Oakland was not the only city that saw struggles over the funding and control of War on Poverty programs; cities all over the country, including Philadelphia, Newark, NJ and Chicago, featured similar battles, and San Francisco was no exception. In this battle, the poor and their representatives were often aided by sympathetic professionals like sociologists, political scientists and social workers.
Willie Thompson, the author of this piece, was a member of this cohort. A graduate of the social worker masters program at UC Berkeley, Thompson had worked as a student for the Oakland Project, a UC-backed initiative that sought to gather social-scientific data on the political and economic issues affecting Oakland, and as a community organizer for the Bay Area Council of Social Planning. In his role as an anti-poverty worker in San Francisco, he trumpets the recent decision to increase target neighborhood representation on the city’s Economic Opportunity Council, and cheers on Oakland’s Target Area Advisory Committee members as they attempt to implement a similar measure.
