Cambridge's War On Poverty

John R. Moot '43 worries about Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty."

"The whole program can become totally discredited, If too many politicians grab hold of it, it becomes nothing more than a big pork-barrel." The possibility of failure also Moot: "There is an immediate danger of 'Overpromise.'" It would be more than demoralizing, he says, "to work in employment programs with 100 kids and then be able to place only 10 per cent of them jobs."

Moot's fears counsel caution, and chairman of Cambridge's "Citizens' Committee on Implementation of the Economic Opportunity Act," that's what he has given the City.

This is why Cambridge hasn't been making headlines with its achievements in the war on poverty. Only one application for federal funds has been submitted to Washington: a request for $60,000 to pay for a full time executive director and several assistants (the large anti-poverty committee of more than 40 people is completely voluntary). Even if the application were approved tomorrow--it won't because it's been bogged down in Washington for more than a month--the committee wouldn't have anybody to name as executive director. It's still interviewing candidates.

There is a high concentration of low income families: 15.3 per cent of Cambridge families were living (in 1960) in abject poverty with annual incomes of less than $3000 as compared to 11 per cent for the Boston Metropolitan area. --from Economic Opportunity Information Kit, given to all members of the City Anti-Poverty committee in Decembebr.

But the slack pace is deceiving. From an original field of eight candidates for the job, the committee has selected four for more intensive interviewing, including a two-day visit to Cambridge for each. Only one of of the final candidates is a local man; the others come from St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and New York.

And despite Washington's silence on the initial $60,000 request ("we haven't even received a postcard," Moot says), the committee will dispatch two more applications to the capital this week. If approval comes back before mid-June--and the very tardiness of the requests and the slowness in Washington make this an imponderable--the committee hopes to have three pilot projects underway this summer:

* a pre-school program for some 600 youths from low-income areas;

* "neighborhood youth corps" for about 100 teenagers from these same areas. The youths would work no more than 32 hours a week for social agencies or for the City (as aides in the recreation department or the school department, for example). They would also receive special counseling; the overall purpose: to provide the money and the incentives for them to continue school and to prepare them for eventual entrance into the job market;

* some sort of summer school program for June graduates from the City's high schools to help acquire job skills that testing this spring shows they lack.

For each project, the committee has had to send Washington monstrous applications, ranging from 40 to 50 pages long. Some observers remark that the projects should have been selected faster, and the applications prepared sooner, in order to assure federal funds for the summer.

But as members of the committee point out defensively, Mayor Edward A. Crane '35 hesitated for more than two months (from September to December) before naming the full committee. This wasted valuable time. The very size of the committee itself inhibits speedy decisions: the group includes representatives from Cambridge's many different elements--local neighborhood residents, professional social workers, representatives of the two Universities, and delegates from the City administration.

The committee's diversity provides a basic strength, its members argue. "Sure, the City could have moved a bit faster," one if them says, "but you'd have had to do it with a few individuals running the whole show. ..You might get your money faster, but you'd have missed something. You would have to get the community interested in a program that had been planned for them."

Ban Politics

Moot also believes the committee's size and diversity provide a protection against political intrusion. Intentionally, the mayor appointed no City Councillors or School Board members. "It's one step removed from politics," Moot observes, adding, how-ever, that there is" not one City Councillor that hasn't got a good pipeline" to the committee. But that doesn't bother him, because he says that politicians possess "communication channels to the people that can feed ideas and reactions to us so that we don't go completely off base." What he does not want is a poverty program in Cambridge dominated by politicians.

If Washington gives the go-ahead for everything the committee has asked for, Cambridge will be running only "pilot" projects this summer. Moot explains this caution: "Getting the wrong programs started could be a problem... Once you create something, it's hard to kill it, although you may have decided it's not a good program and you want to put your resources elsewhere."

The committee is still playing around with a lot of ideas it would like to incorporate in future programs. One major theme, for example, is "community participation"--as much as possible. To make this verbal pledge reality, committee members would like to include more local residents on specific subcommittees and hire local people as aides in some of the poverty programs. (This would have the additional effect of transferring more income to those who need it.)

No Splintering

This concern for what local neighborhoods are thinking reveals the committee's fear of "splintering the community." "Obviously the program is not going to work unless it has the support of the people with whom it works," one member says. But what they really fear is that those for whom the program is meant will feel that they are being lumped into the solid block of the "poor," that they are being preached to, and charitably nursed by the anti-poverty program. (Incidentally, that's why some members believe that President Johnson marked the program with a permanent stain the day he opened his mouth about the "war on poverty.")

In the minds of many, a prominent rift already exists between the rich, University-oriented parts of Cambridge and the rest of the City. If people felt that the University community was administering the poverty program, the result might be open hostility to the project--and disaster.

For all that, there are a number of University people on the committee, including Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to the President for Civic and Governmental Affairs; John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics; and Theodore Sizer, Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

But the role of the University community remains vague and undefined, though undoubtedly it will be an important one. The one thing which is definite is that the University-oriented individuals and groups will make their contribution as individuals and not as part of a total University effort which might further aggravate town-gown differences. As Sizer puts it, "We're not giving advice on the terms that we have the answers and they don't."

One of the "University" people on the Committee is Norton Long, a Brandeis professor and a member of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies. Long heads the special research subcommittee, which will attempt to break down the gross statistics that the committee now possesses. With unemployment figures, for example, Long's group will try to find out how many people were unemployed because of old age, how many because of poor education, how many because of disability, how many because of alcholism, etc.

Long is also investigating this year's graduating senior class from Cambridge's two high schools. What he would like to do is give them all a standard skills test administered by major companies. This would establish an "inventory" of those who can and cannot meet the standards of the job market. Remedies to specific weaknesses would then be stressed in special summer sessions. Long has already held a meeting with a number of personnel directors for large firms in the area and is hoping to get their cooperation and aid in setting up the program.

Passing Birthdays

Many youths "go through school by passing birthdays," Long believes, and he would like to see skill tests--oriented towards employment opportunities--given as early as the seventh grade. Lower class children "need to be motivated to invest in themselves [in school] at the expense of present gratification," he says. "They must have some sense that the jobs will be there."

Students also will contribute to the program. Phillips Brooks House projects in settlement houses, and, in more recent years, in Roosevelt Towers, a City housing project, provide useful "pilot" experiments that the committee might expand upon. Moreover, PBH will channel all its requests for funds under the antipoverty act through the Cambridge committee. It is a foregone conclusion that PBH--long an important participant in the unofficial "war on poverty"--will be an important one in the official "war".

TEST (Teen-age Employment Skills Training), set up by the Harvard Student Employment Office to help local youths prepare for the job market, also has an important place in the City's program. If the government approves the application for a "neighborhood youth corps," Test will run it.

In the long as well as the short run, the poverty committee faces a difficult beset with many problems. For example, the federal government puts 90 per cent of the cost for projects, with 10 per cent coming from the local community. In Cambridge, it is possible that there might be some resistance to putting up any extra cash, for City Manager John J. Curry keeps close tabs on the budget. The City can offer its 10 per cent contribution in "kind" (donation of classrooms or personnel, for example), but even this sort of assessment can cost dollars.

Eventually how much Cambridge puts up in dollars--and consequently how much it participates in the poverty program--is a political question. And John Moot, who wants a non-political poverty program, must make sure that a non-political program is not one without strong political support

Moot's fears counsel caution, and chairman of Cambridge's "Citizens' Committee on Implementation of the Economic Opportunity Act," that's what he has given the City.

This is why Cambridge hasn't been making headlines with its achievements in the war on poverty. Only one application for federal funds has been submitted to Washington: a request for $60,000 to pay for a full time executive director and several assistants (the large anti-poverty committee of more than 40 people is completely voluntary). Even if the application were approved tomorrow--it won't because it's been bogged down in Washington for more than a month--the committee wouldn't have anybody to name as executive director. It's still interviewing candidates.

There is a high concentration of low income families: 15.3 per cent of Cambridge families were living (in 1960) in abject poverty with annual incomes of less than $3000 as compared to 11 per cent for the Boston Metropolitan area. --from Economic Opportunity Information Kit, given to all members of the City Anti-Poverty committee in Decembebr.

But the slack pace is deceiving. From an original field of eight candidates for the job, the committee has selected four for more intensive interviewing, including a two-day visit to Cambridge for each. Only one of of the final candidates is a local man; the others come from St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and New York.

And despite Washington's silence on the initial $60,000 request ("we haven't even received a postcard," Moot says), the committee will dispatch two more applications to the capital this week. If approval comes back before mid-June--and the very tardiness of the requests and the slowness in Washington make this an imponderable--the committee hopes to have three pilot projects underway this summer:

* a pre-school program for some 600 youths from low-income areas;

* "neighborhood youth corps" for about 100 teenagers from these same areas. The youths would work no more than 32 hours a week for social agencies or for the City (as aides in the recreation department or the school department, for example). They would also receive special counseling; the overall purpose: to provide the money and the incentives for them to continue school and to prepare them for eventual entrance into the job market;

* some sort of summer school program for June graduates from the City's high schools to help acquire job skills that testing this spring shows they lack.

For each project, the committee has had to send Washington monstrous applications, ranging from 40 to 50 pages long. Some observers remark that the projects should have been selected faster, and the applications prepared sooner, in order to assure federal funds for the summer.

But as members of the committee point out defensively, Mayor Edward A. Crane '35 hesitated for more than two months (from September to December) before naming the full committee. This wasted valuable time. The very size of the committee itself inhibits speedy decisions: the group includes representatives from Cambridge's many different elements--local neighborhood residents, professional social workers, representatives of the two Universities, and delegates from the City administration.

The committee's diversity provides a basic strength, its members argue. "Sure, the City could have moved a bit faster," one if them says, "but you'd have had to do it with a few individuals running the whole show. ..You might get your money faster, but you'd have missed something. You would have to get the community interested in a program that had been planned for them."

Ban Politics

Moot also believes the committee's size and diversity provide a protection against political intrusion. Intentionally, the mayor appointed no City Councillors or School Board members. "It's one step removed from politics," Moot observes, adding, how-ever, that there is" not one City Councillor that hasn't got a good pipeline" to the committee. But that doesn't bother him, because he says that politicians possess "communication channels to the people that can feed ideas and reactions to us so that we don't go completely off base." What he does not want is a poverty program in Cambridge dominated by politicians.

If Washington gives the go-ahead for everything the committee has asked for, Cambridge will be running only "pilot" projects this summer. Moot explains this caution: "Getting the wrong programs started could be a problem... Once you create something, it's hard to kill it, although you may have decided it's not a good program and you want to put your resources elsewhere."

The committee is still playing around with a lot of ideas it would like to incorporate in future programs. One major theme, for example, is "community participation"--as much as possible. To make this verbal pledge reality, committee members would like to include more local residents on specific subcommittees and hire local people as aides in some of the poverty programs. (This would have the additional effect of transferring more income to those who need it.)

No Splintering

This concern for what local neighborhoods are thinking reveals the committee's fear of "splintering the community." "Obviously the program is not going to work unless it has the support of the people with whom it works," one member says. But what they really fear is that those for whom the program is meant will feel that they are being lumped into the solid block of the "poor," that they are being preached to, and charitably nursed by the anti-poverty program. (Incidentally, that's why some members believe that President Johnson marked the program with a permanent stain the day he opened his mouth about the "war on poverty.")

In the minds of many, a prominent rift already exists between the rich, University-oriented parts of Cambridge and the rest of the City. If people felt that the University community was administering the poverty program, the result might be open hostility to the project--and disaster.

For all that, there are a number of University people on the committee, including Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to the President for Civic and Governmental Affairs; John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics; and Theodore Sizer, Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

But the role of the University community remains vague and undefined, though undoubtedly it will be an important one. The one thing which is definite is that the University-oriented individuals and groups will make their contribution as individuals and not as part of a total University effort which might further aggravate town-gown differences. As Sizer puts it, "We're not giving advice on the terms that we have the answers and they don't."

One of the "University" people on the Committee is Norton Long, a Brandeis professor and a member of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies. Long heads the special research subcommittee, which will attempt to break down the gross statistics that the committee now possesses. With unemployment figures, for example, Long's group will try to find out how many people were unemployed because of old age, how many because of poor education, how many because of disability, how many because of alcholism, etc.

Long is also investigating this year's graduating senior class from Cambridge's two high schools. What he would like to do is give them all a standard skills test administered by major companies. This would establish an "inventory" of those who can and cannot meet the standards of the job market. Remedies to specific weaknesses would then be stressed in special summer sessions. Long has already held a meeting with a number of personnel directors for large firms in the area and is hoping to get their cooperation and aid in setting up the program.

Passing Birthdays

Many youths "go through school by passing birthdays," Long believes, and he would like to see skill tests--oriented towards employment opportunities--given as early as the seventh grade. Lower class children "need to be motivated to invest in themselves [in school] at the expense of present gratification," he says. "They must have some sense that the jobs will be there."

Students also will contribute to the program. Phillips Brooks House projects in settlement houses, and, in more recent years, in Roosevelt Towers, a City housing project, provide useful "pilot" experiments that the committee might expand upon. Moreover, PBH will channel all its requests for funds under the antipoverty act through the Cambridge committee. It is a foregone conclusion that PBH--long an important participant in the unofficial "war on poverty"--will be an important one in the official "war".

TEST (Teen-age Employment Skills Training), set up by the Harvard Student Employment Office to help local youths prepare for the job market, also has an important place in the City's program. If the government approves the application for a "neighborhood youth corps," Test will run it.

In the long as well as the short run, the poverty committee faces a difficult beset with many problems. For example, the federal government puts 90 per cent of the cost for projects, with 10 per cent coming from the local community. In Cambridge, it is possible that there might be some resistance to putting up any extra cash, for City Manager John J. Curry keeps close tabs on the budget. The City can offer its 10 per cent contribution in "kind" (donation of classrooms or personnel, for example), but even this sort of assessment can cost dollars.

Eventually how much Cambridge puts up in dollars--and consequently how much it participates in the poverty program--is a political question. And John Moot, who wants a non-political poverty program, must make sure that a non-political program is not one without strong political support

This is why Cambridge hasn't been making headlines with its achievements in the war on poverty. Only one application for federal funds has been submitted to Washington: a request for $60,000 to pay for a full time executive director and several assistants (the large anti-poverty committee of more than 40 people is completely voluntary). Even if the application were approved tomorrow--it won't because it's been bogged down in Washington for more than a month--the committee wouldn't have anybody to name as executive director. It's still interviewing candidates.

There is a high concentration of low income families: 15.3 per cent of Cambridge families were living (in 1960) in abject poverty with annual incomes of less than $3000 as compared to 11 per cent for the Boston Metropolitan area. --from Economic Opportunity Information Kit, given to all members of the City Anti-Poverty committee in Decembebr.

But the slack pace is deceiving. From an original field of eight candidates for the job, the committee has selected four for more intensive interviewing, including a two-day visit to Cambridge for each. Only one of of the final candidates is a local man; the others come from St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and New York.

And despite Washington's silence on the initial $60,000 request ("we haven't even received a postcard," Moot says), the committee will dispatch two more applications to the capital this week. If approval comes back before mid-June--and the very tardiness of the requests and the slowness in Washington make this an imponderable--the committee hopes to have three pilot projects underway this summer:

* a pre-school program for some 600 youths from low-income areas;

* "neighborhood youth corps" for about 100 teenagers from these same areas. The youths would work no more than 32 hours a week for social agencies or for the City (as aides in the recreation department or the school department, for example). They would also receive special counseling; the overall purpose: to provide the money and the incentives for them to continue school and to prepare them for eventual entrance into the job market;

* some sort of summer school program for June graduates from the City's high schools to help acquire job skills that testing this spring shows they lack.

For each project, the committee has had to send Washington monstrous applications, ranging from 40 to 50 pages long. Some observers remark that the projects should have been selected faster, and the applications prepared sooner, in order to assure federal funds for the summer.

But as members of the committee point out defensively, Mayor Edward A. Crane '35 hesitated for more than two months (from September to December) before naming the full committee. This wasted valuable time. The very size of the committee itself inhibits speedy decisions: the group includes representatives from Cambridge's many different elements--local neighborhood residents, professional social workers, representatives of the two Universities, and delegates from the City administration.

The committee's diversity provides a basic strength, its members argue. "Sure, the City could have moved a bit faster," one if them says, "but you'd have had to do it with a few individuals running the whole show. ..You might get your money faster, but you'd have missed something. You would have to get the community interested in a program that had been planned for them."

Ban Politics

Moot also believes the committee's size and diversity provide a protection against political intrusion. Intentionally, the mayor appointed no City Councillors or School Board members. "It's one step removed from politics," Moot observes, adding, how-ever, that there is" not one City Councillor that hasn't got a good pipeline" to the committee. But that doesn't bother him, because he says that politicians possess "communication channels to the people that can feed ideas and reactions to us so that we don't go completely off base." What he does not want is a poverty program in Cambridge dominated by politicians.

If Washington gives the go-ahead for everything the committee has asked for, Cambridge will be running only "pilot" projects this summer. Moot explains this caution: "Getting the wrong programs started could be a problem... Once you create something, it's hard to kill it, although you may have decided it's not a good program and you want to put your resources elsewhere."

The committee is still playing around with a lot of ideas it would like to incorporate in future programs. One major theme, for example, is "community participation"--as much as possible. To make this verbal pledge reality, committee members would like to include more local residents on specific subcommittees and hire local people as aides in some of the poverty programs. (This would have the additional effect of transferring more income to those who need it.)

No Splintering

This concern for what local neighborhoods are thinking reveals the committee's fear of "splintering the community." "Obviously the program is not going to work unless it has the support of the people with whom it works," one member says. But what they really fear is that those for whom the program is meant will feel that they are being lumped into the solid block of the "poor," that they are being preached to, and charitably nursed by the anti-poverty program. (Incidentally, that's why some members believe that President Johnson marked the program with a permanent stain the day he opened his mouth about the "war on poverty.")

In the minds of many, a prominent rift already exists between the rich, University-oriented parts of Cambridge and the rest of the City. If people felt that the University community was administering the poverty program, the result might be open hostility to the project--and disaster.

For all that, there are a number of University people on the committee, including Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to the President for Civic and Governmental Affairs; John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics; and Theodore Sizer, Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

But the role of the University community remains vague and undefined, though undoubtedly it will be an important one. The one thing which is definite is that the University-oriented individuals and groups will make their contribution as individuals and not as part of a total University effort which might further aggravate town-gown differences. As Sizer puts it, "We're not giving advice on the terms that we have the answers and they don't."

One of the "University" people on the Committee is Norton Long, a Brandeis professor and a member of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies. Long heads the special research subcommittee, which will attempt to break down the gross statistics that the committee now possesses. With unemployment figures, for example, Long's group will try to find out how many people were unemployed because of old age, how many because of poor education, how many because of disability, how many because of alcholism, etc.

Long is also investigating this year's graduating senior class from Cambridge's two high schools. What he would like to do is give them all a standard skills test administered by major companies. This would establish an "inventory" of those who can and cannot meet the standards of the job market. Remedies to specific weaknesses would then be stressed in special summer sessions. Long has already held a meeting with a number of personnel directors for large firms in the area and is hoping to get their cooperation and aid in setting up the program.

Passing Birthdays

Many youths "go through school by passing birthdays," Long believes, and he would like to see skill tests--oriented towards employment opportunities--given as early as the seventh grade. Lower class children "need to be motivated to invest in themselves [in school] at the expense of present gratification," he says. "They must have some sense that the jobs will be there."

Students also will contribute to the program. Phillips Brooks House projects in settlement houses, and, in more recent years, in Roosevelt Towers, a City housing project, provide useful "pilot" experiments that the committee might expand upon. Moreover, PBH will channel all its requests for funds under the antipoverty act through the Cambridge committee. It is a foregone conclusion that PBH--long an important participant in the unofficial "war on poverty"--will be an important one in the official "war".

TEST (Teen-age Employment Skills Training), set up by the Harvard Student Employment Office to help local youths prepare for the job market, also has an important place in the City's program. If the government approves the application for a "neighborhood youth corps," Test will run it.

In the long as well as the short run, the poverty committee faces a difficult beset with many problems. For example, the federal government puts 90 per cent of the cost for projects, with 10 per cent coming from the local community. In Cambridge, it is possible that there might be some resistance to putting up any extra cash, for City Manager John J. Curry keeps close tabs on the budget. The City can offer its 10 per cent contribution in "kind" (donation of classrooms or personnel, for example), but even this sort of assessment can cost dollars.

Eventually how much Cambridge puts up in dollars--and consequently how much it participates in the poverty program--is a political question. And John Moot, who wants a non-political poverty program, must make sure that a non-political program is not one without strong political support