Local Human Services At Risk – Community Action Vital
Despite decades of bipartisan support, the White House has proposed eliminating the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG). If Congress follows through on this proposal, Kentuckians will suffer.
CSBG allows Community Action Agencies to do their job and improve the economic standing and mobility of Kentuckians. There are 23 Community Action Agencies in Kentucky and more than 1,000 nationwide.
If you haven’t heard of us, it’s probably because you’ve never needed us, but tens of thousands of Kentuckians come to us every year for community-based employment, education, housing, health, or emergency services. The economic mobility and national prosperity we’re building are under threat.
In the last discretionary budget, the total national budget for CSBG was $770 million—far less than a tenth of a single percent of overall spending. Kentucky’s share was $12.7 million, and my agency, Community Action Council for Lexington-Fayette, Bourbon, Harrison, and Nicholas Counties, received a little over $726,000.
At the Council, we work alongside around 20,000 of our neighbors each year, which means we receive roughly $36 per person per year in CSBG dollars to deliver thousands upon thousands of individual services, and we do just that.
How? We use CSBG to streamline our behind-the-scenes needs and maximize our ability to bring other funding into our communities. We conduct community needs assessments to hear directly from our communities about their needs and concerns. We rely on the leadership of the people and communities actually being served.
We are a local agency—run by local people—that takes a relatively small amount of money and leverages it into more resources to carry out the goals that local people have set for us. In fact, every CSBG dollar we receive turns into $28 through our ability to leverage other funding. We take our $726k CSBG allotment and turn it into over $20.6 million of services through federal, state, and local leveraging.
CSBG is what allows us to provide wrap-around services, like our budgeting and financial planning program, to Head Start families and other working parents. CSBG allows us to provide career training, like our CDL program, for in-demand fields. CSBG is one of the ways we ensure that when someone moves out of homelessness, they are able to remain stable and independent.
CSBG is not a federal handout — it is a community-driven initiative that upholds self-reliance, personal responsibility, and economic freedom. CSBG allows us to bring our tax dollars back home and make our communities stronger.
We are grateful to Representatives James Comer and Morgan McGarvey for signaling their desire to keep our communities moving toward prosperity by signing a letter of support for CSBG to their colleagues in the House. We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Representative Hal Rogers, who has co-sponsored bill H.R. 3131 to reauthorize CSBG, for making the commitment to bring our tax dollars back home to Kentucky.
Join us in helping our other congressional representatives understand that we work with you and for you. Let them know that Community Action is critical action. Ask them to protect CSBG.
Follow Community Action Council on social media during the month of August for updates.