Access to Justice Campaign Supporting Community Legal Aid
Access to Justice Campaign Supporting Community Legal Aid
About Access to Justice Campaign
Welcome to Community Legal Aid's Access to Justice Campaign.
Access to justice should not depend on how much money one has. Yet every day, our low-income and elderly neighbors fight for life’s basic necessities – a place to live, protection from violence, and support for their families – all without the help of a lawyer. Due to high medical bills, unstable housing, and unemployment or reduced hours in low-wage jobs, many of these folks have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis.
Community Legal Aid exists to close the “justice gap” by providing free civil legal services to help low-income and elderly residents of Worcester County. The vast majority of Community Legal Aid’s clients have household incomes that fall below 125% of the federal poverty level (just $2,729 monthly for a family of four), and truly cannot afford to hire a private attorney.
As we prepare for this new wave of hardships as a result of the pandemic, we need your support of Community Legal Aid and the Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign.
When justice is denied to one of us, it is denied to all of us. We believe deeply (and hope you do as well) that it is our professional responsibility to help respond to the needs of our neighbors, give them a fair chance at justice, and educate the public on why equal protection under the law matters.
Whatever you are able to give, please know that you are joining in the fight for justice for some of the most vulnerable residents of Central Massachusetts. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Todd Rodman & Polly Tatum
Co-Chairs
Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign
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Our Mission
Community Legal Aid helps ensure justice and fairness in our communities by providing free civil legal services to the low-income and elderly residents of the five counties of Western and Central Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester), and maintains full-time offices in Worcester, Fitchburg, Springfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield. Through its advocacy, Community Legal Aid works to assure fairness for all in the justice system, protecting homes, livelihoods, health and families.
For more information, please visit www.communitylegal.org.
Why Community Legal Aid needs your help
Although the pandemic along with the economic crisis it triggered are both far from over, many safety nets have disappeared. With the expiration of Massachusetts’s moratorium on evictions and foreclosures along with other supports offered by the CARES Act, the communities of Central and Western Massachusetts will see a see a staggering increase in the number of families at risk of losing their homes and in need of legal assistance.
As we prepare for this new wave of hardships, we need your support of Community Legal Aid and the Access to Justice Campaign.
Please consider becoming an Access to Justice Leader with a gift of $1,000, which could prevent a family from becoming homeless. A gift of $750 could help a client appeal an unemployment denial. Making a gift of $500 could help a child receive the special education services needed to succeed in school. And a gift of $250 could help a domestic violence survivor obtain an abuse prevention order, and a gift of $110 could train a community group to fight injustice. Whatever you are able to give, please know that you are joining in the fight for justice for some of the most vulnerable residents of our communities.
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How Your Support Makes a Difference
When the pandemic closed businesses and schools and changed our way of life, Community Legal Aid quickly adapted and expanded the work we do to meet the needs of our clients.
- Our benefits unit pivoted to assist the increased number of workers filing claims for unemployment insurance. In one of many such cases, our advocacy successfully helped a single mother reverse an incorrect denial of her benefits, working around technical glitches that occurred during the virtual appeal hearing with the Department of Unemployment Assistance.
- Our housing attorneys adjusted their work on behalf of tenants facing emergency housing issues by representing clients in telephonic or virtual hearings with the Housing Court. As an example, our advocacy stopped an eviction for an elderly tenant who was paying her rent and would have likely become homeless but for our intervention.
- As the incidence of domestic violence has increased in our service area, our family law unit has focused on helping survivors secure protection orders from courts operating remotely. This included successfully obtaining a one-year extension of an abuse protection order for a teenage client abused by a family member.
- With schools providing remote instruction, our education attorneys turned their attention to helping families get school services in place for their children at home. In one typical case, our advocates assisted a family in obtaining tailored services for a student with special needs for whom the virtual classroom posed unique challenges.
Michelle's Story
A single mother of two children, “Michelle” worked as a personal care assistant, a job that gave her flexibility to work around her children’s school and daycare schedules. In early March, the school and daycare her children attended closed due to the pandemic. With no one to watch her children, Michelle was forced to stop working. After her employer, incorrectly, told the Department of Unemployment Assistance that Michelle had stopped working without reason, she was denied unemployment benefits.
She contacted Community Legal Aid for help. Staff Attorney Daniel Bahls assisted Michelle with her appeal at the Department of Unemployment Assistance, and Michelle was able to demonstrate that she had been forced to leave her job due to the necessity of caring for her children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hearing Officer reversed her denial and awarded her benefits dating back to early March.
Thank you to our Law Firm & Business Donors