiating. Other unions voted to strike, including the milk wagon drivers. Prior to his election as U.S. Congressman, Shelley

380-634: A leader of the California delegation to the 1948 Democratic National Convention , when he helped marshal his state's votes to support a strong civil rights plank. Shelley entered the United States House of Representatives in 1949 and served until 1964, when he stepped down to be inaugurated Mayor of San Francisco after winning the November, 1963 election by nearly a 12-point margin against his nearest opponent, Harold Dobbs (50-38.5%). John Francis Shelley

418-569: A member of the California State Assembly from 1997 to 2003 and served as California Secretary of State from 2003 to 2005. Shelley's daughter, Joan-Marie Shelley, was a French teacher for 30 years at Lincoln High School and Lowell High School in San Francisco Unified School District and carried on the family tradition of labor union leadership, serving as vice-president (1978-1984) and president (1984-1989) of

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456-789: A streak of Democratic representatives from San Francisco (and, coincidentally, the 5th district ) that continues to the present (as of 2024 ). Shelley earned a law degree from the University of San Francisco in 1932. He served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II and was a member of the California State Senate from 1939 to 1947. He ran an unsuccessful race for the Lieutenant Governor 's office against Goodwin Knight in 1946. Shelley would then make his mark as

494-538: Is a type of sustainable living in which nothing is consumed other than what is produced by the self-sufficient individuals. Examples of attempts at self-sufficiency in North America include simple living , food storage , homesteading , off-the-grid , survivalism , DIY ethic , and the back-to-the-land movement . Practices that enable or aid self-sustainability include autonomous building , permaculture , sustainable agriculture , and renewable energy . The term

532-420: Is also applied to limited forms of self-sustainability, for example growing one's own food or becoming economically independent of state subsidies . The self-sustainability of an electrical installation measures its degree of grid independence and is defined as the ratio between the amount of locally produced energy that is locally consumed, either directly or after storage, and the total consumption. A system

570-524: Is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country. According to the Idaho Department of Labor , an employed adult shall be considered self-sufficient if the family income exceeds 200% of the Office of Management and Budget poverty income level guidelines. In peer-to-peer swarming systems, a swarm is self-sustaining if all

608-499: Is not self-sustainability that is essential for survivability, but on the contrary specialization and thus dependence. Consider the first two examples presented above. Among countries, commercial treats are as important as self-sustainability. An autarky is usually inefficient. Among people, social ties have been shown to be correlated to happiness and success as much as self-sustainability. John F. Shelley John Francis Shelley (September 3, 1905 – September 1, 1974)

646-482: Is self-sustaining (or self-sufficient) if it can maintain itself by independent effort. The system self-sustainability is: Self-sustainability is considered one of the "ilities" and is closely related to sustainability and availability . In the economics literature, a system that has the quality of being self-sustaining is also referred to as an autarky . Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky

684-514: The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 , spending on the AFDC quadrupled as the number of individuals who enrolled in the program rose sharply. During the conservative -backlash era of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as the federal government (under Presidents Jimmy Carter , Ronald Reagan , George H. W. Bush , Bill Clinton , and George W. Bush ) cut away programs for the poor and minorities,

722-676: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Each CAA is governed by a board of directors consisting of at least one-third low-income community members, one-third public officials, and up to one-third private sector leaders. This board structure is defined by federal statute and is known as a tripartite board. There are currently over 1,000 CAAs, engaged in a broad range of activities; typical activities include promoting citizen participation, providing utility bill assistance and home weatherization for low-income individuals, administration of Head Start pre-school programs, job training, operating food pantries , and coordinating community initiatives. In 1964,

760-632: The Yerba Buena Gardens and in the Western Addition . Shelley bowed out of running for a second term in office; his stated reasons were health-related, but it was thought that prominent political forces in the city's establishment wanted a more stringently pro-development mayor in office. Shelley's son, Kevin Shelley , was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1990 to 1996,

798-403: The blocks of its files are available among peers (excluding seeds and publishers). Whereas self-sustainability is a quality of one's independence, survivability applies to the future maintainability of one's self-sustainability and indeed one's existence. Many believe that more self-sustainability guarantees a higher degree of survivability. However, just as many oppose this, arguing that it

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836-574: The sit-down strike against General Motors and then strikes at several Works Progress Administration projects in the San Francisco Bay area. Shelley was active in settling several labor disputes, but despite his efforts 3,500 members of six unions went on strike against 16 leading San Francisco Hotels on May 1, 1937. On the same day, the AFL purged the CIO from the Alameda Labor Council owing to

874-501: The Act was the requirement for "maximum feasible participation" of the people directly affected (the poor, basically) in the decision-making about how federal funds would be spent on them, in their community. This flew in the face of long-established power structures , where elected city councils, county commissions, state and federal officials ruled over everything—mostly people from the power elite and upper-class communities . The notion that

912-546: The CAPs and CAAs were defunded, underfunded, or warped into a strange variation of their original intent, with far less influence of the poor and minorities in how they would be served by these entities. Nixon officials presided over CAP and CAA groups during the Relf v. Weinberger case which saw a pair of young black girls from Montgomery, Alabama surgically sterilized without their consent. The Relf case's revealed administrative attitudes of

950-588: The Congressional funding bill for the OEO ( Office of Economic Opportunity —overseer of the CAA/CAP programs): The net result was a halt to the citizen participation reform movement and a fundamental shift of power away from the nation's poor and minorities. Nevertheless, some federal emphasis on anti-poverty programs remained, including the (modified) CAP/CAA system. By 1973, the U.S. poverty rate dropped to 11.1 percent,

988-641: The Palace Hotel, a public nurse strike in 1966, and a threatened San Francisco Symphony Orchestra strike in 1967. Shelley was mayor during the Summer of Love , a time of radicalism in the Haight-Ashbury and turmoil throughout the city. The Black rage toward " Auto Row " on Van Ness Avenue. Shelley was faced with riots in Bayview-Hunters Point on September 27, 1966, after a white police officer fatally shot

1026-555: The San Francisco Labor Council. He was the council's representative to the Pacific coast's first industrial development conference aimed at girls and hosted by several Northern California YWCAs . Shelley was elected president of the council in 1937. Shortly into his term, the council began organizing state agricultural and cannery workers under the AFL. Shelley was one of the leaders of the California People's Legislative Conference,

1064-672: The U.S. poverty rate (income-based) included 19 percent of Americans. Rising political forces demanded change. Under a new White House Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the concept of the federally-funded, local Community Action Program (CAP) —delivered by a local Community Action Agency (CAA), in a nationwide Community Action Network —would become the primary vehicle for a new, federal War on Poverty . Lyndon B. Johnson 's landmark Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 —drafted by former Peace Corps founding director Sargent Shriver —established Community Action Programs in Title II. In concept,

1102-410: The business community) used to dominating their local governments. Although Johnson and other architects of the legislation expected Community Action Programs and Agencies to be an effective weapon in his War on Poverty, many of them were riddled with problems. In more extreme instances, local political regimes were threatened by the empowerment of poor political activists with funding and resources from

1140-533: The era which suggest that forced sterilization was an acceptable tactic in Republican management of federal welfare. The troubled economy of the mid-to-late 1970s, brought on by the energy crisis and the Early 1980s recession was especially hard on America’s poor. Between 1973 and 1983, the national poverty rate rose from 11.1% to 15.2%. Another decade later, in 1993, the poverty rate was virtually unchanged at 15.1%, just

1178-525: The fact that Shelley was recently elected and remained targeted, along with one other California congressman, to be arrested by the FBI as a security risk in case of a Soviet attack. A July 23, 1962 FBI search slip on Shelley is check-marked for "subversive references only" and remains heavily redacted with numerous unreleased documents. Shelley's term as mayor was filled with challenges, including strikes over discriminatory hiring practices against African-Americans at

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1216-465: The federal government. One of the most dramatic episodes resulting from these clashes between CAA leaders and local governments occurred when, following cuts in funding for a summer youth CAP, black activist Charles Sizemore and thirty others barged into San Francisco Mayor John Shelley 's office demanding resources and threatening that if the CAP was not funded once again, "this goddamn town's gonna blow." By

1254-467: The mid/late-1960s, many political leaders—including President Johnson , U.S. Senator Richard Russell (D-GA) (leader of the anti-civil rights conservative coalition ), and Chicago's powerful Mayor Richard J. Daley —publicly or privately expressed displeasure with the power-sharing that the CAA brought to poor and minority neighborhoods. In 1967, conservative and establishment pressures brought two amendments to

1292-402: The poor (largely minorities) should have a say in their affairs created some opposition at first, but was in keeping with America's civil rights and reform movements , and War on Poverty, in the 1960s and 1970s, and generally accepted, at least at first. In each community, the local Community Action Program (CAP) was provided by a local non-profit Community Action Agency (CAA) , overseen by

1330-414: Was a U.S. politician. He served as the 35th mayor of San Francisco , from 1964 to 1968, the first Democrat elected to the office in 50 years, and the first in an unbroken line of Democratic mayors that lasts to the present (as of 2024 ). His term in the United States House of Representatives , immediately prior to his mayoralty (1949-1964), also broke a long streak of Republican tenure (44 years) and began

1368-686: Was included in the FBI 's Custodial Detention (DETCOM) files. The FBI's " DETCOM Program " "was concerned with the individuals 'to be given priority arrest in the event of ... an emergency.'" Priority under the Detcom program was given to "all top functionaries, all key figures, all individuals tabbed under the Comsab program", and "any other individual who, though he does not fall in the above groups, should be given priority arrest because of some peculiar circumstances". A memo by Warren Olney III alerted FBI Director Hoover to

1406-592: Was the best policy when disagreement was encountered." He attended Mission High School, where in 1923 he was elected student body president. He studied law at the University of San Francisco, while working as a bakery driver and playing varsity football. After graduation (receiving his law degree in 1932), Shelley became a business agent for the Bakery Wagon Drivers Union. In 1936 he became an AFL official, defeating an incumbent to become vice-president of

1444-532: Was the oldest of nine children born to Dennis Shelley and Mary Casey Shelley on September 3, 1905. His father was an immigrant from County Cork , Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom), who became a longshoreman in California. He grew up in the Mission District of San Francisco, then "a tough working-class district," where he "acquired a deep-seated belief that 'working it out instead of fighting it out'

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