Originally funded through community-based block grants, the Community Action Programs actually cut poverty rates in half during the first 10 years. Locally, Dr. Bud Evans started the regional revolving loan fund through the Region 9 CAP, and it’s still going. It was also used as a model throughout the U.S. Once given a chance, poor folks could borrow money to either fix their house up or build a new one. And they were good about paying it back, too.

Names like Lynn Shine, Rand Kennedy, Thom Hart, Formwalt, Schutz, Deering, Scott, Romero and Valencia are well known to folks who have lived here for a while. In Ignacio, Chairman Leonard Burch and his CEO Eugene Naranjo shared Tribal Head Start funding and opened the doors to all preschoolers – didn’t matter if you were Native American, Hispanic or white. They called it the “good neighbor policy,” and folks – like Peg Richards, Donna Young, Harry Pearson, Emma Shock; names like Layton, Lansing, Cook, Frost, Buckskin – all pulled together, and SUCAP has set a high bar in community services for almost 50 years.

Failure? Maybe. There were mistakes made, and Congress and its bureaucrats could fill up a warehouse with all the rules and regulations they came up with. Some of the folks I mentioned aren’t with us now, but they cared about the poor and did their part. It’s a good thing to be a “good neighbor.”

Paul Rogers

Durango