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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN 
                           SERVICES
PLACE:          National Congress for Community Economic Development	
                Washington, D.C.
DATE:		March 25, 1996

The great poet Tennyson once wrote, "I am a part of all that I have met."

Like every one of us, a community is always greater than the sum of its parts. It's as much an idea as it is a place. It's where we plow each other's earth, and pitch each other's tent.

That has been the guiding role -- the historic role -- of Community Development Corporations.

I'm thinking about the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, a rural CDC that is supporting families, preventing drug use, helping to extend credit to farmers, and directing their community's Empowerment Zone.

I'm thinking about the New Community Corporation, a Newark based CDC, and one of the first in the country. NCC, like so many other CDCs, doesn't just build homes. It runs day care centers. It helps teen parents. It's the largest employer of Newark residents.

And, I'm thinking about Arizona's Chicano Por La Causa, Inc., a CDC that brings housing, education, and health care to poor children and poor elderly all over the state.

And, I'm thinking about each and every one of you. You are the dreamers. The doers. Those who dare to look at the impossible and ask "Why not?" Where others see vacant lots, you see trees, homes and playgrounds. Where others see economic despair, you see economic opportunity.

You give hope to the hopeless. You breathe new life into neighborhoods where there was none. And, that's never been more important than right now. Because, right now, we are engaged in an historic debate about the role of the federal government.

This debate is about much more than budgets and block grants. It's about who we are as Americans. I'm not here to offer a stale defense of the status quo. This Administration believes we can -- and must -- balance the budget in 7 years shifting more responsibility to local communities and the states

If we want to build strong communities, you've taught us that the federal government must have a role. But that flexibility and local leadership should be the engine driving all of our solutions.

You taught us that the water and sunlight may come from the outside, but the soil must be worked by the hands that know it best. And all along, you've taught us that when we take this approach, we will succeed.

Every success story we've written together is a little bit like the growth of the old Chinese Bamboo Tree -- which I learned about from the great American philosopher and one of my favorite basketball coaches: Pat Riley.

Let me tell you about this tree. Year after year, farmers water their Chinese Bamboo seeds. They cultivate them and nourish them and wait for them to grow. But, for ten years, when the average observer looks down, all she will see is barren ground. And she might well assume that the tree has not grown.

That's because during these ten years, the Chinese Bamboo Tree only grows underground -- developing a strong web of intertwined roots, a subterranean fortress, a foundation.

And then, that very next year, when the foundation is in place, when the roots are deep and strong enough, the tree bursts forth like a rocket -- one-hundred feet into the air.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree doesn't stand upon a weak single trunk, twisting and bending to the pressure of the wind, it grows forth from a powerful network of support -- a true foundation. Which is important because this tree, and the communities you support, are in the battle for the long haul -- and need a powerful foundation to weather every storm.

How do we build that foundation? By abandoning the one-dimensional, cookie-cutter approaches to our social ills and committing ourselves to comprehensive strategies for the future.

Why? Because, right now, the future of our country is a 24-year old single mother -- homeless and jobless in Florida. Her dilemma isn't only that she's homeless. It's also that she doesn't have the vocational skills she needs to get and keep a steady job. There is no affordable child care in her neighborhood. She doesn't have access to health insurance for herself or her two children. The crime on her block makes her too scared to take a job at night.

The fact is, this woman is blocked by all of these complex barriers, each a separate rock buried in the earth, each preventing the roots of success from growing, each preventing struggling neighborhoods from becoming thriving communities.

This Administration is implementing a philosophy taught to us by many of you who have worked long and hard at the grassroots. We have learned that we need to work with this woman and her entire neighborhood to clear out all of these rocks -- not just one or two of them.

Whether we're talking about creating more than 8 million new jobs or helping parents steer their children away from drugs and violence, we have fought to support our families; strengthen our neighborhoods; and invest in our greatest resource: our people.

That's why President Clinton held an historic White House Conference on Empowerment Zones last month. And that's why he is calling on Congress to pass a second round of Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community funding -- so we can continue to heal communities by working together.

Supporting families and communities is also why President Clinton expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit -- to make work pay. It's why he wants to raise the minimum wage to make it a living wage. Why he signed the Family and Medical Leave Act -- so that Americans do not have to make the choice between the health of their families and the security of their jobs.

It's why he's fought to ensure that all children get the right start in life -- with better, stronger Head Start and child care. Why he signed a Crime Bill that puts 100,000 more cops on the street, and will continue to fight the gun lobby to keep the assault weapons ban.

And it's why he's granted waivers to 37 states that are experimenting with welfare plans to invest in child care; require work; demand responsibility; reward marriage; and still protect children.

Recently, we granted the first welfare waiver to an Enterprise Community. Our partners in the Oakland Enterprise Community are using that waiver to provide welfare recipients with training, job experience, education, and stipends while they work on community service projects.

This President has -- and will continue -- to fight for real welfare reform. But let me be clear: It's not real welfare reform unless it combines tough work requirements with the resources for child care that women need to keep their children safe while they move to independence.

It's not real reform unless it empowers people to be good parents and good workers. And it's not real reform unless it helps people not only get jobs -- but keep them.

I don't need to tell any of you how important that is.

For many welfare recipients, you are the bridge between welfare and work -- between dependence and a job at a CDC funded construction project, Head Start center, or senior citizen center. You are the real job creators; the real community builders. And you must be the real engines of welfare reform.

But, our commitment to strong communities must go beyond job creation and welfare reform. We must make health care available to every American. While some in Congress continue to debate and delay, over the last two years more than one million Americans in working families lost their health insurance.

We must start by enacting the bipartisan Kassebaum-Kennedy bill that will end the days when insurance companies can drop you because you change jobs, or have a pre-existing condition.

But that's not all we must do.

In America, the promises of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security have transformed what it means to grow old in America. They have transformed what it means to be a poor child in America. They have transformed what it means to be disabled in America. And we can never turn our backs on these contracts with our fellow citizens.

I'm not saying that our health care programs don't need major reform -- they do.

But, there's a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. We're doing it the right way: slowing the growth of Medicare and Medicaid; cracking down big-time on health care fraud and abuse; and granting state Medicaid waivers that have already provided health insurance for 2.2 million more working Americans and their children.

The question is, will we keep moving forward, replenishing the Medicare Trust Fund, making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient and effective -- or will we go back.

We cannot, and must not, go back.

That's why the President has said very clearly. We will not replace Medicaid's historic guarantee of health care for our most vulnerable Americans with an ill-conceived, underfunded, block grant. Time and again, this Administration has taken on the tough issues and the powerful special interests because that's what's good for communities.

But the fact is, government alone can't meet these challenges -- and we shouldn't ever try.

It's going to take all of us, working together to build new communities and shatter old myths. Remember the myth that government agencies can't work together?

Well, with our Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities, our Department has locked arms in an historic alliance with HUD and Agriculture to support your work, and to lift up businesses and families -- one by one.

Then, there's the myth of individualism -- the odd idea that each person or family stands alone against the world. That's not how our ancestors built this nation, and it certainly isn't how we will continue to build it today.

Just look at me. Growing up in Cleveland, I was raised by a community -- caring adults who taught me great lessons in life and became my parents surrogates when I was out of our house.

I believe it should be that way for every child in America.

Together, we have to shatter that myth of individualism and renew that age-old value of togetherness and community -- an America in which you thrive because I thrive, and I thrive because you thrive.

Finally, there is the myth that community based organizations don't have the time, staff or will to lock arms with each other. To some extent, that has been true.

Your work is vast. Your resources are scarce. And, your communication with each other has sometimes been limited.

But, I believe that conferences like this one, groups like the National Congress, and leaders like you are changing all of that.

And, that's why today, I want to challenge you to do even more. Because, whether you have 2 employees or 2,000.

Whether you are creating a new housing complex in Boston or organizing a job-training center in Portland, we need you to work with us to become pieces of the same puzzle -- strong roots of the same Chinese Bamboo Tree.

Because thanks to you: a tree does grow in Harlem. And trees do grow in every community where people of good will dedicate their bodies and spirits to work for change.

Thank you.