Resources

Welfare

Because the welfare system primarily affects women and their children, the Women's Law Project advocates for increased flexibility and supports for women on welfare and challenges welfare restrictions that endanger and impoverish vulnerable families.

Domestic Violence

Since 1997, the Women’s Law Project has assisted the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) in providing flexibility and confidentiality to survivors of domestic violence on welfare through implementation of the federal Family Violence Option (FVO). Through active participation on DPW’s TANF/Domestic Violence Task Force, WLP has provided extensive input into the development of policies and procedures that provide domestic violence victims with referrals for services, confidential disclosure of domestic violence and location information, and, when necessary, waivers of program requirements that have the potential to place a victim of domestic violence and her family at risk of further violence or penalize her. See resources listed on the left for links to the Deskguide Summary of the FVO in Pennsylvania and links to the Domestic Violence Verification Form for Waivers of program requirements in English and Spanish.

Welfare eligibility for women in recovery from addiction

In response to WLP advocacy, in December, 2004, the Pennsylvania legislature acted to restore TANF cash assistance and food stamps to impoverished people who had been permanently banned from receiving these benefits because of a felony drug conviction in their past. The people who were hurt by the lifetime ban on welfare benefits were poor women with children, whose felony convictions arose out of their own addiction to drugs. According to a study of this population undertaken in 1998, their addiction co-occurred with histories of sexual abuse or battering, often in their childhood or early teenage years. With Community Legal Services, Interim House, and My Sister’s Place, the Women’s Law Project organized women affected by this ban to meet with lawmakers and their powerful testimony impressed upon the legislators the need to restore benefits to support recovery from addiction and reunification of families.

Child Support Pass-Through
Restoring child support payments to 36,000 low-income Pennsylvania families.

Residency Requirements
Striking down a punitive state residency requirement that especially hurt domestic violence survivors.

Additional infomation will be provided in this section at a later date.