2025 Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign supporting Community Legal Aid
2025 Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign supporting Community Legal Aid
About Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign
As volunteers for Community Legal Aid, we are often reminded of the profound impact that this organization has on the lives of our community members. This is why we decided to volunteer for the Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign this year. Community Legal Aid’s impact is evident in the gratitude expressed by its clients. “Ann,” for example, a former client, recently obtained a divorce from an abusive spouse, and wrote to her Community Legal Aid advocate.
“If you never did anything again after our case, please know that you have made all the difference in our lives. We are so thankful for you and what you are doing for our family. You aren’t just helping with our legal issues; you’re allowing us to close one chapter forever and begin to dream of a brighter future.”
Every year this campaign reminds us that access to justice should not depend on how much money one has. And we hope it serves as a reminder for you too. A reminder that most of Community Legal Aid’s clients have household incomes that fall below 125% of the federal poverty level (just $34,688 annually for a family of four) and cannot afford to hire a private attorney. The Worcester County Access to Justice Campaign needs your support to ensure that people like Ann are not forced to navigate the complex civil legal system alone.
When you make a gift to this campaign, you help create change. As our region’s civil legal services provider, Community Legal Aid helps over 8,000 low-income and elderly folks like Ann fight for life’s necessities – a place to live, protection from violence, and support for their families—every year.
All this work is possible because of you. By coming together as a community in support of the Access to Justice Campaign, we are supporting our most vulnerable Worcester County neighbors, people like Ann, and helping to brighten their futures. YOU are part of this community, so please join us with your support to continue this fight for justice. Thank you.
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Isabella's Story
Although I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A is a long first name, Springfield parent Rachael can now say her six-year-old daughter can write it on her own.
Rachael first contacted CLA in the fall of 2022. She was concerned that Isabella, then aged five, was struggling to make friends and stay calm at school. Education law Staff Attorney Molly Jane Thoms worked with Rachael to help Isabella’s school understand these challenges. With Attorney Thoms’s advocacy, the school agreed to add more support to Isabella’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Within a few months, Isabella was making progress in these areas, so Rachael and Molly Jane agreed to close the case.
At the conclusion of the school year, however, Rachael realized that Isabella was struggling with many of the pre-academic skills her peers had mastered in kindergarten. Rachael arranged for Isabella to undergo a comprehensive psychological evaluation through the Baystate Developmental Pediatrics Program. The evaluation confirmed some existing diagnoses. It also found that Isabella has significant deficits in receptive language and linguistic reasoning skills. In short, Isabella doesn’t grasp what people say as well as other kids her age do – which is essential in the classroom and beyond.
Rachael is extremely attuned to her eager, sweet, and imaginative six-year-old. Rachael knew the mainstream classroom wasn’t the right fit, but was unsure how to use the Baystate findings to get Isabella what she needs. So in October 2023, Rachael reached back out to Attorney Thoms.
In the months since, Rachael and Attorney Thoms have successfully advocated for significant changes to Isabella’s education. While Isabella remains with her original first-grade teacher and classmates for social studies and science, she now receives mathematics, written language, and reading instruction with a special educator. This happens in a small classroom with lessons specially designed for kids with disabilities. Following an additional school-based evaluation, Rachael and Attorney Thoms also secured other important additions to Isabella’s IEP. This included 30 minutes with a speech and language pathologist each week and goals and accommodations related to building communication skills.
Rachael is tremendously proud of Isabella’s recent progress. In addition to writing her whole first name, she is starting to recognize sight words like “yes” that are foundational literacy skills. At the beginning of the year, Isabella would refuse to do practice work sent home by her teacher. Now, she tries activities on her own before asking for help from her mom.
Isabella is still very young, so she and Rachael likely have many more years of special education ahead of them. Attorney Thoms seeks to build Rachael’s knowledge of special education and empower her to be assertive about her daughter’s needs and collaborative with the school team. Right now, Rachael and Attorney Thoms are keeping an eye on the data collected through the IEP process. They are alert to whether Isabella may need even more specialized support to access her right to a free appropriate public education as she grows up.
Livia's Story
In 2022, the accessible apartment where Livia and Roberto had happily lived for many years was bought by a housing developer who sought to evict them.
Overwhelmed and unsure what to do, Livia contacted CLA for help. With the collaboration of Roberto's medical team, who testified that moving Roberto would be a risk to his life, CLA Attorneys Michelin Cahill and Marina Abraham successfully helped Livia negotiate a settlement that preserved her and Roberto's tenancy.
Livia is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, where she uses her voice to help advocate for increased funding for Community Legal Aid and other similar organizations. In January 2024, Livia told her story to a crowd of hundreds of people at the Massachusetts statehouse.
Jim's Story
“Jim” is an elderly Veteran who served on active duty during the Vietnam war.
He was referred to CLA by the Tenancy Preservation Program, a state homelessness prevention program that helps people with disabilities preserve their housing. Jim was facing possible eviction due to non-payment of rent for the efficiency unit where he had lived for the last fifteen years. After the landlord upgraded the unit, Jim’s rent jumped by over 100%], which he could not afford. After nearly a year, Jim had fallen behind in rent by thousands of dollars, and, with his limited income, had no way to pay it.
To preserve Jim’s housing, Attorney Strauss first turned to finding programs that could help Jim pay the back rent he owed. Along with Housing Unit Case Manager Ashley McGill, Attorney Strauss worked with several different organizations to get nearly all of Jim’s back rent paid off. This helped to stop his eviction, but Jim also needed help in order to stay in his housing.
Attorney Strauss then worked with several agencies, including the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program, to get Jim a voucher to help pay for his housing going forward. With the voucher, provided by a federal program for assisting low-income Veterans, Jim can afford to continue living in his current housing.
Providing Jim with the holistic services CLA can offer, Attorney Strauss also connected Jim with CLA’s Elder Unit. A paralegal in the unit provided Jim with information about trying to reinstate his Veterans’ benefits from the state and increasing his SNAP (formerly called “Food Stamps”). The paralegal also provided Jim with additional resources available for elders in his area.
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