California needs to rescue funding for legal aid
Soaring rent increases in the Bay Area the past few years have left many families scrambling to find a place they can afford. Jason Tarricone, directing attorney of the Housing Program for Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, knows first-hand how skyrocketing rents can push families to the brink of homelessness.
The Silicon Valley nonprofit helps thousands each year avoid homelessness, gain legal status as immigrants, and increase their incomes. Last year, Community Legal Services helped over 150 families stay in their homes. And in late 2015, they negotiated an agreement that allowed 70 families to remain in a Redwood City apartment complex for an extra nine months, giving them the time and relocation assistance they needed to find new homes.
Tarricone says that without the free legal help organizations like his provide, more Californians would be living on the streets. Yet the lack of funding for vital legal aid programs severely limits the amount of assistance these organizations can offer, even at a time when demand for their services is growing. Although some people might believe they have the right to an attorney, there is no such right in civil cases.
This is why we join with legal service organizations throughout California in calling on the state to provide $30 million to reach the national average in civil legal aid funding. President Trump’s budget threatens to eliminate all federal aid provided through the Legal Services Corporation. That leaves the state’s Equal Access Fund to help bridge this growing gap. Established in 1999, the fund receives just $10 million a year, a number that has only been boosted once –a $5 million increase that many of us fought hard for in this year’s state budget.
A 2013 report to the Legislature found that there are nearly 10,000 eligible Californians for every one legal aid attorney. Without additional state funding, the number of people who lack representation in our legal system will only increase.
Seniors, people with disabilities, domestic violence survivors and their children, elderly financial abuse victims, victims of consumer scams, working parents in debt and many more will be left alone to navigate a daunting legal system.
California’s Equal Access Fund helps finance 94 legal service providers up and down the state, ensuring that justice is not only available to the well-connected.
In Oakland, the Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP) offers legal representation to domestic violence survivors and their children at the appellate level to ensure they can live in healthy and safe environments. It also provides training and technical assistance for qualified legal service providers. As a result, the California Appellate Courts issued nine published opinions, which are binding on trial courts throughout California faced with similar issues raised by thousands of domestic violence survivors.
In Los Angeles, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, assists thousands of vulnerable low-income residents who have little or no English skills with legal information, counseling and representation.
In the Central Valley, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation represents farmworkers in wage theft, sexual harassment and unsafe workplace condition lawsuits. It also offers technical counsel and advice on the use of pesticides and its effects on neighboring communities.
The $5 million increase in this year’s state budget allowed
FVAP to provide more services to survivors of abuse. It enabled Asian Americans Advancing Justice to install a new toll-free helpline to serve Filipino community members in Tagalog.
Allocating additional funding for legal aid will provide more access to our judicial system. It will also strengthen our economy. Every $1 in legal aid saves the state $6 because families gain security when protective orders are granted, homelessness is prevented, children stay in school and seniors are rescued from financial fraud and elder abuse.
That’s a return on investment that California taxpayers should love to see.
Bob Wieckowski represents the 10th District, which includes parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties, in the California Senate. Salena Copeland is the executive director of the Legal Aid Association of California. They wrote this for The Mercury News.