Asian Pacific Islander Community Based Organizations and Welfare Reform
This paper will examine these issues based on a review of the existing literature and the analysis of a survey of forty-eight Los Angeles based API CBOs. The paper is organized into five sections. Section I provides an overview of API CBOs, describing their growth over the last two decades, the scope of services they provide and recent shifts in organizational service and constituency focus. Section II addresses efforts by CBOs under welfare reform to provide effective welfare-to-work and other related programs targeting API welfare recipients. Section III addresses efforts underway by CBOs with little or no experience in providing services targeting API welfare recipients. Section IV describes the collaborative efforts being undertaken by CBOs in assisting API welfare recipients and addressing the overall effects of welfare reform on the API community, including advocacy, planning and policy activities being undertaken collaboratively by CBOs in response to welfare reform. Section V discusses the strengths and limitations of CBOs in assisting API welfare recipients under welfare reform, concluding with a list of policy recommendations.
