Posted September 22, 20148:58 am
This opinion article was published by The Plain Dealer on Cleveland.com on September 20. Below is a copy of what appeared online:
Seventh-grader Mike Jones is a gifted pianist and good student. His sister, Sally, is a talented ballerina.
Their family was homeless. Their mother, Betsy Jones, contacted The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland when she was denied admission to public housing. She proudly shared with Legal Aid attorney Maria Smith a video of Mike performing piano to a captivated audience and a picture of both children smiling next to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.
As a result of Legal Aid's representation, the housing authority approved Betsy Jones' application. She was now able to afford a safe home and create a stable living environment that would enable her to keep a job and her children to stay in their school.
The Joneses (name changed to protect client's privacy) were three of the more than 22,000 people The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland helped last year.
Theirs is an example of the impact achieved every day by legal aid organizations funded by the Legal Services Corp., which is marking its 40th anniversary this year.
This past week in Washington, we attended a three-day conference sponsored by the Legal Services Corp. to mark this important milestone.
Hillary Clinton, the LSC board chair under President Jimmy Carter; U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; and White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston were among leaders from business, government and the legal community at the event. Created in 1974 as one of the last acts of the Nixon administration, LSC is the largest single funder of civil legal aid in the country.
Cleveland's Legal Aid is the fifth oldest legal aid in the country and one of 134 independent legal aid organizations funded by LSC serving every county in the United States. Cleveland Legal Aid serves five counties: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake and Lorain.
Every day, low-income Americans seek help from LSC-funded organizations with civil legal matters that go to the very heart of their safety and security. They are fighting to avert unlawful foreclosure, or to escape domestic violence. They are grandparents seeking legal guardianship of a grandchild in need of life-saving surgery, or they are veterans returning from overseas and facing legal issues.
Here in Cleveland, Legal Aid's clients are low-income people who are confronted with a legal problem that if left unresolved will result in loss of housing, education, income, food, safety or family stability. These clients have legal rights, but without an attorney, those rights will not be enforced. At Legal Aid, we use the power of the law to make sure that those without power get a fair shake.
LSC's funding in Northeast Ohio is leveraged by Legal Aid: for every dollar of federal investment in Cleveland Legal Aid's work, Legal Aid raises an additional three dollars to fund its operation of 42 full-time attorneys and 1,500 volunteers. The outcomes of that investment are even more significant. Based on data tracked for cases Legal Aid closed in Northeast Ohio, assets and income were increased and debt was reduced for Legal Aid's clients by a combined $25 million last year. The small federal investment is multiplied many times, helping lift people out of poverty.
Commemorations are a time to look forward as well as back, and as LSC marks 40 years of solid accomplishment, it faces a future full of challenge.
The need for legal services for low-income Americans now stands at an all-time high, with nearly 65 million people – 21 percent of the population – financially eligible for assistance from LSC-funded legal aid organizations. That is a 30 percent increase over 2007, before the recession began.
At the same time, funding for legal aid via the LSC has remained stagnant in absolute dollars since 2007, and has declined in inflation-adjusted dollars. In fact, in inflation-adjusted dollars spent per eligible person, LSC funding is today at an all-time low.
Through its support of pro bono initiatives and technological innovation, LSC and its grantees are stretching these limited resources.
What is needed in this milestone year for LSC is a national renewal of the core value that it embodies -- access to justice, which, for Legal Aid's clients, means increased economic security, access to stable housing, and improved safety and health. Legal Aid builds healthy communities where people live in safe, stable homes with adequate food, a sense of security, a good education that connects them with good jobs, and lives of dignity, decency and hope.
Only with increased commitment from all -- government, courts, the bar and the public -- will our country's promise of justice, expressed in the first line of our Constitution and the closing words of the Pledge of Allegiance, be made real for all Americans.
James J. Sandman is president of Washington, D.C.-based Legal Services Corp. Colleen M. Cotter is executive director of The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.