Our Mission
The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization is the union of public assistance recipients and low-income workers in this state. MWRO has chapters across Michigan and is one of the founding members of the National Welfare Rights Union. Our goal is to organize recipients and low-income workers to fight for our rights, to eliminate poverty in this country and to build an army prepared to battle or the economic and human rights of millions of disenfranchised Americans.
Welfare recipients, low income workers and homeless people rarely know what benefits they are entitled to under existing social service rules and regulations that undergo daily sometimes hourly changes. Since President Bill Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Bill on August 22, 1996, most of the safety nets that barely separated poor people from outright hunger and homelessness have disappeared reducing millions across the country and hundreds of thousands in Michigan to membership in the "New Great Depression."
MWRO volunteers advocate and intervene on behalf of its members -- victims of poverty -- when disputes surface between this population and service delivery agencies. MWRO sponsors community training sessions that cover eligibility for utility shut-off assistance, Food Stamps, Medicaid, cash assistance, disputes with landlords, and how to file a hearing when these rights are being violated. Given the current state of poverty and endless capitalists assaults on low-income people, this work is monumental, sometimes crushing and seemingly endless.
Through annual dues, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization members help keep the phones and lights on in the volunteer-led office. MWRO does not enjoy 501C3 tax exempt status due to the political nature of its work.
Mission Statement
"We, the poor and working people living in America refuse to accept responsibility or blame directed toward us and imposed on our children for the poverty we are forced to live in. As members of the National Welfare Rights Union and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, we recognize high-tech manufacturing as the dawn of a complete new era which can guarantee forever and for all a life free from material wants. Therefore, in order to cleanse this imperfect nation, re-establish justice, ensure economic stability, provide for the common security, promote the national welfare, and enhance the blessings of financial freedom once enjoyed by the collective posterity, we do re-dedicate and re-establish our singular commitment to take control of our nation as patriots as we fight for the American Dream."
