More seek Legal Aid in hard times

From yesterday’s Washington Post: As Maryland Legal Aid celebrates its centennial this year, the national housing crisis, which has hit suburban Washington hard, is making the work it does even more vital.

At the same time, the agency, like similar organizations across the country, is grappling with funding cuts that make it harder to help the increasing number of people in need of assistance in civil cases.

For example, Prince George’s, the second-most-populous jurisdiction in the state, has endured more foreclosures than any other in Maryland. And the economic downturn has brought Legal Aid prospective clients that the organization would not have seen 10 years ago.

“I review a lot of the intakes, and we’re getting people from Potomac calling us,” [said Legal Aid supervising attorney Teresa Cooke]. “But these individuals are now actually financially eligible for our services.”

To read the article, click here.

Social workers team up with Legal Aid lawyers

When clients come to Maryland Legal Aid, they’re often desperate. In addition to a pressing legal problem, they’re grappling with other issues that drive their lives into a crisis — no money, no housing or no medical care. Sometimes all of the above.

You could say they need a social worker almost as badly as a lawyer.

And you’d be right.

That’s why Legal Aid and the University of Maryland School of Social Work created a program that integrates first-year graduate social work students into the nonprofit law firm’s practice in downtown Baltimore.

“Clients come to us with a host of problems — the presenting legal problem, plus community-based needs,” said Cornelia Bright Gordon, chief attorney of Legal Aid’s administrative law and intake units. “For example, many people have barriers, such as mental health issues, that may interfere with the success of the legal problem. They need access to services to make the legal work stick.

“Since Legal Aid is the law firm of last resort, our clients are in true crisis,” Bright Gordon said. “They come in with threats of immediate eviction, no money or food in the house, and some are desperately ill, with no access to medical services and no insurance.”

The three-year-old project helps stabilize clients and bring their lives back to a state of equilibrium. “It’s a collaborative process between a lawyer and a trained social worker with hands-on, clinical therapeutic experience who is supervising four interns,” she said.

To read the entire Daily Record column, click here.

Woman homeless after Section 8 wants her to move into condemned house

Vanessa Davis had to sleep in a park for a few nights while waiting for repairs to an apartment that Baltimore City’s Section 8 had not approved for occupancy. Meanwhile, the housing department made rental payments to the landlord for a year on the unoccupied Reservoir Hill apartment, WBAL-TV reported last week.

Davis, who is disabled and is staying with relatives, had been dropped by Section 8 after it discovered she hadn’t moved in to the condemned house, but was reinstated last week after investigative reporter Barry Simms called.

“Someone dropped the ball,” Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Kay Harding told Simms. “Someone approved this house without verifying the use and occupancy permit was there. This property should never have been rented, but they were trying to penalize my client because she didn’t move in.”

To see the report, click here.

City revokes license of Madison Park North Apartments

Baltimore’s housing department revoked the license of the publicly subsidized Madison Park North Apartments in Reservoir Hill, a move that could force out residents of 200 units.

And those residents haven’t been told what will happen next, the Baltimore Sun reported earlier this week.

“We need the Baltimore City housing department to sit down with us and tell us how this is going to work,” said Legal Aid staff attorney Tabinda Riaz, who represents the tenants’ association.

To read the article, click here.

Vulnerable get hurt when uprooted from public housing

Maryland Legal Aid housing expert Greg Countess was quoted in a Sept. 30 Baltimore Sun article about Madison Park North Apartments, “City plan to take down troubled housing complex a familiar tactic.”

Baltimore City plans to revoke the complex’s multifamily dwelling license because of rampant crime. Residents are afraid they’ll be uprooted during the middle of the school year and won’t be able to find new housing.

“It’s usually the most vulnerable who wind up getting hurt,” Countess said. “Those who are disabled, thost who are elderly, those with large families. Already some Madison Park residents have been calling around to landlords and have been told ‘We’re not taking anyone from Madison Park’ because of the complex’s reputation for violence.”

To read the article, click here.

New law will strengthen protections for domestic violence victims

A law that goes into effect Oct. 1 strengthening protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault isn’t just a win for the most vulnerable people in society.

It’s also a template for what can happen when legal services advocates working in different areas form a coalition and work for a common cause.

“The most important way this new law will help domestic violence and sexual assault victims is by improving their safety by giving them housing choices they didn’t have before,” said University of Baltimore School of Law professor Michele Gilman, who spearheaded the effort to get the bill through the General Assembly.

“It gives them autonomy in how to secure safe housing,” Gilman said. “They can stay in the property and get the locks changed, or terminate the lease early.”

The coalition brought together advocates who don’t have much of a history of working together in Maryland: lawyers who help domestic violence victims and low-income housing lawyers.

To read the rest of this “Of Service” column in the Daily Record (written by Maryland Legal Aid communications director Joe Surkiewicz), click here.

Law firm of last resort

Today’s Of Service column in the Daily Record looks at Maryland Legal Aid’s downtown Baltimore intake process, which saw 670 prospective clients walk through its doors in June.

“People come in for any number of reasons,” said Bobbie Steyer, the lawyer in charge of Legal Aid’s intake unit, which hosts open intakes three days a week. “We are the law firm of last resort. Courts, other law firms, social services — if they see someone with an inkling of a legal problem, they send them here.”

“The people coming in used to be the poorest of the poor — until the economic downturn,” Steyer said. “Now we’re seeing people who thought they’d never come here. They’re unemployed, their house is in foreclosure.

“Housing is the biggest issue by far,” she continued. “People come in who are getting evicted tomorrow and we try to find places for them to go. But all the financial resources from other agencies have dried up.”

To read the entire column, click here.

Pilot self-help program debuts in district court

Anne Arundel County residents are flocking to the Glen Burnie District Court Self-Help Center to get free help to represent themselves in court, the Baltimore Sun reported this morning. “Staffed by members of the Legal Aid Bureau, the pilot program is aimed at the meat-and-potatoes civil cases–small claims, landlord-tenant disputes, creditor-debtor issues and protective orders–that can clog the court system and lead to frustration when people try to handle the cases themselves,” the article said.

“Open since December, the four-person center has assisted more than 1,850 people–the monthly number reached a high of 543 in June, said supervising attorney Sarah Coffey Frush,” the article continued. “The center averaged fewer than 10 daily visitors in the first three months. But as word spread, numbers have climbed.”

The read the report, click here.

Perry Hall man battles leaky ceiling

A Baltimore County man with a leaky ceiling in his apartment called Fox 45 News with his problem . . . and Fox 45 called Maryland Legal Aid for some expert legal guidance for renters who find themselves in similar situations. “People who rent many times feel they’re at the mercy of the landlord,” said Baltimore County office (Towson) chief attorney Ann Lembo (left). “The difficulty for a lot of people is being able to describe to the judge what their case is, being able to show that they have gone through all the steps they need to go through. That’s why calling the county inspector helps them with that–because there’s a written record.”

To see the segment, click here.

Multi-service center for poor to expand in Howard

A center for helping low-income residents of Howard County will expand this summer, the Howard County Times reported yesterday. The North Laurel-Savage Multi-Service Center, which provides a wide range of human service programs, will nearly double the number of clients served when it relocates in July. Maryland Legal Aid is one of the programs that helped about 1,900 families and individuals at the center last year.  “The idea is ‘one-stop shopping’ to streamline services to reduce the number of contacts and visits to various service providers,” said Denise McCain, Legal Aid’s director of program development and compliance.  “The average client has more than one issue and generally needs a multitude of services.” To read the article, click here.