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-supplied several shops with crafts for tourist trade.

-managed to get Rocky Boy Yo-Yo's featured by an Ohio firm. -provided special quilt work for a client in California.

-made beaded ties for a New York outlet.

The Indian women have become very versatile. They can copy lodge insignia and brands, and make rug designs. They enjoy expanding their craft to serve their customers' needs, as well as providing traditional Indian crafts. Moreover, their cooperative is financially solvent and they look forward to expanding their business.

Agents assist CAP's

In addition to the Indian cooperative, Mrs. Clack and Extension Agent R. A. Roush also are helping with several CAP projects. Under the Nelson amendment, 18 Indian women were trained and employed to make dolls and quilts. The dolls were sold to purchase materials for the quilts which, in turn, are donated to needy elderly people.

Mrs. Clack and Mr. Roush also conducted weekly training meetings over a six-month period for both Indian men and women employed under Nelson amendment funds and for NYC enrollees. This training ranged all the way from developing job skills to teaching money management, health, sanitation, nutrition, grooming and other personal habits.

The latest project which the Rocky Boy Indians are trying to develop with Extension and OEO assistance is a pole furniture and upholstering industry. Some 30 women already are enrolled in training classes in preparation for launching this industry.

Any reader of Rural Opportunities who wishes to purchase Indian crafts from the Chippewa-Cree Craft Guild or who would like to serve as a sales outlet should write to the Guild in care of Box 707, Havre, Montana 59501.

[From Rural Opportunities, April 1967]

FARMERS LEARN THROUGH DEMONSTRATIONS

Alabama's Cooperative Extension Service (District 11) took a "grassroots" approach in solving low-income family problems. Made up of 17 counties in southeast Alabama, the area is known as the Wiregrass Area and the principal crops are peanuts, cotton and livestock. Extension staffs conducted 256 lowincome demonstrations during 1966. The demonstrations were kept simple and the emphasis was on increasing farm income and home food supply.

There were garden, corn, peanut, cotton and home meat supply demonstrations set up for the family units. One county took up commercial cucumber growing. The aim of the demonstrations was to show by example the value of those methods that would increase production, income and home food supply. Assisting low-income families was designated the top priority item in the 1966 Extension program. County agents made regular visits to the low-income farmers and kept a record of their progress.

One of the most pleased demonstrators is George Rogers of Ozark, Alabama. Rogers had almost a complete crop failure in 1965. He made only 14 tons of peanuts on 50 acres-about one-third of the county's average yield. This year, through the help of the Extension Agent, he almost tripled his 1965 yields and sold 23 tons from a planted acreage of 32.

"Extension has been the difference," says Rogers, "operating money until my crops were harvested . . . coming by and reminding me of jobs that needed to be done. . . advising me on taking soil samples, planting dates, insect control and how and when to cultivate. I'm going to pay off my debts this year." What about Rogers' neighbors? "They've watched my operation all year," reports Rogers, "and everyone of them says he is going to try to do the things I did to up his yields and income."

A Bullock County family of 11 received help from Extension and had good success increasing its food supply.

Mrs. Nettie B. Robbins knew she had to do some planning to properly feed her 10 children. Advice from the Extension Home Agent helped her decide the size garden she needed and size laying flock to supply enough eggs for eating and baking. "We ate about 500 pounds of fresh vegetables and put over 500 quarts in our freezer," says Mrs. Robbins. "This was a saving of over $500 for us."

"I'm well satisfied with our program in District 11," says District Extension Chairman J. C. Bullington. "We plan to expand next year by taking in more families and using this year's demonstrators as leaders in their respective communities.

"There is no doubt in my mind but that this program is going to spill over into hundreds of families and create better living conditions, and improve the State's economy and educational level in the process."

FREE BUS WILL BRING ELDERLY FOLKS TO CENTER

A free bus for elderly people in the Windham Area of Connecticut will make it possible for rural folks to enjoy the special services of a new CAA-sponsored Senior Citizens Center in Willimantic.

The Windham Area Community Action Program is the first CAA in Connecticut to get a grant from the State Commission on Services to Elderly Persons for a senior citizens center. The community is making a $16,200 "in kind" contribution to match the Commission's $27,700 grant.

Free daily bus service throughout a ten-town area will enable rural people to participate in the Center's activities, as well as get to medical and dental care, to shops, and to the homes of their friends and relatives.

The center will be open five days a week. Among its services will be an information and referral center, social activities, and a senior citizen employment center. Geraldine Novotny, a gerontology specialist at the University of Connecticut, is director of the new center.

The Windham CAA recently merged with the neighboring Quinebaug Valley Action Committee. The new CAA, covering 20 towns, will retain the WACAP title. William Olds is the executive director of the agency.

Mr. RESNICK. Thank you very much. I would like to thank you gentlemen again for appearing here today.

The hearings will ajourn now until tomorrow morning at 9:30 o'clock, and at that time the witnesses will be the Honorable Robert Wood, Under Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Dan Rubenstein, executive director, Seasonal Employees in Agriculture, and Mortimer B. Doyle, executive vice president, National Forest Products Association.

(Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 20, 1967.)

EFFECT OF FEDERAL PROGRAMS ON RURAL AMERICA

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1967

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:35 a.m., in room 1302, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Joseph Y. Resnick (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Resnick, Montgomery, Goodling, Mathias, and Zwach.

Also present: Martha Hannah, subcommittee clerk.

Mr. RESNICK. The hearing will now come to order.

Our first witness is the Honorable Robert C. Wood, Under Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

You are welcome, Mr. Secretary.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT C. WOOD, UNDER SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. WOOD. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, it is an honor and a welcomed opportunity to appear before you to discuss the programs and plans of the Department of Housing and Urban Development as they relate to the rural communities of our country.

At the outset, let me make it clear that while the word "Urban" in the name of our Department may imply to some that the Department serves only cities and metropolitan areas, this is not true. The key mission is community assistance.

The act establishing HUD states specifically that one of the functions of the Department is to encourage the solution of problems of housing, urban development, and mass transportation through State, county, town, village, or other local and private action.

A special provision was added to that act by the Congress designed to assure that small communities would be served by the Department. It states that nothing in the act shall be construed to deny or limit the benefits of any program, function or activity of the Department to any community on the basis of its population or corporate status, except as may be expressly provided by law.

The Secretary is also specifically directed to provide technical assistance and information to towns and villages, as well as other local governments.

Accordingly, the administration of the Department's programs is based on three foundations:

That HUD programs are available to small as well as large communities;

That rural communities have bright opportunities today for new direction of growth; and

That this Department recognizes the critical importance of rural community development and is actively seeking to assist these communities to participate fully in future growth.

It is appropriate that this subcommittee focus special attention on the problems and needs of "rural" communities as distinguished from "small" communities in general. Rural communities have unique features that must be identified so that programs may be designed and administered to meet their specific needs. This is true even though most small communities share many like problems-many similar limitations on their ability to solve these problems-and many of the same characteristics of government form and administration.

The challenges being faced by rural communities today, in the broadest and most fundamental sense, are being generated by the same forces that have contributed to our rapid urbanization and the problems accompanying that process. The plight of rural communities and the urban explosion are simply two sides of the same coin. But, rather than the problems of growth, which if properly planned and channeled are at root "happy" problems, a great many rural communities now face the "unhappy" problems of declining economies, or, of preserving marginal or static economies. The considerable investment made in these communities is in jeopardy, as is the satisfying way of life millions of Americans have built for themselves and their children in homes and towns they love. As Secretary Weaver said before the House Select Committee on Small Business last March:

The increasing concentrations of population in the great metropolitan centers is a phenomenon being experienced by all the nations of the world—from the most advanced to the most backward. Whatever our feelings may be about this trend, there is no available evidence to indicate that it is reversible. However, to accept this trend passively as indicating the demise of the smaller community would be sheer folly and indicate a failure of national will and capacity.

The rural trade center suffers not only from the loss of farm population to the large urban areas. Those losses are compounded by the same automobile that made urban sprawl possible. A farmer is now apt to use his car or pickup truck for a 100-mile round trip on his new interstate system to do the weekly shopping and seek family entertainment. The already hard-hit rural community businesses again suffer loss of patronage.

We believe that our smaller communities are desirable places to live and work and must be preserved and encouraged. The resources of the Department of Housing and Urban Development are not being, and will not be, skimped when it comes to the provision of assistance to our small towns. Let me identify some of the key HUD programs and their use by small communities.

First, let me make clear that, for the most part, the figures I will be giving you focus on "small" communities, not just rural communities. Most of the statistics available are in terms of communities under 50,000. I wish I could distinguish for you in all cases between the communities in the urban "growth" areas, or those in the path of that

growth, and the rural communities that are not in the foreseeable path of that growth and must survive and sustain themselves on their own efforts and merits. Although HUD programs are accessible to each type equally, there are important differences between them in terms of their program needs.

Our present data do not permit us to make such distinctions. This is one of the important reasons the appropriation request for the Department sought funds for a more adequate research program. We need to be able to make distinctions of this kind and to identify program needs by type of community with more precision than population-size categories now permit.

Mr. RESNICK. Do you not think at this time that is being broken out?

Mr. WOOD. I do, indeed.

Mr. RESNICK. I say that so that we know just what is happening to rural America.

Mr. WOOD. We now have the basic knowledge which we have received in the last two censuses which has not been available up to now to make distinctions between particular kinds of rural communities and their individual problems.

The Department's predecessor agency had some $400,000 appropriated each year for reporting of census data on particular community housing needs. This was the total investment this Nation made finding out the difference between the needs and the resources of these communities. This year, the House Appropriations Committee recommended, and the House has authorized, an increase of up to $5 million to give us enough help to begin to go into the subject.

We are dealing with critical and extremely sensitive concerns. We need to work with a fine scalpel rather than the often crude tools now available.

The 701 urban planning assistance program has had, from its inception in 1954, a major responsibility to assist smaller communities through State planning agencies using a combination of Federal, fessional planners to make inventories of their resources, and evaluaState, and local resources, the participating communities can use protions and projections of their economic base. It is only on the basis of such facts that a small community can make rational decisions about what it must do to preserve itself and find a vital continuing role in contemporary America. Small communities across the Nation have come to understand:

That "planning" is not an esoteric process or a dirty word;

That planning is a "nuts and bolts" approach which is necessary for survival.

Although the present demand for such funds fortunately far exceeds our capacity to supply them, the record is impressive:

Assistance has been provided since 1954 to 5,400 communities of under 50,000 population;

In the last fiscal year over $13,600,000, or 40 percent, of the 701 appropriations were used to help more than 400 localities, most of which had populations of under 50,000.

In 1967 it is estimated that around $14 million will be directed to communities and counties under 50,000 population.

82-388-67-26

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