traditionally have spent a larger portion of their income on food than their more affluent neighbors.

We project that the total value of the volunteer help these programs provide may amount to approximately $82 million. Thus for every $1.00 invested in these programs approximately $11.00 will be generated in the community. The most lasting anti-inflationary benefit of these programs may be their preventive nature. A neighborhood that stabilizes itself will not require millions of federal dollars to begin the task of rehabilitation. In the long run, as -neighborhood groups become organized they will turn inward and depend more on their own resources rather than turn immediately to the city or the federal government for assistance.

Our urban programs are non-bureaucratic.

Of all the federal programs that are targeted to helping cities, ours is one of the few that looks to volunteers as the sole source of manpower. A Gallup poll, conducted in November of 1978, indicates that 79 percent of the nation's city residents would be willing to volunteer nine hours of their time each month to participate in specific activities like serving on a crime watch or helping to fix up abandoned buildings in their neighborhoods. Our programs seek to tap this spirit of generosity as a low-cost way of helping people help themselves. We project, based on our pilot programs, that with a measured expansion, 79,000 Volunteers will participate in these programs in fiscal year 1980.

To support and direct the work of these volunteers ACTION will need 82 new positions when the programs are fully operational. There will be no additional staff required in fiscal year 1979.

The urban volunteer programs we propose to fund are small.

They are geared to meet small needs of small groups in small areas-the neighborhoods of large cities. They are responsive to the small but daily needs of neighborhood residents. How does elderly Mrs. Smith, who lives alone survive on the social security check she now receives when the cost of living is increasing so rapidly? How does a small struggling neighborhood group develop proper accounting procedures so that it can be eligible for a state or federal grant? These are the needs we hope to address.

ACTION's urban programs are well tested.

For the past two years, ACTION has partially funded two technical management assistance demonstration projects. In Cincinnati, 70 professional volunteers are helping approximately forty community groups. One volunteer, an accountant, spent six months designing a bookkeeping system for a non-profit, neighborhood food and clothing distribution center for the poor.

Since 1975, ACTION has sponsored a fixed income consumer counseling (FICC) demonstration project in Denver, Colorado. In the last three years, over 300 volunteers have provided 25,000 poor and elderly people direct, and personal counseling in health, nutrition, preretirement planning, estate planning and the drawing up of wills.

A good example of a Good Neighbor type project would be a small grant to a community group to establish a tool lending library. In many cases poor people who want to rehabilitate their houses are unable to because they lack the proper tools. A small grant would enable a neighborhood group to purchase the tools to the community as a whole, thereby saving every resident the cost of keeping his or her own set of tools. Sharing tools can be the first step that leads neighborhood residents to share in other community activities. Our urban programs are inclusive.

Anyone in a distressed neighborhood will be allowed to participate. Anyone who lives on a low income and is in need of financial counseling will be able to seek it through our FICC program. Our program guidelines will require that sponsoring organizations specifically include the poor, the elderly, blacks, Hispanics, and the handicapped in the organizational decision-making process. ACTION in the last two years has made an affirmative effort to recruit blacks and Hispanics to its headquarters and field staff. We are proud of our record. We will do no less with these new programs.

Our urban programs are preventive in nature.

These programs will help people and neighborhoods before there is a necessity for an expensive and drastic cure paid for by the federal government. Today, the South Bronx is a symbol of urban decay. Our aim is to prevent other neighborhoods from sharing the same fate as the South Bronx. Strong neighborhoods make for prosperous cities. Those cities that have had the most success in revitalization-Baltimore, Boston, Seattle are those cities which have supported

the efforts of neighborhood groups to rebuild their neighborhood. Neighborhoods are the foundation on which cities are built.

More importantly, neighborhoods are the place where people's values are shaped. The programs we propose are rooted in old values-self-reliance, trust, generosity, and a sense of responsibility for one's neighbor. The re-enforcement of those values at the neighborhood level can only help our nation in the long run. People are less likely to destroy what they themselves have created. Our urban programs are non-duplicative.

Special provisions have been made in our legislation to require close co-ordination with CSA (The Community Service Administration). As you will note in the legislation, before regulations for the new urban programs are promulgated, the Director of CSA will be consulted. In addition, CAP agencies will receive specific advance notice of the selection process for lead agencies and a special requirement has been included that lead agencies (if a CAP is not the lead agency) will work with CAP's to avoid any duplication of effort.

We believe that these urban programs-the Urban Volunteer Corps and the Good Neighbor Fund are needed. They can provide the federal government with a powerful instrument for appealing to the best instincts of the American people. These programs are targeted, anti-inflationary, non-bureaucratic, well tested, small, inclusive, preventive, and do not duplicate other federal efforts. We ask for your support.

ACTION is also requesting a change in its service learning programs-National Student Volunteer Program (NSVP) and University Year in ACTION (UYA) — which are now sponsored by VISTA. Service learning has always been an integral part of all of our program. We believe in this approach.

In fiscal year 1980, we are proposing that the authorization be changed so that NSVP can be considered on its own merits. The existing law requires that 90 percent of the first $7.4 million for service learning be allocated to UYA. We are asking that this linkage which ties NSVP's funding to UYA be discontinued. For the past 10 years, NSVP has served as the single focus and source in this country for assisting the development of locally-supported college and high school service-learning programs. It has a long and established record. We be lieve NSVP should stand on its own merit.

Let me now turn to the University Year for ACTION program. We are pro- t posing that the authorization be continued through fiscal year 1981 and funds be appropriated to fund existing projects through the third quarter of fiscal year 1979. Our proposal does not include funds for UYA in fiscal year 1980. Instead we are asking for some time to evaluate and test new approaches for this program. We do not believe that the current program meets all of its objectives and is the best use of taxpayers' money. We believe new models of service learning should be tested which can be the basis for a better program. Last September, four demonstration grants were awarded to test a new approach which gives community-based organizations greater control over the program and the work of volunteers by making these organizations rather than the universities the grantees. Among the groups funded to test this new approach are the National Conference of Black Mayors and ALCOR (Appalachian leadership and Community Outreach).

ACTION also seeks to continue its research concerning the development of national youth service. There is increasing interest in national service requirements. We believe ACTION has a responsible and constructive role to play in this growing debate. ACTION is one of the few federal agencies, other than the Defense Department, which has any experience with creating, managing, and evaluating programs that allow young people to volunteer to serve their country. Looked at in a different way, ACTION can be viewed as having the second largest volunteer army in the nation. ACTION is not starting from scratch.

We see this proposed study as the capstone of our efforts to prove young Americans, regardless of age, race, sex and economic background can be an asset to our Country. A recent Gallup poll indicates that 88% of all high school students would volunteer to serve their community if they were given credit for their activities. We believe this spirit of generosity and caring ought to be tapped. Our study will be based on our practical experience of having managed volunter programs that are both nationwide in scope and decentralized and locally based. Two of our programs: the Program for Local Service (PLS) which was tested in Washington State between 1973 and 1975 and our current demonstration program; and the Youth Community Service Program (YCS) in Syracuse, New York, were specifically designed to test the concept of national youth service.

We believe that more models need to be tested at both the local and state level so that Congress can be fully aware of the actual costs of such a program. Furthermore, we believe that any models which are tested should not be viewed as job training for the unemployed or as a remedial education program for the undereducated. ACTION's volunteer programs, the Peace Corps, VISTA, NSVP. and our Syracuse project, focus on the volunteer experience, and the essence of a national youth service should be that experience.

We are determined to manage all of ACTION's programs economically. We believe, as President Carter stated in his State of the Union message, that it is a myth "that we must choose between compassion and competence." Yet despite our record of achievement in bringing our programs back to life, there are those who question the need for them. They question the means we use and our objective of helping the poor.

Fighting poverty has never been popular. Even at its zenith, the Office of Economic Opportunity under Sargent Shriver was controversial. ACTION has recently been investigated by another House Committee and has responded fully. Let me briefly highlight some of the facts we reported to that committee:

For the first time in the history of ACTION the agency has an accounting system approved by the General Accounting Office;

ACTION's personnel practices which under the last administration were riddled with abuse, are now in full compliance with the Office of Personnel Management rules;

ACTION has put into operation one of the most stringent conflict of interest regulations in the federal government;

VISTA sponsors, for the first time, are being selected by competition and evaluated four times a year;

Greater support is being provided our volunteers. The living allowance of VISTA volunteers has been increased from an average of $295 per month to $317. This year we are proposing to increase the stipend for our older American volunteers in our FGP and SCP programs from $1.60 to $1.80.

I came to ACTION two years ago and found an agency that was demoralized and ready to die. Today ACTION is innovative and growing. We would like to continue the progress we have made; improving our management; supporting our volunteers; helping those who help themselves and their neighbors. We are determined not to lose sight of the larger issues which confront our society-poverty persists and the poor continue to be stereotyped as people who are unwilling to help themselves. It is not so.

The poor are the most self-reliant people in America. That they survive is a credit to their tenacity and will to better themselves. ACTION's programs respond to that tenacity and their commitment to better themselves.

Like all Americans, the poor care about the well being of others. The love and earing given by poor older Americans who participated in our three programsRSVP, FGP and SCP-is evidence of the tremendous willingness of those who have little to persist in helping those who have less.

Like all Americans, the poor seek dignity. VISTA provides poor people with the opportunity and the assistance they need to work with their neighbors to gain the measure of dignity that comes from being self-reliant.

Like all Americans, the poor want to make that effort which is a credit to them, their neighbors and our society. ACTION's Urban Volunteer Programs will help the poor to do just that.

And, like all Americans, the 273,000 vounteers who are part of our programs and the millions of people they serve seek the security of knowing that they have a positive role to play in the shaping of our society.

Many years ago, just after the Peace Corps was created, Pablo Casals, the famous cellist, made some comments about the Peace Corps. Even though he spoke of the Peace Corps his words go to the heart of what our domestic volunteer programs are all about. He stated:

"This is new and it is very old. We have a sense come full circle. We have come from the tyranny of the enormous, awesome, discordant machine back to a realization that the beginning and end are man, that it is man who accounts for growth, not just dollars or factories, and above all that it is man who is the object of all our efforts."

The authorization request presented to you today is a representation of this Administration's commitment to that end.

Mr. BROWN. Our budget request before you has four basic objectives: to continue our efforts to restore VISTA to the good health

which it once enjoyed by increasing the size and quality of the program: the size to 5,475 volunteers in fiscal year 1980, and the quality, principally through strengthening volunteer training.

To establish ACTION's new urban volunteer programs which, for the second year are being recommended and supported by the administration.

To change the legislative status of the national student volunteer program, the funding for and existence of which is contingent, in part, upon the continued funding of the University Year for ACTION.

The technical change we propose relating to NSVP will allow us to run that very fine program at the requested funding level while we reevaluate UYA, for which continued authorization but no appropriation is requested in fiscal year 1980.

Finally, to strengthen the functioning of the programs of our older American programs by providing greater assistance to local projects, and by increasing the stipend provided the volunteers who serve in the Senior Companion and Foster Grandparent programs, and by providing additional funding for transportation and supervision expenses.

In the VISTA program, we are asking for $37.4 million, which reflects the second phase of rebuilding VISTA. We hope that it will continue to put VISTA back on its feet.

VISTA volunteers are now reaching approximately 1 out of every 24 poor people in America. They recruit, on the average, 15 nonACTION volunteers for every VISTA volunteer assigned in the community, and they generate approximately $24,000 per volunteer in public and private resources. That is all for an average yearly expenditure of just over $6,000 per VISTA.

I know that some of the members of this subcommittee have seen some of the ways in which the VISTA volunteers work. I, too, have had the opportunity to see some of those programs, to see people rebuilding housing in neighborhoods long since given up on by the cities in which those neighborhoods exist, but where the tenacity and the will of the spirit of the people themselves, with a small bit of organizational glue from the VIŠTA volunteer can genuinely begin to rebuild a neighborhood.

Those volunteers and the poor people with whom they work reflect the best tradition of helping people help themselves to break out of the cycle of dependency and poverty.

They reflect, as well, a significant turning point in the attitude of many people in the communities of America, the reemergence of a spirit of self-reliance, a spirit of determination, a spirit of discipline, a spirit which provides the preconditions and the opportunity for people to lift themselves out of poverty.

As I see those programs. I am reminded of a statement made by Sargent Shriver 15 years ago: "Nothing is being handed out here, but the opportunity for people to help themselves." At its best, that is what VISTA is about.

We now have national standards for project selection which are uniformly applied. The national grants are competitively awarded.

Twenty percent of all VISTA programs focus on the needs of the elderly. Fifteen percent of VISTA volunteers are themselves elderly,

a break from the traditional stereotype of VISTA volunteer as the young graduate fresh out of college, and ready to change the world. While a great many of those people are still in VISTA, there are also people of older ages and mixed backgrounds serving as VISTA volunteers.

In 1980, we will provide better VISTA training.

We propose to provide 6 additional days of preservice training next year. In some cases, VISTA volunteers will receive 28 days of training in community development. And we will add 809 additional volunteer years of service to the program, providing a total of 5,475 VISTA volunteer years of service in fiscal year 1980.

Our second major goal is the creation of the urban programs including the Urban Volunteer Corps and the Good Neighbor Fund. Those programs are simple but effective in their conception and, we believe, in their application.

The design of the Urban Volunteer Corps is very straightforward. It provides an opportunity, a linkage mechanism for professional volunteers to work with low-income people in the communities where low income people live.

We know that the spirit is there in the professional community. We know that the needs are there in the poverty communities. What this program will provide is the linkage mechanism to hook the spirit, the ability and the good will together with the desperate needs that exist in poverty communities. Our urban programs are designed to help those people who want to stay in the cities, or who, by economic necessity, will stay in the cities over a period of time regardless of the patterns of migration that are now being discussed by urban theorists.

The urban program has, essentially, two components: The fixed income consumer counseling program would provide counseling to people on fixed incomes, principally, older people, and the technical and management assistance program which I discussed earlier will link professionals with the needs of poverty communities.

You will have a chance to talk to the people who are running model demonstrations of both the technical assistance program and the fixed income consumer counseling program during the course of the hearings.

The Good Neighbor Fund will provide small one-time grants to help make it possible for volunteer-based neighborhood groups to get off the ground.

The programs are antiinflationary. They generate far more resources in the community than the dollar expenditure of Federal funds. They are not bureaucratic, and they respond to the small but important needs in the community which citizen volunteers can effectively solve. They are very well tested. The management assistance program in Cincinnati is in its third year. The fixed income consumer counseling program demonstrations are now in their third year. The urban programs are inclusive, cutting across race and income lines, and they include the established political structure of the communities. They require, in each case, participation of the mayor in the project approval process.

Importantly, the urban programs are preventive. If we can prevent another South Bronx by early intervention, if we can help avoid