The challenge

In the first years of the 21st Century an array of social, political and economic changes affect attempts to alleviate poverty. Among these: the end of the economic boom of the 1990’s; welfare reform; sub-minimum wages; immigration; family fragmentation; and the lack of adequate health insurance. At times, lack of support by state officials leaves people with far less than national policy would appear to provide. For example, in 1997, Congress passed the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enabling states to cover uninsured children whose families earn up to 200 percent of the poverty level. Many states supported this Federal initiative with relatively modest state funding. Further, at the outset, because of administrative barriers, and political resistance, family enrollment in this program was low.

“In all four Northwest states that I work in, it was a fight to get the legislature to approve the state match and even to take the federal money to insure children through Medicaid, even in states with huge budget surpluses,” says LeeAnn Hall. Many large rural families continued to piece together seasonal employment and odd jobs to put food on the table, but were not reached by public programs. Any organized response was slow to come. Distrust of government was one reason. Farm workers with citizenship are reluctant to approach government service offices for fear that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will be sent through their neighborhood, where undocumented friends and relatives reside. To Hall, the central challenge was — and still is — to create a sense of common cause, a renewed belief in democratic social change, even as the root causes of poverty become more complex.


Seeds of commitment

Hall began working as a community organizer upon graduation from Boston College in 1978, and never stopped. She explains her commitment simply: “The people I have the privilege of working with motivate me.” People such as Adan Ramirez, a 60-year-old retired sheep shearer worked with Hall and her team to involve farm workers in the fight for minimum-wage protection for farm workers and for farm-contractor bonding legislation. Hall recalls, “During the campaign, most of my mornings began with a call asking, ‘What are we going to do today?’ Each day [Ramirez] would push me to be more ambitious while taking on more assignments himself. I have been privileged to stand with people like Adan and speak truth to power, to ask for what we really want and need, to be doggedly persistent, to believe that winning is possible, to think long-term, to bring others along, and to have fun along
the way.”


Accomplishments

Hall directs both the Idaho Community Action Network (ICAN) and the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations (N.W.F.C.O.). Formed in 1993, the Northwest Federation is comprised of four Pacific Northwest community-based organizations: ICAN, Oregon Action (O.A.), Montana People’s Action (M.P.A.) and Washington Citizen Action (W.C.A.). Each represents disenfranchised low- and no-income families. They are the preeminent statewide multi-issue and economic justice organizations in their respective states. With over 65 years of organizational history between them spanning three decades, the N.W.F.C.O. organizations have taken action on a broad range of local and statewide issues affecting low and moderate income families including health care, housing, taxes, utilities and education. For a decade, N.W.F.C.O. staff and members went door-to-door across Idaho to tell hundreds of low-income families about CHIP’s coverage of uninsured children and other available assistance, and to encourage residents to speak out for state funding for these programs.

Across the Northwest, people, including some policy makers and office holders, listened. After 120 families traveled to Boise to sit in on a state finance committee meeting, Idaho legislators reversed a previous decision to drop funding for CHIP. Under Hall’s leadership, the organizers documented how poor white families were treated badly by the welfare system and Hispanic and Native-American families were treated worse, often in discriminatory ways. They heard so many complaints about application problems that they decided to take stock of CHIP racial barriers. In a statewide meeting, “members agreed that we should be careful to identify if Hispanic and Native-American families were experiencing discrimination in three key welfare offices in central, north and eastern Idaho,” Hall recalls. The organizers employed a technique often used to check for discrimination in fair-housing complaints, recruiting 27 families as “testers” to document their experiences applying for the program. Only one of the 27 families was approved for CHIP. After the Office of Civil Rights threatened intervention, the barriers were removed.

N.W.F.C.O. member organizations continue to organize in 14 rural and metropolitan areas in the Northwest. The campaign is credited with dramatically increasing family enrollment in CHIP and other programs by eliminating barriers to applicants. As a result, CHIP and Medicaid enrollment in the Idaho has steadily increased. Since the first year of the program, CHIP has enrolled an additional 9,700 Montana children and 10,723 Idaho children. More than 17,000 Idaho children have also been added to Medicaid as a result of the outreach efforts, and an additional 2,000 Oregon families are now able to receive food stamps each month.

Hall and her fellow organizers also focus on root causes of poverty. As organizers they have campaigned for a minimum wage for farm workers, building an impressively diverse coalition of farm workers in the eastern part of Idaho and poor rural white families in the western and northern parts of the state. After ICAN published a series of policy papers documenting the impact of a sub-minimum wage on farm worker families, Idaho newspapers began to editorialize in favor of a change — and public opinion reversed. In 2002, the Idaho legislature passed a bill establishing strong minimum wage protections. Also this year, the legislature passed a bill requiring farm contractors to be bonded, increasing the likelihood that farm workers will receive their paychecks.


Leadership style

“I work to build the most active, intimate and powerful community organization possible,” Hall says, of her ICAN stewardship. “We try to build campaigns that address systemic problems and create a road map for others to follow.” Through N.W.F.C.O., Hall has assembled a sophisticated research and policy capacity and made it available to a wide range of affiliates. At the same time, N.W.F.C.O. partners with national networks and federations to build the power and reach necessary to address federal issues. Her alliances include the Applied Research Center, the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, US Action, and the Grass Roots Organizing for Welfare Leadership network. “One of the things about LeeAnn is that for all the work she makes happen, she does not take credit for it; she believes in the ‘collective,’” says Seattle legal aid attorney Ellie Hamburger. “She gives credit to her staff and to her leaders; she is the driving force and does it with very little public recognition.”


The future

Hall sees herself continuing to build on the strengths of the Northwest organizations. She looks toward creative new projects, such as a national story bank on safety net issues coupled with a sophisticated online database of reporters, for members and staff in the field. “I hope to be part of a team that continues to challenge convention and work with leaders to make demands that others think are unwinnable,” Hall says. She also hopes to be part of a team that enters into larger public discussions around the role of government and racial justice. Finally, she sees herself continuing to “dog those details” so that theory becomes reality at the neighborhood level — and that, far beyond the conference table, people’s real
lives improve.


More about LeeAnn Hall and her work

“Grassroots leaders who have taken on local, state and national roles … would say that they are better people because of LeeAnn Hall. I am a better advocate and lawyer for having worked with LeeAnn. I think about things differently now. LeeAnn really believes in a movement. She feels she is building a network of progressive folks from all walks of life who can make things better for people. She lives the movement 24 hours a day.”
— Ellie Hamburger, staff attorney with Columbia Legal Services in Seattle