Helping People Changing Lives
Casi Mission
Helping people become self-sufficient and improving our communities
MISSION STATEMENT
CASI’s mission is to guide and empower families and communities to reach self-sufficiency and improved well-being, by addressing the root causes of poverty.
CASI’s vision is to foster a better community where people are not only supported, they are valued, encouraged and given opportunities to succeed.
For 57 years Community Action of Southern Indiana has been providing a comprehensive approach to addressing the needs of vulnerable citizens while helping them to achieve economic security. Community Action of Southern Indiana’s programs provide critical support in areas such as financial literacy, education, housing, literacy, energy assistance, and more. Southern Hoosiers, like many Americans, face an array of enormous challenges ranging from poverty to disability to lack of decent and affordable housing to lack of adequate employment.
Community Action Agencies were created by the federal government in 1964 to combat poverty in geographically designated areas. Status as a Community Action Agency is the result of an explicit designation by local or state government. Community Action Agencies seek to involve the community, including elected public officials, private sector representatives, and especially low-income residents, in assessing local needs and attacking the causes and conditions of poverty.
In order to reduce poverty in our community, a Community Action of Southern Indiana works to better focus available local, state, federal, and private resources to assist low-income individuals and families to acquire useful skills and knowledge, to gain access to new opportunities, and to achieve economic self-sufficiency.
Community Action of Southern Indiana’s broad base of services makes a difference every day for individuals and families.
Mission Support
Community Action of Southern Indiana carries out its mission through a variety of means including: community-wide assessments of needs and strengths, comprehensive antipoverty plans and strategies, provision of a broad range of direct services, mobilization of financial and nonfinancial resources, advocacy on behalf of low-income people, and partnerships with other community-based organizations to eliminate poverty. CASI involves the low-income population it serves in the planning, administering, and evaluating of its programs.
Many poverty-related organizations focus on a specific area of need, such as job training, health care, housing, or economic development. Community Action of Southern Indiana reaches out to low-income people in their communities, addresses their multiple needs through a comprehensive approach, develops partnerships with other community organizations, involves low-income clients in the agency’s operations, and administers a full range of coordinated programs designed to have a measurable impact on poverty.
Every community owes its existence and vitality to generations from around the world who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy to making the history that led to this moment. Some were brought here against their will, some were drawn to leave their distant homes in hope of a better life, and some have lived on this land for more generations than can be counted. The CASI office sits on the traditional lands of the Kaskaskia, Myaamia, Osage, Shawnee, Hopewell, and Adena peoples.
