California’s Welfare Program in for Major Change s
…and WCLP will ensure our clients have a voice

Thousands of low-income families in California count on CalWORKs for income support while they complete education or training programs necessary to enable them to land jobs and achieve economic independence. CalWORKs is California’s welfare-to-work program, authorized by the federal government’s Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) program. And Congress’ recent reauthorization of TANF will bring changes for our clients, most of them not at all positive. As the leader in California on advocacy and training around these issues, WCLP seeks to ensure that the state’s implementing legislation and regulations are as supportive of and minimally punitive for our welfare-to-work program recipients as possible.

Given that California’s Department of Social Services (DSS) has decided to run the state’s implementation efforts concurrently with the budgeting process this year, the next several months will have a profound impact on the ultimate success of CalWORKs and on the ability of the families participating in our program to achieve the economic self-sufficiency that is the goal of these programs.

During the 1996 Welfare Reform process, Western Center played a leading role in coordinating poverty advocates and in serving as the voice in Sacramento for program participants. We succeeded in influencing CalWORKs in many positive ways. WCLP will play the same role in the coming months with TANF reauthorization implementation.

Policy Advocacy: We’ll be participating in the negotiating and drafting of statutory changes to CalWORKs. We’ll also play an active role in DSS’ work groups on specific issues, as much policy tends to get hammered out in these settings. Finally, we’ll submit analysis and commentary on draft regulations during the promulgation process.

Monitoring and Training: Upcoming changes are bound to lead to mistakes, errors and unforeseen issues. Legal aid lawyers and others will need training in the changes. WCLP welfare advocates anticipate receiving a lot more calls in the coming months requesting technical assistance.

Litigation: Our experienced advocates can resolve most problems informally. But if DSS or the counties attempt to save money at the expense of our clients’ legal rights, we are well equipped to litigate.

Update WCLP’s CalWORKs Manual: The changes in law and practice will require us to overhaul our 1000-page CalWORKs Manual and our Students and CalWORKs Guide.

All this work, on top of our Welfare advocates’ every day advocacy and support, will require a temporary augmentation of our welfare staff. Determined to be responsive to the needs of our clients and the legal aid programs we support, WCLP is working hard to raise the necessary funds for this critical effort.