When a window of opportunity meets a core response group, it’s time to assess those factors that would be stumbling blocks to making things happen.

The window of opportunity will happen during this legislative session when welfare reform escalates as a primary issue facing lawmakers in Augusta. The core response group is W-HCA, Down East Maine’s veteran community action agency.

Because Maine will have more funds to spend this year and next, plus more discretion in spending, it faces a golden opportunity to shape and fine-tune welfare policy. W-HCA, an old soldier with a 30-year proven track record of results, is in the catbird seat for making things happen. Everyone agrees that welfare reform requires an organized aggressive effort to get people off welfare. However, the present system offers no incentive to steer the poor into the work force. W-HCA, however, has been steering people into the work force for years.

The agency, in its inception a conduit for job training and counseling, years ago moved into granting small business loans, then into partnerships with banks to broaden its lending base. Dozens of small businesses owe their existence to W-HCA. Currently, realizing that follow-up contact is needed, W-HCA is prepared to continue to support such fledgling businesses with networking advice until they are well beyond the start-up stage.

Recognizing that towns have special needs and may lack in specific areas, the Down East agency has reached out to communities, inquiring of their needs, what skills they seek in potential workers, what talents they would seek to bolster their town structure and strengthen their work base. Partnerships with banks was only a beginning. Further partnerships with schools, churches and towns is only good business. To determine needs and tailor its response accordingly is what W-HCA is all about.

Born under the years of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, the concept of community action has developed into an umbrella of programs, of caring that embraces many services. In its national beginning, tree plantings and community betterment provided the crux of much that was offered. But in Down East Maine, where the realities of life are grim for many, proffered services have generally focused on food and shelter.

There are 1100 community action agencies across the nation, 11 in the state of Maine. But the inherent differences lie in the struggle of the great differences between rural and urban areas. In Down East Maine, W-HCA provides services often not found under the auspices of any other organization. The elderly, the disabled, and families with children under two are priorities of W-HCA in many of its programs.

“Help me to help myself” is the contemporary by-word of the agency, lending credence to the prevalent belief that to break generations of their welfare orientation is the way to go. While W-HCA has always provided a lifeline to the needy in troubled times, it stands alone in its ability to adapt and creatively respond to these changing times.

Last year when its funding was seriously threatened staff members traveled posthaste to Augusta where all day long every scrap of paper was requested was produced. When this sojourn ended, it was back to Milbridge to await the verdict. Through recent transportation cuts and diminishing federal dollars and fuel monies diverted to other states, W-HCA has persevered, often among voiced misconceptions that illustrate that a goodly portion of the population doesn’t understand what it’s all about.

W-HCA is about people helping people help themselves. It is not about handouts and free rides. It is about educating and instilling pride of ownership. There seems to be a growing inclination to blame people for their poverty. To persecute people because they can’t pay their way. Yet never have there been so many individuals so close to the financial edge of ruination. A divorce, an illness, one less-than-good business decision and they’d be there — and this number of individuals on the brink of disaster is growing.

Thirty years ago when 124 people organized to combat poverty in Washington County, there was no escalating number of people on the brink of disaster. There was instead a static population of the poor and underprivileged. A low-cost medicine plan, work programs and financial assistance provided the initial focus of the Washington County Regional Action Agency, eventually known as W-HCA.

Housing projects, Head Start, winterizing homes for the disabled and the elderly, and job training gradually became a big part of the agency’s response to community needs. However, the 1990s signalled a decade of even greater need. Food pantries, Job Start loans, microbusinesses, and the Downeast Homebuilders Association marked more impressive beginnings, with W-HCA requesting $73,851 from 82 communities.

By 1991 the agency tallied between 500 and 600 calls daily seeking heat. In 1993 “a dream home” was completed by high school students. Three were built, selling for $500 down and financed by state housing loans at six percent. Encouraged by the response to this community effort, that same year groundbreaking started for six families building six self-help homes. And now, in 1997 W-HCA has its finger on the pulse of the community once again, recognizing today’s most pressing need, which is jobs.

Jobs and job training will remain the pivotal focus in the years ahead. However, any assessment of W-HCA must hinge primarily on its benchmark accomplishments in the Down East housing market. In 1996, the agency passed the $1,000,000 mark in loans. W-HCA has helped 146 families either rehabilitate or become proud homeowners — a major accomplishment in Down East Maine, where the majority of these homeowners have family incomes not exceeding $12,000. These are not handouts, but bona fide home mortgages. Equally impressive is the effectiveness of the agency’s Fix-Me loan program — a home-repair loan vehicle which this year boasted an impressive delinquency rate of 2.27 percent.

In looking at helping the poor and less fortunate, Maine legislators have an unprecedented opportunity to make a difference during this session. When such a window of opportunity meets an established entity such as W-HCA, located in the most depressed area of the state, great things could happen in 1997.

It only makes sense to look at W-HCA as a vehicle already in place, geared to produce results. It only makes sense for our legislators to act decisively, meeting head-on the challenge of being in the right place at the right time.

Ruth Leubecker lives in East Machias.