Some of the young preferred involvement in this country. They channeled their idealism through VISTA and worked in the inner cities, Appalachia or the Southwest to try to find solutions to the poverty problems at home. Both VISTA and the Peace Corps continue to appeal to American youth. And today, yet another federal volunteer program is attracting students on college campuses. It's University Year for Action, a program that began in 1971 and is part of ACTION, the government umbrella agency over Peace Corps, VISTA and other service programs. Unlike Peace Corps and VISTA, UYA is offered through universities. Students spend a year as volunteers working for organizations which sponsor social service programs. They receive academic credit for their service. And, according to some university officials, as a volunteer program UYA has a greater appeal among today's young. "The attitudes toward volunteerism are different now," said Ms. Barbara Hofer, assistant director for the Office for Experiential Education at the University of Kentucky. "Students are more practical. They look at this as being useful toward career goals." At present, 1,482 students at 55 schools, including UK, are involved in University Year for Action. Both students and faculty at UK are pleased with the program. Laura Bowers, a fourth-year architecture student who is a UYA volunteer, called the experience "a better way of learning than in the classroom... you pick up skills you wouldn't otherwise." At UK, the UPA program is administered through the Office for Experiential Education. Dr. Robert Sexton, executive director of that office, feels UYA has been "a very valuable experience for the university. It's forced a lot of people to think about the merits of learning off campus." Richard Parsons, manager of eastern regional operations for UYA, mentioned several goals of the volunteer program: To provide effective manpower to work on poverty problems. To combine community service and academic study in an integrated program. To encourage university involvement in local communities. To administer volunteer programs at a local level. To institutionalize the other goals after the withdrawal of federal financial support. Parson said the idea is that UYA be a rotating program at schools. UYA is funded on the government grant theory, he explained. Projects receive federal funds to get started, but the funds are gradually withdrawn. Then, "we hope the school and local community will pick up the main elements." On the Lexington campus, this theory is becoming a reality. "This is the first example of a program that is institutionalized," Parsons said about the Kentucky school. "When we pull out, they have a plan and will continue." The University Year for Action program will remain at UK under the Office for Experiential Education, which was formed last summer to develop and coordinate all types of off-campus learning experiences. Sexton believes that non-classroom educational experiences are the coming thing in academia. "This is typical of a nationwide effort to open up higher education and make it more flexible and appealing," he said. "Our goal is to create individuals who see their whole lives as opportunities for learning, who realize that everything out there can be a learning experience, that learning does not stop after the end of a semester." About 50 UK students whose majors range from architecture to English are currently UYA volunteers. Some work on social service projects in the Portland area of Louisville. In both Louisville and Lexington, architecture students work with Community Design Centers and offer design services without cost to those who cannot afford them. Some volunteers are involved in Tenant Services, a housing assistance center in Lexington. There are other students working on community development and social service projects in Eastern Kentucky. Susie Moffitt, 22, served as a UYA volunteer for a year, and then through special arrangements at UK she was able to continue for another six months with the program. For a year Ms. Moffitt, an architecture student, worked with Tenant Services. She inspected run-down housing and monitored minimum standards hearings, sometimes giving her evaluation of dwellings in question. She helped find suitable housings for people who had to be relocated. "I learned that there are people in this wealthy community who are struggling to provide for their basic needs and they're not succeeding," the UK student from New Albany said. "Housing is one of these needs. . . Architects talk about choices in houses. Yet these people are so poor they have no choices.” Through the Cooperative Housing project, Ms. Moffitt and eight other UK students, all UYA volunteers, are currently working on special projects. Susie Moffitt's project was inspired by her previous UYA experience. She became ac quainted with the Irishtown section of Lexington and learned that a highway is scheduled to be built through the neighborhood. When the road goes through, much of the existing housing will be demolished. Ms. Moffitt is designing a housing project for Irishtown. "Instead of going back to a traditional studio setting, I wanted to take what I had learned and apply it in a project," she said. Even though Susie Moffitt realizes there is little chance her housing project will ever be built, she doesn't feel she is wasting her time. "I wouldn't have gotten this deep into any problem. There's no way you can understand low income housing until you've had contact with the people.” Steve Edwins, a faculty adviser for the UK architecture students in the UYA program, shares Susie Moffitt's enthusiasm. "Students become highly motivated off campus," Edwins said. "They know someone wants their work and is interested in what they are doing . . . Students in this program don't learn the same things as they do in the classroom, yet they become very adept at managing their own time and analyzing problems. They become conversant on issues in architecture and design." Another admirer of UYA is Alberta Coleman, program coordinator of Tenant Services. "I had been working with the university for a long time," she said "I have seen students interested in this kind of problem. I have been helping them with papers that were just filed away when I felt something should be done with the information." Now UYA students work for Mrs. Coleman. Instead of just writing papers, they work directly with the poor and help find solutions to their problems. They really learn what poverty is all about, Mrs. Coleman said. “And their papers have more meaning since they are based on research with real live situations and people. "I think the two programs (UYA and Tenant Services) were made for each other," Mrs. Coleman added. As Paul R. Jones, director for ACTION region four (Southeast), said "The ACTION role is to stimulate volunteerism." Jones is convinced that UYA students will be "much more sensitive to volunteerism when they leave school and go into the pursuit of careers. . . They will be inclined to support volunteer oriented programs." Hon. PAUL SIMON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Select Education, MACALESTER COLLEGE, Saint Paul, Minn., April 10, 1979. DEAR REPRESENTATIVE SIMON: Once again we must write to express our concern for the future of the National Student Volunteer Program (NSVP). It appears that NSVP is caught in a struggle over the continued existence of the University Year for Action Program (UYA). Since NSVP's funding is tied to UYA, unless legislation is passed which legally separates these two programs, NSVP could go out of existence. Separate authorizing and funding legislation would be a more accurate reflection of the existing situation, since UYA and NSVP are and have been distinct and separate programs. Though a case could be made for a revitalization of UYA, possibly under the leadership of NSVP, we are most directly and seriously concerned about the fate of NSVP. We ask your assistance in averting a potential tragedy with far-reaching ramifications-the demise of the National Student Volunteer Program. Macalester College's long-standing traditions of service and involvement in the community are carried out through the auspices of Community Involvement Programs (CIP). Each year students provide 47,000 hours of service through community programs. Like many other service-learning programs around the country, CIP, which served 500 students and over 200 community agencies in 1977–78, has made extensive use of NSVP's services and resources. CIP, like most service-learning programs, operates on a small budget and cannot purchase the expert assistance needed to enhance our program and to improve and increase service to students and community groups. Through service learning, students provide needed volunteer assistance to numerous human service agencies, while enhancing their academic training and ensuring that their preparation for the world of work develops the skills necessary to be effective in the field. NSVP's small staff is remarkably capable and productive, and has been a crucial factor in the development of a solid and effective student volunteer program at Macalester. Over the course of the past seven years NSVP has provided numerous services to CIP. Their assistance has been invaluable. The quarterly magazine, Synergist, and the manuals they produce are excellent resource materials. Their response to requests for information and assistance are always prompt and knowledgeable. The training workshops they hold around the country are welldesigned and staffed and enhance the ability of the service-learning programs to provide impactful service to the community. Though NSVP's budget and staff are small, its national impact has been significant. We believe the continuation of NSVP is vital to the future of student volunteerism and service-learning in the United States. Since funds available to support human and social services are decreasing, the assistance of student volunteers becomes critical to the continued provision of quality services to the community by these agencies. We ask your assistance in ensuring that the work of the National Student Volunteer Program will continue and urge your support for legislation which will provide a separate authorization for NSVP and remove the 10% funding limitation in Title I, Part B. Section 114. We respectfully request that these comments be made a part of the Congressional Record of any committee hearings which are held on this matter. Thank you for your assistance. Best regards, WILLIAM J. SVRLUGA, Jr., Dean of Students, Macalester College. HELEN DROTNING-MILLER, Director, Community Involvement Programs. BRONX N.Y., April 12, 1979. Congressman PAUL SIMON, Chairman, Select Education Subcommittee, DEAR CONGRESSMAN SIMON: As a member of a community group which was organized by a VISTA volunteer and works closely with him, I am concerned about the continuation of the VISTA and national grants program. I have written the enclosed testimony for yours and the members' of the committee evaluation. I would like it included in the record of the hearings. I have seen first hand the effectiveness of VISTAS working in my community. I think this is a highly important program to continue. I urge a similar conclusion by you and the members of your committee. Sincerely, LESTER L. PRINGLE, Chairman, Bank on the Bronx, Williamsbridge Chapter. WRITTEN TESTIMONY SUBMITTED BEFORE THE SELECT EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, CHAIRMAN, PAUL SIMON, AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR/HEW OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, CHAIRMAN, WILLIAM NATCHER Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Lester L. Pringle. I live at 912 East 223rd Street in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx. I've lived in the Bronx nineteen years, I have been associated with community organizations throughout my entire adult life-social, civic and fraternal. I am presently the president of my block association and chairman of the Bank on the Bronx/Williamsbridge chapter. Members of the committee, I would like to take this opportunity to present my views on the effectiveness of VISTA volunteers working with community groups with respect to one of our major problems, namely bank redlining and disinvestment in our community and in the Bronx. I'm sure that you are aware that poor people and working poor people are not able to finance the purchase of property and depend on the lending institutions such as savings banks and savings and loan associations to finance the purchase and maintenance of their homes. When banks withdraw credit from a neighborhood, the property deteriorates and housing facilities decrease and go into disrepair. When landlords can't get loans, windows, steps, buzzer systems don't get repaired, heating and electric systems become old and defective, and the general structure deteriorates resulting in occupants moving out or living in substandard housing. With years of neglect, increasing vacancy rates, structures become abandoned. They invite vandals and firebugs. These decaying buildings become blights on the whole community. They make residents feel depressed and lose faith in their community. Many flee from the neighborhood, causing more abandonment. Redlining drives shops and stores away as they have fewer customers. They cannot get loans for their property. Word gets out that it is a redlined area and therefore a second class neighborhood. We have many abandoned and boarded up storefronts. This reduces services to those who remain. It also eliminates a source of part-time jobs for teenagers who now hang out on the streets and may turn to crime. An old saying goes, "The devil will find work for idle hands.” And it is not good work either, that's for sure. Redlining causes a downward spiral and deterioration in a community and that is why I am concerned about this practice. That is why I got involved in a local organizing effort started by VISTA volunteers, called Bank on the Bronx. I became associated with Bank on the Bronx through Andy Koski, a VISTA volunteer working with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and their Bronx Neighborhood Revitalization Project working in this community. The first steps were to inform residents of the banks' practices and the problems that come with redlining. I met Andy at a social gathering of neighbors on my block last August. After that meeting, I became aware that redlining was affecting my community adversely. Andy talked to many such groups as mine. I became involved and more involved and came to spend more time with the operation and administration of Bank on the Bronx. As a result, I was asked to become chairman of my neighborhood chapter. We have three neighborhood chapters working actively to persuade our local institutions to be responsive to community needs. One of our chapters in the Soundview/Castle Hill/Bronx River area has obtained a signed bank agreement with the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh to reinvest over $800,000 in those communities. We have met with two banks and their presidents in our area. We have not been successful as of yet in obtaining community commitments from them. We feel it is important to continue our efforts in order that we may convince the banks that it is to their advantage to reinvest in our community and to help us repair, renovate and maintain our housing stock. Of course, if we are successful, the bank will be able to remain here. Otherwise, if people are forced to move out of the neighborhood because of the foregoing conditions mentioned above, there will be nobody to serve or get deposits from. And our community will become like the abandoned, burned-out South Bronx. Our continued work will assure money to the Bronx. We will change the tide of dollars flowing out of the Bronx and re-direct credit back into our credit-starved communities for the upkeep and repair and purchase of housing. I have seen VISTA volunteers help my own community. I support NYPIRG's Bronx Neighborhood Revitalization Project and urge continued authorization and budget support of VISTA and its national grants program. I strongly feel that efforts like this by VISTA volunteers should continue to help communities like mine. Such organizing efforts will make more people aware of the potential threat of problems like redlining to the viability of their communities. And they will hopefully get more people involved in fighting for their communities as I did. I understand that the VISTA agency and its national grants program are up for authorization and appropriation before Congress. I strongly support the work that VISTA is doing. I have seen the effects of such work first hand. I urge your committee to support VISTA's efforts also. I respectively submit this testimony for your consideration and for the writ ten record. Congressman PAUL SIMON, House Education and Labor Committee, APRIL 4, 1979. DEAR CONGRESSMAN SIMON: We are writing to urge your support for the programs of the ACTION agency which are now before Congress for reauthorization. We believe that the VISTA program, and the work of its volunteers, is one of the most vital federal programs working to alleviate domestic poverty. Through the national grants program, resources can be concentrated on special areas of need and address problems that are nationwide in scope, such as, nursing home reform, aid for the elderly, and programs for small family farmers. We strongly urge you to support the proposed increases in the President's budget for the VISTA appropriations for fiscal year 1980. Unless additional funds are made available, many sponsoring organizations may lose their volunteers and these community based programs would be seriously affected. One of the most cost effective proposals to revitalize parts of our cities is ACTION's Urban Initiatives Program. This program will encourage volunteerism and make existing neighborhood and community efforts more viable by providing much needed, and often unattainable, technical assistance and modest funding grants. The program is an important response to citizen concerns about big and unresponsive government. It is really an investment in helping people help themselves. These programs are complementary and should definitely remain under the aegis of the ACTION agency which has so successfully carried out its mandate to alleviate poverty in this country through the use of volunteers. We urge your support for the ACTION programs and ask that this letter become a part of the official hearing record. Respectfully submitted. LEE WEBB. ECHO-HOUSING ASSISTANCE CENTER, Hon. PAUL SIMON, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN SIMON: As the annual budget hearings concerning the ACTION agency are currently being conducted by the House Select Committee on Special Education, I felt it appropriate to write to you about the work I have been doing for the past eight months as a VISTA volunteer in California. I am presently enrolled at a VISTA project connected with ECHO Housing Assistance Center, a housing rights agency in Southern Alameda County. As you know, the new direction of the VISTA program as outlined in the VISTA Guidance Papers is toward achieving community development and the elimination of poverty through increased participation on the part of low income individuals in the decisions that effect their lives. With this objective in mind, I have focused my efforts at ECHO on informing individuals and groups in my community of their rights and responsibilities as tenants in private and publicly funded housing complexes. In my work as a landlord-tenant counselor. I have aided members of the community in understanding the complex state laws (and federal regulations in the case of public facilities) which govern them. I have also aided groups of tenants to petition the large and often unresponsive public agencies and private corporations which manage the housing accommodations they live in to achieve decent, safe, and sanitary conditions. I have done this by helping low income people to develop the organizational and advocacy skills they need to function in the complex and impersonal society we now live in. During the time I have been a VISTA volunteer, I have been active in the VISTA Council for my area and have visited and spoken with most of the VISTAS in Northern California, as well as members of the communities they work in. The vast majority of those I spoke with were, although often critical of certain internal administrative procdures within ACTION, extremely supportive of the role that VISTA is playing in the community. We in California are all too well aware of the current national mood to cut government spending. It is for this very reason that I would encourage the continuance of the VISTA program because it fosters citizen participation and helps to develop the sort of self-reliance which eliminates the need for continued public assistance. Please feel free to circulate this letter among your colleagues as a way of letting them know more about whats happening in VISTA. Sincerely, MARK MCBRIDE, |