(a)
Eligible activities for which financial assistance may be obtained pursuant to this chapter shall be designed to have 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. These activities shall be designed to assist low-income participants to do all the following:
(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 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 that block the achievement of self-sufficiency.
(7)
Achieve greater participation in the affairs of the community.
(8)
Address the needs of youth in low-income
communities.
(9)
Make more effective use of other programs related to the purposes of this chapter.
(b)
Additionally, activities shall be designed to do all of the following:
(1)
Provide on an emergency basis for the provision of the supplies and services, nutritious foodstuffs, and related services, as may be necessary to counteract conditions of starvation and malnutrition among the poor.
(2)
Coordinate and establish linkages between governmental and other social services programs to assure the effective delivery of those services to low-income individuals.
(3)
Encourage the use of entities in the private sector of the community in efforts to ameliorate poverty in the community.
(c)
Each eligible entity shall, through the local planning process, select and propose for funding the programs or projects that, in its judgment, will produce the maximum impact on its community.
(d)
Entities eligible for funding under Article 9 (commencing with Section 12775) are limited purpose agencies that need not respond to the broad range of eligible activities but may provide specialized training, technical assistance and support services to enhance the effectiveness of community action programs, migrant and seasonal farmworker programs, and American Indian programs.
(e)
The department may prescribe statewide priorities among eligible activities or strategies that shall be considered and addressed in the local planning process and described in the community action plan submitted to the state. Each eligible
entity shall be authorized to set its own program priorities in conformance to its own determination of local needs.
(f)
If no other entity in the community provides those services, eligible entities under Article 6 (commencing with Section 12750), Article 7 (commencing with Section 12765), or Article 8 (commencing with Section 12770) shall provide a minimum level of services to help the poor receive the benefits for which they are eligible under health, food, income, and housing assistance programs designed to meet the basic survival needs of the poor. These services shall include, but shall not be limited to, all of the following:
(1)
A service to help the poor complete the various required application forms, and, when necessary and possible, to help them gather verification of the contents of completed applications.
(2)
A service to explain program requirements and client responsibilities in programs serving the poor.
(3)
A service to provide transportation, when necessary and possible.
(4)
A service that does all things necessary to make the programs accessible to the poor, so that they may become self-sufficient.
(g)
Standards of effectiveness to be addressed and attained in setting goals and assessing accomplishments are:
(1)
Strengthened community capabilities for planning and coordinating so as to insure that available assistance related to the elimination of poverty can be more responsive to local needs and conditions.
(2)
Better organization of services related to the needs of the
poor.
(3)
Maximum feasible participation of the poor in the development and implementation of all programs and projects designed to serve the poor.
(4)
Broadened resource base of programs directed to the elimination of poverty so as to include all elements of the community able to influence the quality and quantity of services to the poor.
(5)
Greater use of new types of services and innovative approaches in attacking causes of poverty, so as to develop increasingly effective methods of employing available resources.
(6)
Maximum employment opportunity, including opportunity for further occupational training and career development for residents of the area and members of the groups served.
(7)
Those programmatic and fiscal standards set by the department through regulation that are necessary to enable the department to demonstrate the assurances and certifications it makes to the secretary in the state plan.
(h)
In administering the California Community Services Block Grant Program, the department shall enforce all the programmatic and fiscal requirements and standards of effectiveness provided by this chapter, except that no eligible entity shall be determined to be out of compliance with programmatic or fiscal requirements established by the department until those requirements and standards are published for review and comment by the eligible entities and until eligible entities are afforded a reasonable opportunity to comply therewith.