Many on Eastern Shore without legal representation, interpreters

An article in the Easton Star-Democrat about a recent public hearing sponsored by the Maryland Justice Commission included comments by Upper Shore office staff attorney Rachel Wolpert. Both Wolpert and chief attorney Bill Leahy testified at the commission’s listening session held at the Wye River campus of Chesapeake College. “[Wolpert] said many low-income people do not have access to representation,” the article said. “Wolpert also said the area has an incredible need for interpreters.”

Post urges Congress to increase legal aid funding

An editorial in this morning’s Washington Post urges conferees reconciling House and Senate bills to increase funding to the Legal Services Corp. (which funds Maryland Legal Aid) and end Congressional restrictions that tie the hands of civil legal programs that help the poor. “Tough economic times have led more poor–and newly poor–people to need legal help,” the editorial says. “The LSC has been grossly underfunded for years, and the amount of money it gets from private and non-federal government sources has been shrinking because of the recession. Fully funding the LSC and giving it as much flexibility as possible will help to ensure that the needy get help.”

To read the entire editorial, click here.

Delays in processing public benefits applications “unconscionable”

An article in the Baltimore City Paper, “Net Loss,” describes serious delays in processing public benefit applications by the Department of Social Services. The article quotes Legal Aid assistant director of advocacy for income security Peter Sabonis about the ongoing situation. “Baltimore  County is just a mess,” Sabonis said. “It’s unconscionable, it’s illogical. It seems to smack of a period where we didn’t want people to get assistance, when the attitude was that these folks are just living off the system.  Obviously, we’re not in that period now. People need the assistance. People from all walks of life, all classes.” To read the article, click here.

Senate approves $400 million for legal services, removes restrictions

Last night, the Senate, by a vote of 71-28, passed the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) bill (HR 2847), which provides $400 million for the Legal Services Corp. and removal of federal restrictions on state, local and private funds held by LSC grantees (including Maryland Legal Aid), excepting abortion-related and prisoner representation cases. The Senate funding level of $400 million is $40 million less than that provided by the House of Representatives in its bill passed earlier in the summer (and $10 million more than current funding).  The House bill did not remove the restriction on non-LSC funds, but did remove the restriction banning LSC recipients from seeking attorneys’ fees. The Senate bill did not remove the attorneys’ fees restriction, but such fees could be sought in cases brought using non-LSC sources of funding if the Senate version is enacted into law.  Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who chaired a hearing last year on closing the justice gap, spoke on the Senate floor in support of the increase.

Legal Aid consumer expert feted by Women’s Law Center

Last night, Maryland Legal Aid Housing/Consumer Law Unit senior attorney Louise Carwell (left) was presented with the Access to Justice Award by Women’s Law Center president Alex Strubing Paradise. The award recognizes Carwell’s nearly 25 years of helping vulnerable individuals in myriad consumer cases, including predatory lending and foreclosure. Other award recipients were Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and Glendora Hughes, general counsel of the Maryland Commission on Human Relations .

“Louise is a recognized expert in foreclosure prevention and was involved in helping victims of predatory lending and individuals facing foreclosure years before the seriousness of the problem was recognized by others,” said Cheryl Hystad, Legal Aid’s director of advocacy. “She is one of a very small number of people who focused on foreclosure problems prior to 2007 and who worked in the trenches helping individuals and families keep their homes.”

Foreclosure glut in Anne Arundel–and Legal Aid swamped

Yesterday’s Capital (Annapolis) newspaper reported that foreclosure filings in Anne Arundel Co. are “far higher” than a year ago–and that Maryland Legal Aid “has seen a 64-percent increase in caseload over the same period one year before. Cheryl Hystad, the bureau’s director of advocacy, said a portion of that increase is the result of foreclosure cases, through landlord evictions, loss of health care coverage and other economy-related legal problems are all contributors,” the article said.

“Hystad said that, while legal aid is in demand for foreclosures, the bureau can only help those who meet certain qualifications. ‘We can only represent folks who are poverty-level and below,’ she said. ‘There are a lot of people who aren’t eligible for Legal Aid but still need the help.’”

The article also looked at proposed federal reforms and Congressional restrictions that prevent Legal Aid and other federally funded programs “from participating in class-action lawsuits, pursuing statutory attorneys’ fees and advocating for lending reform.”

“For example, the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, the only agency in the state that receives the federal legal-services funds, receives only about 20 percent of its funding from federal grants,” the article said. “Regardless of the fact that a small portion of its funds comes from the government, all of its funds fall under the federal restrictions.”

To read the article, click here.

Baltimore Sun calls for increased funding to legal services

Noting that the foreclosure crisis hasn’t peaked–and that according to the Brennan Center for Justice between 60 and 86 percent of homeowners facing foreclosure last year did so without the benefit of legal counsel–The Baltimore Sun today called for increasing funding for civil legal services.

“Expanding access to the courts for homeowners facing foreclosure could help stabilize troubled neighborhoods and arrest falling home values until the market recovers,” the editorial said. “Low-income and minority homeowners in areas targeted by subprime lenders were the most vulnerable, researchers reported, with up to 92 percent of them facing foreclosure proceedings without the advice of counsel.”

To read the editorial, click here.

More than 30 lawyers volunteer at Pro Bono Day

Executive Director Wilhelm Joseph

More than 30 lawyers participated at a free legal clinic hosted by Maryland Legal Aid on Saturday. “In this economic situation, the need for legal advice had increased tremendously,” Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph told WJZ-TV news. “Financial resources that support ongoing efforts at the Legal Aid Bureau have shrunk.” About 100 people attended the clinic, which featured informational seminars and one-on-one meetings with volunteer lawyers. “It’s an exciting day to see all these private lawyers come out here to give their services,” Joseph added. The read the article, click here.

In addition, Gov. Martin O’Malley announced Pro Bono Week in Maryland in coordination with National Pro Bono Week, which promotes free services donated by lawyers nationwide.  O’Malley was joined by Chief Judge Robert Bell, officials from the Maryland Bar Association, the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, and homeowners who have benefited from the free counseling services when he made the declaration.

State plans to limit safety net aid for the disabled and destitute

Maryland Department of Human Resource Secretary Brenda Donald has proposed limits the state’s Temporary Disability Assistance Program (TDAP) effective Oct. 26 that will place at least  15,000 disabled Marylanders at risk of homelessness.

TDAP provides $185 per month to destitute Marylanders who cannot work, and who are awaiting federal disability assistance from the backlogged Social Security Administration.  While federal initiatives have reduced the waiting time for disability claimants at SSA, the average processing times for such claims are two years.  Despite reports from SSA indicating the recession is prompting additional SSA disability claims, DHR will limit state assistance to a period of 24 months.

“The state is rolling the dice and hoping the feds act quick enough to rescue our must vulnerable brothers and sisters from living on the streets, in state hospitals, or in state jails,” said Peter Sabonis, Maryland Legal Aid’s assistant director of advocacy for income security.

DHR faces an $11 million deficit in its FY 2010 budget and indicates in its TDAP proposal, issued Sept. 11, will save $3.5 million.  TDAP recipients have increased by 70 percent over the last 18 months, according to DHR statistics.

In August, Health Care for the Homeless [ http://www.hchmd.org/ ] surveyed 777 current and past TDAP beneficiaries and found that 64 percent use the modicum of assistance for housing.  According to the report, many TDAP recipients “reporting staying in a shelter that charged a nightly fee, in a program that charged some or all of their monthly TDAP benefits, or with family or friends who charged all of some portion of their monthly benefit.”  An additional 48 percent used TDAP funds for food, suggesting that monthly assistance levels under the statewide Nutritional Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps) are insufficient.

Formal written opposition to the plan was submitted to DHR by Maryland Legal Aid, the Homeless Persons Representation Project (www.hprplaw.org), Health Care for the Homeless, and Maryland’s Alliance for the Poor (a statewide network of advocacy organizations, service providers, and faith communities that advocates on behalf of person in poverty) (http://marylandallianceforthepoor.blogspot.com/).

“DHR published the proposed regulations on September 11^, ” Sabonis said.  “Unless they change their minds or a legislative committee intervenes, the TDAP changes will take place 45 days from publication—on October 26.”

In addition to providing DHR with technical comments, Sabonis sent a letter to DHR and the Governor containing comments from 29 TDAP recipients that Legal Aid has served.  The Legal Aid clients indicated a willingness to speak publicly against the proposal.  “Their disabilities and situations differ, but they all live on the edge,” Sabonis said.  “If TDAP is removed, they will fall.”

The state disability assistance program, which has existed under various forms and acronyms over the last 15 years, has been historically a favorite cost cutting target for the state during time of fiscal stress–but not without political risk.  In 2004, then-Mayor Martin O’Malley lambasted then-Governor Robert Ehrlich for his planned elimination of the program.  The protest was not only memorialized in the Baltimore Sun (“Protest Decries Housing Aid Half; Mayor, Demonstrators Criticize State Suspension of Aid for the Disabled,” Jan. 14, 2004), but was used as a story theme in the fifth and final season of HBO’s The Wire, created by Baltimore’s David Simon (where Baltimore’s young mayor Tom Carcetti repeatedly makes political gains by attacking the incumbent governor for cutting the safety net to the homeless).

In 1992, then Governor Schaefer reluctantly proposed cutting the program—then known as General Public Assistance—admitting that the result would be increased homelessness, begging, and institutionalization.  The cut was delayed briefly by a class action lawsuit, but scaled-down aid was recast as the Disability Assistance Loan Program (DALP), recognizing by program name the fact that state disability assistance was recouped from beneficiaries when their federal disability assistance eligibility was established.

In 1995, Governor Glendenning sought to eliminate DALP, and was confronted with a “sit-in” at his office, demonstrations, a host of anti-cut editorials and legislative opposition.   He reversed policy, but not before changing DALP into the Temporary Emergency Housing Assistance (TEMHA), with the intent that assistance would be delivered in voucher form directly to those who housed the disabled.  The voucher program was never realized—cash assistance continued until 2004, when Governor Ehrlich also proposed its elimination.  Another unsuccessful class action lawsuit was filed, but it galvanized TEMHA support in the General Assembly, which directed DHR to re-institute the assistance, which it now calls TDAP.

For more information, call Sabonis at 443/451-2851.

For a YouTube interview of some Legal Aid clients who will be affected by the proposal, click here.

“Children make mistakes”–and they shouldn’t be permanently expelled from school

The Baltimore Sun ran a letter from Maryland Legal Aid’s Cornelia Bright Gordon about Baltimore City school’s permanent expulsion policy.  “Children make mistakes,” wrote Bright Gordon, co-chief attorney of Legal Aid’s Baltimore office. “Which of them shall we throw away without benefit of any public education that might be their life-line for future success? No person attains adulthood without regrettable conduct.

“Our societal plan is to teach a child correct behavior, to help him/her learn from mistakes, and become a valuable, contributing member of our community upon adulthood,” she continued.

“Maryland law provides a free public education to all children ages five to 20. Certainly the law authorizes the individual counties to create discipline policies. But it anticipates a specific time period of removal from the child’s current school, and not an indefinite exclusion from all school whatsoever.”

To read the entire letter, click here.