§ 3-1. Declaration of policy and findings of fact.

(a) In general.

The City Council finds that:

(1) there live within the City of Baltimore persons and families who subsist in conditions of abject poverty;

(2) there are concentrations of such persons and families in certain deteriorated neighborhoods within the City;

(3) illiteracy, illegitimacy, crime, juvenile delinquency, ill health, and other symptoms of social breakdown all result from or are coincidental with such poverty and are rampant in said neighborhoods;

(4) many of said impoverished persons and families are dependent upon public subsidy for their subsistence; and

(5) many of the services available to help them attain a state of economic self-sufficiency and social productivity either are not being utilized by them or are being inappropriately utilized in uncoordinated, piecemeal fashion.

(b) Program of concerted action needed.

The City Council further finds that:

(1) to eliminate the causes of poverty and the problems attendant upon it, it is imperative for the City of Baltimore to engage in a total program of concerted community action which will harness and synchronize its resources for remedial education, job training, health care, environmental improvement, social and physical rehabilitation, and training in home management and healthy family living; and

(2) such a program, to be effective, must attack the problem at its source, in the neighborhoods.