Causes: Human Service Organizations, Human Services

Mission: Community action program region vii, inc. Was formed to improve the quality of life for low income people, to promote public awareness of the needs and problems faced by these individuals, and to work towards finding solutions to eliminate the social inequities and problems faced by them. Areas of service or program operation include food, clothing, shelter, housing, energy conservation, education and individualized support services in a ten county area of north dakota.

Programs: Weatherization and housing assistance:the weatherization program provides energy conservation services to low-income homeowners and renters to make their homes more energy efficient. The program helps to increase energy efficiency and reduce heating bills by concentrating on the problems of heat loss and air infiltration. Weatherproofing repairs such as insulation, caulking, and weather-stripping are provided to income eligible households. Emergency furnace repair and replacement program assists households with repair and replacement of unsafe heating systems for eligible clients. Housing and rental assistance is provided through the housing opportunities for persons with aids (hopwa) and shelter plus care programs. The shelter plus care program provides rental assistance in connection with supportive services to homeless persons with disabilities in north dakota. The primary target populations are homeless people who have serious mental illness; and/or hiv/aids. The goals of the programs are to assist homeless individuals and their families to increase their housing stability; increase their skills and/or income; and obtain greater self sufficiency. Other housing programs include the helping hands program, home housing rehabilitation program, the home acquisition & rehab program, and community development block grant (cdbg funds).

other programs and services:self-sufficiency programs are provided as a goal orientated case management designed to assist low income & disadvantaged individuals decrease government dependency. Goals addressed may be employment, education, housing or money management related. These programs include hiv prevention, and individual development accounts (ida).

nutrition and emergency assistance:backpacks for kids was developed to address the need for food for children identified as being homeless. Children identified as being homeless are defined as children who are living in overcrowded housing, staying with family or friends, staying in hotels/shelters, or sleeping in vehicles. These children are served breakfast and lunch while attending school during the week, but because of their living situation they do not have adequate food over the weekends. Backpacks are filled with "kid-friendly" foods such as cereal, granola/yogurt bars, fruit cups, applesauce, pudding, canned dinners, peanut butter, jelly and bread. Backpacks are delivered to the schools every other friday or the last day of each school week. The school distributes them to children in need and the children return the backpacks to the school the following week to be refilled. Community action works together with the schools to determine who is in need of the backpacks. The community action food pantry provides food baskets to income qualified and families in need. Food baskets are generally filled with enough food to last approximately 4 - 7 days, depending on funding and donations received.