Forty percent of the schools have waiting lists. This includes many in the suburbs but also many inner city schools where privately funded scholarships are now available to poor parents. Some 97 percent of secondary and 87 percent of elementary schools offer tuition assistance programs and over 40 percent of elementary and 89 percent of secondary schools have established development programs to assist in the long range financing of these schools. In late September, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development , the church's domestic, anti-poverty agency, will announce national grants. The projects are located in 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Grants go to organizing and economic development projects controlled by the poor themselves.
The money awarded to the self-help groups was collected last year in Catholic parishes nationwide.