Community-Focused Assistance & Development

Community Services Block Grants (CSBG) provide federal funds to states, territories, and tribes for distribution to local agencies to support a wide range of community-based activities to reduce poverty. Smaller related programsCommunity Economic Development (CED), Rural Community Facilities (RCF), and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)also support antipoverty efforts. CSBG and some of these related activities trace their roots to the War on Poverty, launched more than 50 years ago in 1964. Today, they are administered at the federal level by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This book provides information on the CSBG; describes several smaller related programs that are administered by the same federal office that currently oversees the CSBG; discusses a proposal pending in Congress to reauthorize CSBG and related activities; summarizes a new "Upward Mobility Project" initiative of the Obama Administration; and discusses current and recent funding activities affecting the CSBG. Furthermore, this book describes the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund's (CDFI Fund) history, current appropriations, and each of its programs; and informs the congressional debate concerning the Community Reinvestment Act's (CRA) effectiveness in incentivising bank lending and investment activity to low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers.