Chairman OWENS. I yield to Congressman Bartlett for an opening statement.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have looked forward to this hearing for some time. This is a double-sided hearing, if you will. It is both a good news hearing of an oversight hearing, a celebration of the successes of VISTA for the past 25 years and it is also the opening hearing, if you will, towards the reauthorization of VISTA during this session of Congress.

In a sense, this is a hearing that is first about a celebration in which we think about, talk about and articulate to one another and to the public the positive impacts that VISTA volunteers have had on the lives of Americans around this country, throughout the country, the positive impacts VISTA volunteers have had on millions of individuals, through VISTA volunteers' work in literacy, in drug and alcohol abuse, in working with the homeless and in so many other areas.

VISTA, during the course of that 25 years, has not been without controversy, particularly during the early days, and I think that is probably as it should be. No concept that is worthwhile, as this one is, can be started, I think, and do good things and change the status quo and make improvements in society without some element of controversy in seeking to find just the right set of solutions and approach.

Most of that controversy, it seems to me, is behind us at this point as we look at the next 25 years of VISTA. We have learned, across the system, and we have learned how VISTA volunteers can access the system that is still a grass roots organization, and it seems to me it must remain so.

The goal of VISTA is still to mobilize existing community resources who exist in a community for action to help the lives of people and to instigate and create new sets of resources to bring to bear on lives of people.

This is secondly a reauthorization hearing and, this hearing acknowledges that this year, Congress will-and should, I believereauthorize VISTA. In the context of that, I know that the witnesses will also give their considered opinion on the issues before us for the next reauthorization to look forward to the next 25 years.

The witnesses will help us to address the questions of what elements of VISTA are essential that we keep in place and, indeed, even strengthen, and what improvements you would recommend we make for reauthorization.

As we do that, I would hope that the witnesses would comment on how today's VISTA volunteers and tomorrow's VISTA volunteers, in fact, can be made even more increasingly effective in the lives of people who need help in this country. I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman OWENS. Thank you.

I yield to Mr. Payne for an opening statement.

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It is a pleasure to be here this morning; unfortunately, I have a conflict and I will have to leave, but hopefully will be able to

return.

I would just like to say that, in my opinion, this is one of the most important organizations and programs that we have. We have heard, during the past eight years, that we are in an era of prosperity, that people are doing well, that business is booming and that we have prosperity at home.

Of course, it is all foreign investment, but that is all right. They say it creates jobs. But, as Mario Cuomo very eloquently spoke about, several weeks ago, it is still A Tale of Two Cities. The one that the administration over the past eight years talked about was so nice and sweet and good and positive.

Then, there is that other city where you have a lot of hopelessness and despair. You have a lot of hungry people and homeless. You have disease. You have the need for VISTA people. I think it is one of the most important agencies around.

I not only support reauthorization, but I would hope that we could even expand the amount of funds that this "kinder and gentler" administration will see. It is just a pleasure to be here and I look forward to participating in these hearings.

Chairman OWENS. Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Are there any other members with opening statements? Yes, Mr. Martinez?

Mr. MARTINEZ. This is not exactly an opening statement, but I would like to make a couple of comments. I am looking forward to this hearing for several reasons. One is that I believe, like you, that VISTA has done a great job but maybe not enough of a job.

The problem is, as Mr. Cuomo referred to, two different worlds. There is one world that we live in as we see it from our personal experiences and then, there is another world of reality, of the people who are actually experiencing it and see it.

As I have travelled around the country visiting Job Corps centers and Conservation Corps centers, I have become aware that there is still a lot of unmet need out there. The fact that VISTA is not better known is an indication not of a failure to do a job, but a failure to do a job sufficiently to cover all the need.

There is evidence that there are a lot more needs out there. This is evident in the fact that most of the urban centers have now started what are called local Job Conservation Corps. This, through local government efforts and a lot of private support helps to meet a lot of those unmet needs. In the process, a lot of young people are helped to meet their needs, needs of literacy, job training, job ethics.

I think that there has to be a coming together of all of these programs, to really reach out as far as we possibly can. Those of us that are involved in those particular programs that are having a certain amount of success and like to believe that we are really providing the complete answers to these problems. We are not.

I do not know that they really do believe that completely. I do not even know if they believe they are making sufficient in-roads. But the fact remains that we are not making sufficient in-roads into the problems that do exist out there. We need to provide a greater and a more comprehensive plan.

In that, I am heartened by the fact, as referred to earlier, that the President in his speech spoke of a kinder and gentler America. In a kinder and gentler America, those that have provide for those

that have not-so that those that have not can provide for themselves and become self sufficient and not be a liability, but an asset, to us.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman OWENS. Thank you, Mr. Martinez.

Mr. Mfume?

Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, I just briefly want to thank you for convening this hearing. Obviously, most of us here think that it is extremely important.

As you know, I am not a member of this subcommittee, but I have a deep and abiding affection for Volunteers in Service to America and, particularly, the commemoration of their 25th anniversary.

I will be leaving and coming back, if it pleases the Chair, at least. Secretary Brady is appearing before my Banking Committee in about ten minutes, so I am going to try, as best I can, to be in two places at one time for the next couple of hours.

I, like my colleagues, simply want to echo my support for reauthorization and really for expansion of what you refer to in your opening remarks as a great American idea. It is something that all of us in this country can and should feel proud of. I want to commend those who worked so diligently, who will be on all three panels to give testimony this morning.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I simply want to congratulate you for convening us here today for what I consider to be a very important purpose.

Chairman OWENS. Thank you.

Mr. Smith?

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say, as a newcomer to the United States Congress, I come from a small university in Vermont where we, having listened carefully to Father Theodore Hesberg and a number of other leaders, lay and otherwise, in this country, a year and a half ago, began a program at the university directed at the Peace Corps.

There is absolutely no reason why it cannot and should not be extended to VISTA and other kinds of programs. It links the questions of training and preparation and volunteerism and the ability to pay, frankly, for a post secondary education and the inability of many people to pay for a post-secondary education, by establishing something which is analogous to reserve officer training in the upper two years, but saying that you can train, instead of for the military, you can train for service in this country or outside of the country.

You can help pay for your college education and, at the same time, receive the preparation culturally, experientially and intellectually that allows you to be successful. I know in the beginning my background is experiential education-that there is a problem and there have been problems in many of our applied volunteer programs with burn-out and inadequate preparation.

I have this particular interest of how can they harness the need for people to figure out how to pay for a post-secondary education, the need for this society to become more committed to volunteer service in communities or in the global community and how we can

harness those two things-bring higher education to the table, serve communities, and let your institutions serve students better. If this panel and other panels were able to have that in the back of their minds as they testify, it is the particular interest that I have that I think takes us beyond the question of reauthorization, quite frankly, to how can we look at what we have learned, build on what we have learned, and make this program even better in the next 25 years.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman OWENS. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Jontz?

Mr. JONTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to take just a few seconds to associate myself with your remarks and the remarks of our minority leader in this committee, and to express in advance my appreciation to the witnesses for coming today to share their experience and views.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your leadership in convening this hearing and drawing our attention to this very important 25th anniversary and the challenges which lie ahead of us. Thank you. Chairman OWENS. Thank you.

For our first panel on the 25th anniversary of the VISTA Program, I am pleased to welcome a number of veteran participants and administrators. Senator John D. Rockefeller was to be a member of this panel, but he has notified us that he will be arriving a little later.

Judge James Rosenbaum, the U.S. District Court, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mr. Jeff Newman, the Executive Director, National Child Labor Committee; Ms. Tricia Rubacky; Ms. Molly Burney, PLAN Learning Center, Washington; Ms. Rebecca Betz, Peninsula Literacy Council, Hampton, Virginia; and, Mr. Hyman Bookbinder, who was scheduled for a later panel but has some time problems, so he has been moved to this panel.

I welcome all of you and we will begin with Judge James Rosenbaum.

STATEMENTS OF JUDGE JAMES ROSENBAUM, U.S. DISTRICT COURT, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA; JEFFREY F. NEWMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE; PATRICIA RUBACKY; MOLLY BURNEY; PLAN LEARNING CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.; REBECCA BETZ, PENINSULA LITERACY COUNCIL, HAMPTON, VIRGINIA; AND, HYMAN BOOKBINDER, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

Judge ROSENBAUM. Good morning. I am not very well recovering from a cold.

Thank you, Congressman Owens and thank you, Congressman Bartlett and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here this morning.

As you heard, my name is James Rosenbaum. I am a United States District Judge and I sit in the State of Minnesota. I was a VISTA volunteer almost twenty years ago from 1969 to 1970 and I served in the City of Chicago.

It was a unique and a most valuable opportunity for me personally, and I want to talk a little about my experiences and a little about some of my observations, if I may be so lucky. First of all, I was right straight out of law school. I was a product of St. Paul public schools and Minnesota University and Law School.

After some of the administrative mess ups, which I have become used to when I went further in my government service, I was placed in the City of Chicago. I was placed at an organization called the Leadership Council.

The name of the organization is actually Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. It was a product of Dr. Martin Luther King's open housing marches in Chicago and in the western suburbs.

For those of us who are a little older than some of my fellow panel members, perhaps the same age as some of the Members of Congress, in that time when the thought of actual integration impinged upon the not only predominantly, but absolutely white neighborhoods surrounding Chicago, very great urban strife broke

out.

There was rioting. There were problems. People were hit and hurt by flying objects, a number of problems. At that time, a group was convened which became the Leadership Council. Interestingly, that organization is still there. I believe that last Sunday, as a matter of fact, there was a small piece on them on Sixty Minutes. That organization was dedicated and worked toward open housing, really on a one-to-one basis, by bringing individual lawsuits on behalf of individuals who had been denied or deprived housing opportunities, either for purchase or for rental.

When I first came there in 1969, I was the first lawyer there, although someone else had been called and there had been successive lawyers, and as many as three or four at a time. That gave me an opportunity to appear in the Federal District Courts of Chicago.

We really did two things: We represented our own clients, but at the same time we, I think to a large extent, educated that same Court about some of the problems. Other individuals have been proceeding in there and have been generally quite successful in their cases.

Like most other VISTAS, I involved myself in other kinds of things besides the regular program which was a part of the VISTA Program. In the housing projects-and I lived in the housing projects in Chicago for a year. For those of you who have visited there, it is an astounding experience.

Chicago's housing projects are in a number of areas around the town. The one that I lived in was the northernmost of a strip of housing projects that ran down State Street along the Dan Ryan Freeway, if you know where it is, from about 22nd and State down to about 55th and State. It is all public housing, top to bottom, north to south.

In the project in which I lived, I set up a legal aid clinic which operated every single Monday night for the time that I was there and then the two years after my VISTA service while I remained in Chicago. With some other friends of mine, we staffed that. In addition, other friends of mine who were accountants set up a program where we did tax preparation.