ABSTRACT
The Center for Employment Opportunities runs a work program for ex-offenders. This program, hugely expensive in comparison with other employment programs, failed to get people working because it was a transitional "make work" program. But nongovernmental programs rarely did any better. By their nature, many of these organizations, new to running poverty programs, were inferior to the existing ones. According to a report by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau of Wisconsin, a single parent with one child earning the poverty level salary for a family of two can almost triple his household income through state aid and poverty programs. The most significant private solution was the Manpower Development Research Corp (MDRC), initiated by the Ford Foundation. It was one of a few "intermediaries" established to broker public and foundation funds for urban programs and to evaluate them. Community Development Corporations (CDCs) were created in order to manage the process.
