Section 11-96-5 Community Action Program Defined; Components of Program; Administration.
This provision defines a community action program and describes what it must include and how it may be administered.
(a) A community action program is a community-based and -operated program which: (1) Includes or is designated to include a sufficient number of projects of components to provide, in sum, a range of services and activities having a measurable and potentially major impact on causes of poverty in the community or those areas of the community where poverty is a particularly acute problem; (2) Has been developed, and which organizes and combines its component projects and activities, in a manner appropriate to carry out all the purposes of Sections 11-96-2 and 11-96-4; and (3) Conforms to any other supplementary criteria as may be prescribed by federal or state laws or regulations. (b) The components of a community action program may include programs designated to assist participants, including the elderly poor, to: (1) Secure and retain meaningful employment; (2) Attain an adequate education; (3) Make better use of available income; (4) Obtain and maintain adequate housing and a suitable living environment; (5) Obtain emergency assistance through loans or grants to meet immediate and urgent individual and family needs, including the need for health services, nutritious food, housing, employment, and energy related assistance; (6) Remove obstacles and solve problems which block the achievement of self-sufficiency; (7) Achieve greater participation in the affairs of the community; and, (8) Make more frequent and effective use of other programs related to the purposes of Sections 11-96-2 and 11-96-4. (c) Components of a community action program may be administered by the community action agency when consistent with sound and efficient management and applicable law, or by other agencies. There may be projects eligible for assistance under Section 11-96-2, or projects assisted from other public or private sources; and they may be either specially designed to meet local needs or designed pursuant to the eligibility standards of a state or federal program providing assistance to a particular kind of activity which will help in meeting those needs.