Each community action agency shall use available funds for a community action program which:

A. provides a range of services and activities which have a measurable and potentially major impact on causes of poverty in the community;

B. provides activities designed to assist low-income 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) provide 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 and employment-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 effective use of other programs related to the purposes of the Community Action Act;

C. provides on an emergency basis for the provision of such supplies and services, nutritious food and related services as may be necessary to counteract conditions of starvation and malnutrition among the poor;

D. coordinates and establishes linkages between governmental and other social services programs to assure the effective delivery of such services to low-income individuals;

E. encourages the use of entities in the private sector of the community in efforts to alleviate poverty in the community; and

F. furthers any other purpose consistent with federal or state law or regulations.

History: Laws 1983, ch. 139, § 7.