PLATINUM2023

Western Center on Law and Poverty

Fighting to End Poverty in California

Los Angeles, CA   |  http://www.wclp.org

Mission

Through the lens of economic and racial justice, Western Center on Law & Poverty fights in courts, cities, counties, and in the Capitol to secure housing, health care, and a strong safety net for Californians with low incomes. Many systems keep people in poverty – from institutionalized racism to unjust and unequal economic structures. We address those factors in every aspect of our work, and call out the ways they oppress people experiencing poverty.

Ruling year info

1974

Executive Director

Ms. Crystal D. Crawford

Main address

3701 Wilshire Blvd Ste 208

Los Angeles, CA 90010 USA

Show more contact info

EIN

95-2897721

NTEE code info

Public, Society Benefit - Multipurpose and Other N.E.C. (W99)

Public Interest Law/Litigation (I83)

Alliance/Advocacy Organizations (R01)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Although California has one of the strongest economies in the country, this stands in stark contrast with the conditions in which millions of residents live as they struggle to pay for food, shelter, and other necessities, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Western Center serves the more than 7 million low-income Californians living at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, or $33,125 for a family of 4. By leveraging our existing model that focuses on litigation, legislation, and support for legal aid partners, we successfully fight for broad legal victories that impact California families living in poverty in the areas of housing, health, public benefits, and access to justice.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Health

Western Center's health team ensures equitable access to affordable, comprehensive, quality health care for poor consumers.

Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people

Western Center’s Housing Team advances and enforces the right of low-income (under 50% of area median) Californians to live in housing that is safe, decent, and affordable.

Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people

Western Center advances and enforces the rights of poor Californians receiving federal and/or state funded public benefits, including cash assistance through General Assistance/General Relief, CalWORKs and the Food Stamp Program (CalFresh) and, to prevent dependency and on public benefit programs, increases access to jobs and justice for the poorest Californians.

Population(s) Served

Western Center works to expand access to justice by ensuring that Californians with low incomes are treated fairly when they engage with criminal or civil courts and that are not burdened with unjust fines and fees and/or predatory collections practices.

Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Economically disadvantaged people
Incarcerated people
Victims and oppressed people
Unemployed people

Where we work

Awards

Shattuck-Price Award 2012

Los Angeles County Bar Association

Advocate of the Year Award 2012

California Mental Health Advocates for Children and Youth

Wellstone – Wheeler National Anti-hunger Advocate of the Year Award 2012

National Food Research and Action Center

Kutak-Dodds 2015

National Legal Aid and Defender Association

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of community events or trainings held and attendance

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Economically disadvantaged people

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

Western Center conducts trainings for our organizational partners in our program areas

Number of research or policy analysis products developed, e.g., reports, briefs

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Economically disadvantaged people

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Western Center publishes resources for advocates on our program areas

Number of civil litigation matters handled

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Economically disadvantaged people

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Number of organizations accessing technical assistance offerings

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

Western Center's attorneys and advocates provide help to local organizations and offers trainings, develops publications and provides one-to-one technical assistance sessions.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

Our team works tirelessly to make sure Californians are protected in California law by addressing the following:

HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

We will ensure that residents have access to healthy, sustainable, and affordable housing in neighborhoods of their choosing, and we advocate for strong, clear, and enforceable anti-displacement protections. All of our work seeks to address California’s housing crisis and its disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable Californians and unhoused individuals by:

Focusing on tenant protections so families stay housed during and after the pandemic, and that
they are not burdened with debt accrued through no fault of their own.

Enforcing fair housing to protect vulnerable communities from harassment and discrimination in housing.

Prioritizing land use and environmental justice and ensuring that California focuses on equitable development in healthy communities free from pollution and other environmental dangers.

Helping to prevent and end homelessness through cross-team and cross-issue initiatives such as increasing housing opportunities and funding for unhoused communities, including formerly incarcerated, veterans, LGBTQ people, and elderly individuals.

HEALTH CARE

At Western Center, we believe access to health care is a human right. We work with our community partners and government agencies to provide equitable access to health care for all Californians, especially during this unprecedented health crisis. This includes ensuring no one is removed from coverage, and for those who are, coverage is immediately restored. Our priorities include:

Expanding Medi-Cal to cover all Californians who need it and ensuring that Medi-Cal plans and providers deliver equitable, quality care.

Advocating for improvements to health programs that serve Californians with low incomes, particularly addressing health disparities for Black and Latinx communities.

Enforcing health consumer rights and protections.

FINANCIAL SECURITY AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE

We will provide a roadmap to financial security for the people who need it most, and fight for all California families to have sufficient income to afford basic necessities. This includes:

Increasing enrollment and retention, and where applicable, benefit levels across all safety net programs that serve low-income Californians such as California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs), CalFresh, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

Securing or expanding CalFresh emergency food programs and pandemic food programs to relieve the continued and historic levels of hunger due to COVID-19.

Expanding programs like the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) to allow low-income families to keep the money they earn.

Fighting to end the high costs of poverty by reducing or eliminating high fees, fines, and costs associated with the criminal justice system, traffic courts, parking tickets, and towing of cars.

By applying a coordinated concert of tools including legislative and policy advocacy, high impact litigation, administrative advocacy, and technical assistance and education for legal service and community-based organizations to each of our priority areas, Western Center ensures that low-income Californians receive the support they are entitled to, and fights for them to keep the precious assets they do have. Our tools include:
Administrative Advocacy: Western Center works with county, city, and state administrators to ensure policies and procedures are implemented properly across California to protect and uplift Californians living in poverty. Sometimes a simple shift in procedure, or guidance and encouragement from our advocates, can make a difference in real life outcomes for hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Budget Advocacy: While budget advocacy often proceeds quietly, its impact on individuals and families can be far reaching and life changing. Western Center’s advocacy pushes the state to use its budget to bring California closer to true economic and racial equity.

Impact Litigation: Western Center files litigation across California to ensure the laws to protect and support Californians with low incomes — laws we often sponsor in Sacramento — are upheld by government and private entities. Good laws mean nothing without enforcement.

Policy Advocacy: Western Center’s state policy work centers on advancing legislation that gets to the heart of the issues causing California’s massive income inequality, unsustainable housing market, lack of access to health care, and destructive systems of justice.

Technical Assistance: Western Center attorneys and advocates assist hundreds of legal services and community-based advocates throughout the state and nation. Community-based advocates and legal aid attorneys are often the only line of defense for people with low incomes when they are forced to navigate complex legal issues. In that way, Western Center’s support of and collaboration with local advocates and legal aid attorneys ripples across communities we all serve.

Western Center was formed by a passionate group of attorneys and legal scholars who sought to create a unique organization, driven by the belief that all Californians deserve the finest possible legal representation before the institutions that shape their lives.

Western Center was founded in 1967 and is a 501(c)(3) organization with offices in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Oakland. Our operating budget for 2023 is $6.5M and our diverse revenue model includes grants and contracts, individual and corporate contributions, event revenue, attorneys' fees and cy pres awards to ensure access to services and entitlements for more than eight million Californians living in poverty each year. Our supporters include regional and national funders, such as the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Stupski Foundation, California Health Care Foundation, Blue Shield of California FoundationThe California Wellness Foundation, and The California Endowment. Western Center also values building on its current endowment as a means to provide financial sustainability for the organization.

Our 31 staff members, community and legal services partners and pro bono attorneys serve all 58 counties in the state, focusing on low-income Californians living at or below 125% of the federal poverty level. Western Center's issue teams of health care, housing and public benefits include 14 attorneys and advocates with leadership and advice provided by our executive director, an active member of the California bar, director of litigation, special counsel and general counsel. Our 40-member Board is drawn from industries including law, finance, health care academia and the nonprofit sector.

In 2022 we achieved the following:  

Our impact litigation yielded significant wins to keep Californians housed and food secure. In Warren v. the City of Chico, we won a preliminary injunction where the city agreed to build individual shelters for unhoused residents and people can no longer be arrested or cited for sleeping outside when shelter is unavailable. We secured a preliminary statewide injunction in Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) v. California Housing and Community Development, pausing emergency rental assistance application denials until the program can meet constitutional standards of due process. We also secured a permanent injunction in Hunger Action Los Angeles, et al. v. County of Los Angeles, et al., requiring the county to process and approve emergency CalFresh food applications within 3 days.  

Our lawsuits filed in 2022 include Guardianship of Espinoza, which attempts to establish a right to counsel in probate guardianship hearings and Tesfai v. Dept. of Health Care Services challenging the practice of denying replacement prosthetics to Medi-Cal Dental beneficiaries under conditions more restrictive than the governing statute allows. Additionally, we filed an appeal in Abney v. Dept. of Health Care Services, seeking to reverse a superior court decision in a case about Medi-Cal eligibility and its "available" income regulation. 

 Thirteen of our co-sponsored bills were signed into law, including groundbreaking legislation like SB 972, modernizing street vending licensing and SB 923, a first in nation bill on gender affirming health care. Our administrative and budget advocacy resulted in Medi-Cal expansions for immigrants of all ages, seniors, and persons with disabilities and the largest increase in CalWORKs cash assistance grants since the program's inception in 1998. 

Financials

Western Center on Law and Poverty
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

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  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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lock

Connect with nonprofit leaders

Subscribe

Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.

  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

Western Center on Law and Poverty

Board of directors
as of 12/06/2023
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board co-chair

Ms. Lois D. Thompson

Proskauer Rose LLP

Term: 2019 - 2023


Board co-chair

Mr. David Elson

Law Offices of David Elson

Term: 2014 - 2023

Alex Beroukhim

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP

Shane Brun

King & Spalding LLP

Corinna Cherian

City National Bank

Grant A Davis-Denny

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP

Daralyn Durie

Durie Tangri

Kirk Dillman

McKool Smith Hennigan, P.C

David Elson

Law Offices of David Elson

David E Fink

Venable LLP

Christine Goodman

Pepperdine School of Law

Jonathan Gottlieb

Fox Legal Group

Joshua Hamilton

Latham & Watkins LLP

Michael Hostettler

Deloitte

Olivia Kim

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati P.C

Susan Leader

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Thomas Loran

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Jessica L Lunney

Google

Adam Paris

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Alison L Plessman

Hueston Hennigan LLP

Sylvia Rivera

American Honda Motors Co.

Rey M Rodriguez

The Walt Disney Company

Mike Shipley

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Steven G Sklaver

Susman Godfrey LLP

Patrick J Somers

Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP

Howard J Steinberg

Greenberg Traurig LLP

Lois M Takahashi

USC Price School of Public Policy

Lois D Thompson

Proskauer Rose LLP

Dale Walls

Elizabeth Butler Steyer

Felicia Davis

Paul Hastings LLP

Leif King

Baker & McKenzie LLP

Shira Liu

Crowell & Moring LLP

Patrick J. Somers

Kendall Brill Kelly LLP

Erin Brady

Hogan Lovells LLP

Duane Campbell

FTI Consulting

Brian Cardoza

Southern California Edison

Julia Cherlow

Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg & Rhow, P.C.

Maisie Chen

Megan Ebor

San Diego State University

Diana Feinstein

Gibson Dunn Crutcher LLP

Marisol Franco

Jocelyn Freeman Garrick

John S Gibson

DLA Piper LLP

Jaelyn Edwards Judelson

Akin Gump

Madhu Pocha

O’Melveny & Myers LLP

Connie Chan Robinson

Diane Baquet Smith

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Abraham Tabaie

Skadden Arps

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 2/6/2023

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
Black/African American
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or straight

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

No data

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 02/02/2023

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
  • We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
  • We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
  • We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
  • We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
  • We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
Policies and processes
  • We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
  • We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
  • We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
  • We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
  • We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
  • We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
  • We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.