before they figure out we are Puerto Rican. We are United States citizens like everyone else here, but we are not getting any help.

We are not getting help from anybody. The social agencies, if we go there they laugh in our face.

If we go to the agencies that are supposed to be helping the poor, they don't have human beings over there to take care of the programs, because what they do is, they don't look at us as human beings; they look at us as dirt.

The same goes with the black. You can say that straight across all of those groups. When I talk I am talking about the poor, the people that really suffer in this country.

I am not talking about the middle class or the upper class; I am talking about the people that are really suffering over there.

The black had to go out and riot to get what they need. They had to go and riot. They have been asking for help for how many years?

They said in the Congress that they didn't have any money, and as soon as they rioted they got millions of dollars.

They tell us there is no money, but they rioted in Liberty City and they got plenty of money.

They rioted in Opa-locka and the money pours in.

Mr. FORD. I think there is one thing that ought to be made clear to you and all the other people here, and I am not sure whether you are talking for my benefit or theirs at this point, but one thing that ought to be made very clear is that none of this legislation is legislation for black or for anybody else. It is legislation for people, and we are concerned about anything involved in your accusations that would indicate that if you are poor, it makes a difference what your ethnic position is in this community.

There is a very obvious and fundamental reason why most of the people in an area like this who are eligible for the program are black, because poverty happens to fall most heavily on that segment of the population.

Now, if you are suggesting to this Committee that there is a structure involved here that does not deal with people just because they are poor people, but gives priority to some because of their ethnic origin, then the Committee is concernmed.

Mr. LOPEZ. Well be concerned then.

Mr. FORD. If you have a specific allegation of that kind with respect to anybody's being discriminated against because they are either because they are Puerto Rican or because they are not black

Mr. LOPEZ. Wait a minute.

The Puerto Rican in Miami is discriminated against because he is Puerto Rican.

A VOICE FROM THE FLOOR. We are United States citizens, just to fight for this country, but we don't have rights for anything else. Mr. LOPEZ. We can go to Vietnam like everybody else, but when it comes to our rights we are not taken care of.

Mr. CRUZ. I know the Government provides the funds and they don't describe the funds as for Puerto Rican, black or Cubans, but when they come to the local community they are used by the local people, and when you put an agency in one community or on one side of this county, that means that those services will go to the people living in that area.

If there are a lot of agencies in Liberty City, the Puerto Ricans are not going to pay for a lot of transportation to go over there.

Then the people understand better their own people; they don't understand Puerto Ricans.

Mr. FORD. What you are saying is the Puerto Ricans are clustered in a particular part of the City of Miami?

Mr. LOPEZ. Yes.

They have small pockets all over the place, but you can't say, like the blacks, because of the prejudices or whatever it is the Puerto Ricans have a little bit of an advantage over the blacks until they open their mouths.

They know they are Spanish. They have an advantage, they can mingle around a little bit better than the black.

The black is seen anywhere he goes because he is black, but the Puerto Rican people can mingle all over the place, and there are small pockets all over the place.

If you put those programs in a particular area, the other people don't go there.

It is not because they don't need the services. They need the services, but because of certain things that are happening-and everybody is aware of it-they are afraid in some cases.

Mr. MAZZOLI. You changed just a second ago because you said if you went down to these places that you were discriminated against, and now Mr. Cruz says one of the problems is these agencies are located in areas away from the Puerto Ricans.

Now tell me, which is it?

Mr. LOPEZ. Both of them.

Mr. Mazzoli. If you simply go down there and identify yourself as a Puerto Rican, as an American citizen-I'm no linguist, but do you speak Spanish? Does the Cuban speak Spanish?

Mr. LOPEZ. Yes.

Mr. MAZZOLI. What is the difference?

Mr. CRUZ. If they can understand the Cuban, why don't they understand the Puerto Rican?

There are plenty of agencies here for the only purpose of serving the Cubans.

Mr. FORD. Just tell me one agency that we are funding with Federal money here that is exclusively for the Cubans, just one agency that says you must be a Cuban and

Mr. CRUZ. The Cuban refugee program, the welfare agency for the Cuban children.

Do you want me to tell you about 20?

Mr. FORD. I guess I made that question much too broad.

I guess we don't have Puerto Rican refugee programs.

Mr. CRUZ. We don't, that's the thing.

When we talk about the Puerto Ricans, they talk about the Cubans; the only Latin over here is the Cuban.

But that is not true, there are other ethnic groups of Latin descent that are poor too.

There are some Puerto Ricans that are poor, some who are some Hondurans that are poor, but the thing is when in the community talk-and this goes for all the politicians here too the only thing they think about when they talk about Latin people are Cubans.

Go to the Federal Building right now and in the Federal Building they have a plaque that says, in English, this says something, and then on the side they have one saying, "For Cuban people."

Instead of saying "For Latin people," they say, "For Cuban people. This is the make-up of the community, including the politicians; they think when they talk about Latins or if they talk about the poor or if they talk about this or that, they are only talking about the Cubans and they are talking only about the black people.

The black people, I feel sorry for them, they have to go to the streets, but I say, "Right on."

STATEMENT OF JOSE MOLINA, COORDINATOR FOR A COMMUNITY PROJECT FUNDED BY THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY SERVICE AGENCY

Mr. MOLINA. My name is Jose Molina. I am the coordinator for a community project, a project for Spanish-speaking people living in the northwest section of Miami, and this is a project funded by the Christian Community Service Agency.

I would like to give some data and maybe it can help to clear the program that we are aiding here.

In regard to the EOPI and Legal Services, I will say that we are very satisfied because they have been giving us good service, but the problem with that area-and you say it is not a target area-we went for legal help to the different agencies in the city, mainly to the main office downtown and the other one in Culver Center and the others in the black areas, and the problem was that in this city, as you know, the transportation is very, very poor.

For instance, we are there to do community work, but instead of doing community work in connection with Legal Services, we have been doing community driving or providing transportation.

We are doing community driving because the people can't move without transportation, and sometimes they don't have a penny in their pockets to go.

The other problem is that when we take people over there, there is not anybody speaking Spanish. That is the real problem.

When I speak about Latins, I'm not speaking only about Puerto Ricans who live there in northwest Miami but also about very, very poor Cubans who live there, and both have the same trouble.

We have to drive them, somebody has to drive them. They don't speak English and over there we don't have anybody speaking Spanish. The only one, as Mr. Lopez said, is in Perrine far away from us. Sometimes he was helping us though.

We don't blame legal services but I would like to say it would be a tremendous help for our people to have over there a local office to give service to our people.

And when I say "our people" I mean Puerto Ricans, and very, very poor Cubans.

As you know, the last resource that is left to our poor people is law, but when these Legal Services are so far, then there is no help.

During the last year we got in our office from the Spanish-speaking people 200 cases dealing with housing, evictions, traffic problems, and

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we could only handle 28 cases because of that problem of driving or translating or waiting for those people.

We had almost 150 waiting for some solution. We lost many of those cases, but at least we handled some of them and I am very grateful for the EOPI and Legal Services, but I would suggest this Committee should think about that area.

Mr. FORD. What you are saying is the program ought to be expanded so you would have greater access to a neighborhood office?

Mr. MOLINA. Yes.

Mr. LOPEZ. We even offered the Legal Services people the office we worked from.

We have plenty of space and we said, "You get the lawyers and you can work from here and we will tell the poor people," and again I am representing Puerto Ricans now, but the poor people in that area, the Northwest Section, there are some blacks over there that can use the office, there are some Cubans that can use the office, and I said, "We are there, you can use the office free, just get the lawyers in there, bilingual."

And then he is talking about 200 cases in this particular office that we know about. That amount would probably triple or increase ten times fold if the people knew there was an office where they were going to help the people.

If they knew that there was an office and if they had any problem, they could go there and try to get some help, the amount he just mentioned would probably triple.

But right now, this is without even publicizing that, we are trying to help, but we don't have the facilities, we don't have anything.

Mr. FORD. I think we now understand the complaint is not the quality of the service provided by Legal Services or discrimination because of the ethnic make-up of the population, but the fact that it is a good program, so good that people resent the fact it isn't more readily available to them.

Is that fair?

Mr. LOPEZ. That is fair enough, but remember, when you give some more money down here we want to participate too.

Mr. FORD. Thank you very much.

What is your name?

STATEMENT OF EUPHOLIA FRAZIER, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA STATE TENANTS ORGANIZATION

EUPHOLIA FRAZIER. I am Eupholia Frazier, president, Florida State Tenants Organization.

Just like Mr. Lopez said, in 57 counties in the State of Florida we have poor people going without legal services. Not only the Puerto Ricans are being neglected, but all of the poor, the majority of the poor in the State of Florida are being neglected.

These other 10 counties are the most populous areas and the people have become aware of the services, the legal services, and the community has started to lean toward Legal Services for assistance, and it is for this reason we need more Legal Services all over.

We found out the problems of the poor are never known, and we find so many times that our children turn to delinquency because they don't know anything else but that.

The only thing they know is to go to the streets, and it is very important that we have Legal Services and a counselor to advise and help us with this.

Not only that, but right here in Dade County within the last 7 days, Legal Services has given counsel to more than 500 black families that have been exploited, exploited through real estate brokers and exploited because they didn't have money at that time to pay an attorney to close the deals on their homes.

Ten years later they don't know if they have homes or not.

In another small county in the nearby area-I am not calling the name—but the county is filing charges against tenants for protecting their rights.

The landlord put a lock on the door. The tenants took it away. Those tenants today have injunctions filed against them.

Up in Palm Beach just last week 33 families were being threatened with being evicted just to put up a post office building, a Justice building where 33 families lived.

And these families didn't have any place to go, and it was Legal Services that came to the aid of these people.

Without Legal Services nine times out of 10 these people would have been on the ground today.

So we need Legal Services not only for that reason, for housing and that, but we need Legal Services in all aspects.

As Mr. Lopez said, we need somebody in Legal Services to identify with the minority group.

Yes, there are times that the people cannot communicate, and it is not that Legal Services doesn't want to service them, but the people need somebody who can identify with them, who knows their problems and who can help solve their problems more.

So we really need Legal Services.

Mr. FORD. Thank you very much.

What is your name?

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY HILL

Mrs. HILL. I am Mary Hill and I would like to speak as to the reality of the program from the very beginning.

As I understood the Legal Services representative to say today, they would like to have a professional board.

Now, the professional board-this is out of line I believe with the structure of the program from the beginning.

Mr. FORD. Just a minute, please.

The board we were talking about earlier is a national board to take the place of the Office of Economic Opportunity's running the program at the national level.

We take the program away from the President and his appointee and give it to a board to run instead.

I don't know how you might feel about that but my personal feeling is I would rather have the board run it.

The make-up of the board is such that minority groups have perpetual representation on the board. When they refer to the board's being a professional board they are referring to a board that isn't susceptible to direct political pressure.

As a Congressman I cannot tell them what to do and the President cannot tell them what to do.