Advocacy Resources

Support our work with a
tax deductable donation:
LINC is a project of
the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.

WEEL Works To Improve Montana's Welfare System

WEEL, Working for Equality and Economic Liberation, was founded in May 1996 by Toni McOmber and Raquel Castellanos. According to Castellanos, the organization was created in response to the implementation of Montana's FAIM (Families Achieving Independence in Montana) program, which replaced the state's AFDC program. Castellanos and McOmber, who worked as case managers for the former JOBS program, realized that the new welfare system was designed to intimidate, harass and unfairly remove benefits from Montana's neediest families. After witnessing first hand the harms suffered by families under welfare reform, including the effects of a harsh new sanctions policy and growing child poverty, both women resigned their positions with the state agency.

Acknowledging the need to challenge the abuses of the new system Castellanos and McOmber formed an advisory committee of low income individuals who had an interest in being activists. The committee decided on the name and the focus of the group. They agreed that WEEL would be a grassroots organization working to empower those living in poverty and that its primary focus would be to work for improvements in the new welfare system. Castellanos and McOmber serve as WEEL's Co-Directors.

WEEL's membership, advisory committee and Board are predominately public assistance recipients - women with children who are dedicated to changing the belief and policy system that keeps people oppressed. The group's activities and areas of interest include 1) leadership training and membership development, 2) influencing public policy, 3) providing advocacy, 4) ending violence against families, 5) labor/welfare issues, and 6) addressing the impact of poverty on children. WEEL now has active chapters in Missoula and Helena.

Welfare recipients are referred to WEEL primarily through word of mouth. Outreach has been accomplished by stationing volunteers outside the local welfare office and the Salvation Army to pass out information about WEEL, and through meetings and events. WEEL also secured permission from food banks to conduct a survey, in collaboration with the Children's Defense Fund, to determine what has happened to welfare recipients after they have left Montana's welfare rolls. WEEL has used the survey as an outreach and leadership development tool. As part of their outreach activities, members pass out voter registration cards giving folks an instant tool to become active.

Members of WEEL work to combat the negative stereotypes of women living in poverty. They have produced two radio programs and have been featured on a Montana Public TV documentary on welfare reform. Because the group is committed to sharing power, skills and opportunities, it provides educational opportunities to their members. Members receive training on a wide variety of topics, including consensus building, community organizing, leadership development, media work, public speaking, policy advocacy, conflict mediation, and fund-raising.

In recent years WEEL representatives have attended The Western States Center's Community Strategic Training Initiative (CSTI) to learn organizing skills and tactics to fight against harmful policies. (CSTI offers intensive training in community organizing, community development, cultural work, nonprofit management and leadership.) As a result of their participation WEEL collaborated with Fair Budget, Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition (WROC), New Project, J.E.D.I for Women and United Vision for Idaho to organize a Western Region Welfare Rights Summit, the goal of which is to develop a united voice in the region to address the effect of welfare reform on the western United States. The Summit is to be held as part of the next CSTI conference scheduled for July 31-August 2, in Portland, Oregon.

In March 1998, former Montana State legislator Diane Sands provided WEEL's membership with training on legislative policy and insightful hints on working with public officials.

After only two years, WEEL is already a thorn in the side of the Montana's welfare agency. The group lists among its accomplishments the establishment of a Recipients' Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the result of the collaborative efforts of three welfare rights organizations, WEEL, Montana People's Action and Project Uplift. Shelley Icenhower, WEEL's representative and a former welfare recipient who is now a senior at the University of Montana, played a major role in the co-authoring and negotiating the Bill of Rights with the welfare agency. The Bill of Rights establishes guidelines caseworkers must follow when interacting with welfare recipients. The welfare agency has agreed to post the Bill of Rights at all welfare offices, and caseworkers have been instructed to give a copy to every welfare recipient. To ensure agency workers' compliance with the Bill of Rights, WEEL has established a committee of low income members who will meet regularly with local welfare offices to review and address reported violations and provide advocacy for recipients.

WEEL members are the only welfare recipients on the local FAIM advisory council. The FAIM council is primarily responsible for deciding the nature of workfare requirements as welfare recipients reach their time limits. WEEL believes adding the voice of low-income people and recipients to the council is an important step in ensuring that workfare rules will be implemented in a manner least harmful to welfare recipients.

As former case managers and women with first hand experience in poverty, WEEL's directors and members recognize the need for advocacy on behalf of individual families. WEEL has identified the welfare agency's failure to provide adequate information to clients and excessive sanctioning as the most pressing problems within the Montana welfare system. For example, families often lose all benefits for handing in paperwork one day late. [Editor's note: See the related story in the March 1998 issue of Welfare News.] WEEL believes that these problems have contributed to the dramatic 40% decline in the rolls in the first two years of welfare reform implementation. To combat these problems WEEL has assigned a student representative, Susan Gillen, to conduct a support group for welfare recipients. The support group serves as an information sharing forum where recipients are informed of their rights as they receive advocacy training. By training recipients to become their own advocates in the welfare system WEEL is aiding in their transformation from victims to activists.

WEEL believes that advocacy training helps individuals negotiate their way though the punitive maze of welfare requirements and that through organizing and protesting they can change the welfare system.

In August 1997, WEEL members participated in a Regional Day of Action, the theme of which was "Prisoners of Poverty." Members protested the first anniversary of President Clinton's signing of the Personal Responsibility ACT. WEEL also uses improvisational theater and has performed three times with the theme being corporate "wealthfare." The piece is used to draw attention to the many subsidies our government has handed over to Corporate America which enable the rich to amass billions in wealth while America's poorest sink deeper into poverty. WEEL's representatives act as case workers and recipients portraying the horrors recipients encounter whenever they are summoned to Montana's welfare department.

WEEL is determined to continue with its impressive range of activities until it achieves positive changes in Montana's welfare system.

For further information contact Raquel Castellanos, P.O. Box 7772 Missoula, MT 59807, (406) 543-2530; e-mail weel@marsweb.com, web: http://www.marsweb.com/~weel

This article was prepared by Angela Bradford, Liaison to Low Income Groups.