The Center for the Working Poor is a left-of-center organization based in Los Angeles, California focused on providing interfaith programs to poor populations as well as providing commentary on left-of-center social justice issues and policies while operating as a quasi-monastery. The center was founded by Paul Engler, an activist and organizer who with his brother Mark Engler has authored a variety of pieces promoting mass protests and social justice “revolts” as a means of fomenting policy change. The center is ostensibly religious, promoting interfaith practices of meditation with a focus on “strategic nonviolence and contemplative spirituality” and meditation. The foundation is relatively small with annual revenues of $252,000 in 2022, and was inactive, according to tax records, from 2018 to 2021. ^{1 2 3}

Funders of the center include the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Center for Action and Contemplation, and the Mary K. and Daniel M. Kelly Foundation. ⁴

Background

The Center for the Working Poor was granted tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2007, and was founded by left-wing activist and organizer Paul Engler, who has helped organize many left-of-center protests since the 2000s including the Occupy Wall Street movement. The center is described as an interfaith community and claims to garner inspiration from the Catholic worker movement and New Monasticism, the latter being a nondenominational movement for individuals to voluntarily live in austere conditions. ⁵

While the center states an inspiration from Catholic worker movements and Catholic monks and nuns, the center is nondenominational and emphasizes spirituality and medication over specific religions. The Center is also a full-time physical community center that operates along the lines of New Monasticism, with some members of the center living and working there full-time while others live there and have jobs outside the center. The center states about its community that “We all share a commitment to live in community, share a few meals a week, and a common vision of non-violent social change to benefit the most oppressed in our society,” while also stating “Volunteer members run the Center for the Working Poor, which is a non-profit that provides services for poor, and organizes protest and social movement activity.” ⁶

Activities

The Center for the Working Poor, under the leadership of Paul Engler, promotes a variety of left-of-center policies, and the individuals living at the center attend protests on a variety of issues. The group infrequently authors a “house journal” that reports on the activity of the individuals coming to live at the center, either full-time or temporarily, and reports that individuals living at the center have included union organizers, social workers, and graduate students. The group called the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 a “new political crisis,” stating that “Many of us were showing up to what seemed like weekly protests.” ^{7 8}

Much of the work of the center also revolves around promoting the work and writings of Paul Engler, who frequently leaves the center’s monastic community to go on book tours and speaking tours promoting organizing and other left-of-center topics. Engler has also written a variety of books and opinion pieces with his brother Mark Engler, a Philadelphia-based writer who covers many similar pro-union and left-of-center social topics. ⁹

Funding

Funders of the center include the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Center for Action and Contemplation, the Cultures of Resistance Network Foundation, Network for Good, the Aetna Foundation, and the Mary K. and Daniel M. Kelly Foundation. ¹⁰

1. “Paul Engler.” Center for the Working Poor. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/paul-engler
2. “Paul Engler.” Forge Organizing. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://forgeorganizing.org/author/paul-engler
3. “About.” Center for the Working Poor. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/about-2
4. “Center for the Working Poor: Full Text Search.” Nonprofit Explorer. Query Conducted April 23, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?q=%22center+for+the+working+poor%22
5. “About.” Center for the Working Poor. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/about-2.
6. “About.” Center for the Working Poor. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/about-2
7. “About.” Center for the Working Poor. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/about-2
8. “House Journal 2017.” Center for the Working Poor. January 22, 2018. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/uncategorized/house-journal-2017
9. “Paul Engler.” Forge Organizing. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://forgeorganizing.org/author/paul-engler
10. “Center for the Working Poor: Full Text Search.” Nonprofit Explorer. Query Conducted April 23, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?q=%22center+for+the+working+poor%22