Clients assisted by legal aid programs include those who are living in poverty, as well as the elderly and many individuals with disabilities. When necessities like housing, employment, health, or safety are endangered, the judicial system is often the only solution for these vitally important challenges.
Unable to afford private legal assistance, and with nowhere else to turn, they may be losing their homes to foreclosure or eviction, they may be dealing with health care denials or they may be victims of domestic abuse. In each instance, not only is legal aid the last resort; it is the only way to solve the problem.
To meet the general income-eligibility guidelines for legal assistance, people must live at an economic level that is under 125 percent of the federal poverty line. View for the 2009 poverty guidelines.
Working for extended periods of time had always been difficult for Chelsea resident John Hancock. He was hit by a car as a child, and the terrible accident left him with a traumatic brain injury and limited coordination. Now 42 years old, John had received Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits most of his life. Then, 10 years ago, he got a job he liked and did well at the airport transporting people with disabilities. He notified the Social Security Administration (SSA) of his successful employment, and they told him that his case would be reevaluated in nine months.
Over the next few years, John received several letters from the SSA notifying him that his benefits were being increased because of his work activity. Then, six years after he started working, John received another letter from SSA. It said that he had been earning too much money to receive benefits, and that he should have stopped receiving checks years earlier. SSA claimed they had overpaid John $41,000, and they wanted him to pay that impossible sum back.
After months of frustrating appeals to SSA, John visited Community Legal Services and Counseling Center. An attorney there presented John’s case to a judge, who waived the $41,000 overpayment. Freed from such a massive burden, John was able to continue provide for himself. He is still working at the airport and loves his job.
(back to top)
The Ma family arrived in the United States from a small village in China two years ago after waiting more than a decade to enter the country lawfully. Upon settling in the East Boston, mother Man Yi Ma and father Chao Xiong Ma both found jobs, and their two children, Daisy and Sam, started school. During this time, they dutifully paid the rent for their East Boston apartment, and they began to save money to send Daisy and Sam to college.
Then one day last January, as Man Yi Ma sat down for lunch, movers and a constable arrived at their door. Bewildered and frightened, she attempted to communicate to the movers that they were good tenants. None of the movers spoke Chinese, and soon Ma found herself on the street surrounded by her belongings.
At the time, the Mas were unaware that their landlord, who lived below them in the same building, had been foreclosed on by the bank months prior. Despite the foreclosure, he had continued to accept the Mas’ rent. He also kept them in the dark by screening their mail for eviction notices from the bank.
The bank soon began eviction proceedings against the Mas. Fortunately, they contacted Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), and an attorney there negotiated with the bank on their behalf. The attorney discovered that the paperwork used by the bank’s lawyers to evict the Mas had expired. With legal services’ representation, the eviction was stopped, the Mas obtained priority status for stable, affordable housing, and the bank agreed to compensate them for their expenses. They will be allowed to remain in their East Boston apartment until they can secure new housing.
(back to top)
Ronica Jackson had always worked. For nearly three decades, she held positions in fields as diverse as social services with at-risk youth, health care, and hospitality management. All of her employers had appreciated her, promoted her, and gave her excellent recommendations.
She had no reason to believe, then, that she would have trouble getting a new job if she stopped working to care for her ailing mother. In 2003, Ronica left her managerial position at a Cape Cod hotel to move to Boston to be near her mother, once a prominent civil rights leader in Boston who had instilled a strong work ethic in her daughter.
When her mother passed a few years later, Ronica set out to find employment. She encountered difficulty finding anything permanent and was forced to settle for a series of contract and temp jobs. In fall 2007, she became ill and had to spend six weeks in the hospital, which ended her temp job. After unsuccessfully applying for a number of positions upon leaving the hospital, Ronica finally applied for unemployment insurance.
At the time, Ronica lived in a Cambridge apartment she had rented for the past 10 years. It took five weekly unemployment checks to pay just her rent, so before long she fell behind on her payments. Despite a persistent job search, Ronica was still without work when her unemployment benefits ran out in February, and her landlord started eviction proceedings against her.
That’s when Ronica came to GBLS. A GBLS housing attorney was able to negotiate with her landlord’s attorney and secure the help of a local agency to keep Ronica in her apartment. This stability in Ronica’s life allowed her to find a new job.
(back to top)
Springfield resident and single mother Antonia Figueroa was understandably “overwhelmed, stressed and worried” when she received a letter from the Department for Transitional Assistance (DTA) that said she must return $9,310 in past overpaid benefits. Antonia had received welfare intermittently in the past as she struggled to support her family, but for the past two years she worked at a daycare center, first as a receptionist and then as a family services coordinator, and had not been receiving any public benefits.
In the letter, the DTA said that through their own miscalculation 10 years earlier they had overpaid Antonia by that significant amount. Antonia frantically estimated how much in benefits she had received over the years and realized it was impossible for her to owe such a large sum of money.
Luckily, a co-worker suggested that she contact Western Massachusetts Legal Services (WMLS). After obtaining Antonia’s eligibility and payment history, a WMLS attorney realized that the DTA had grossly miscalculated her overpayment. In fact, they had included five years when she received no benefits. Antonia’s legal aid attorney negotiated with the DTA, and they took full responsibility for this decade-old error. Eventually, they agreed to waive the entire $9,310, much to Antonia’s relief. She is currently very busy working at the daycare center, raising her children, and taking college classes.
(back to top)
After five years at his maintenance job, Pedro Vasquez noticed something strange. At tax time, he got two W2 forms from his company. One reported actual pay from his full-time job, but the other reported part-time work that Pedro had never done. Confused, he went to his manager to ask about the forms. His manager told him, “I‘ll take care of it.”
A few months later, Pedro got a letter from the IRS saying he owed them nearly $5000 in taxes for unreported income. But Pedro had paid his taxes. Again, he went to his boss, who deflected his questions. Then, Pedro got another letter from the IRS, this one more threatening. Confused and worried, Pedro called legal aid. His lawyer found that Pedro had been issued two checks for over a year; however, he only saw one of them. A second set of checks, with a different address and forged signatures, had been cashed by someone else in Pedro’s name. Pedro and his attorney were able to present overwhelming evidence in court, including forged checks, affidavits and proof of hours worked by Pedro. The judge ruled in Pedro’s favor, clearing his IRS record. Pedro no longer faces the threat of any action against him and has actually received his overdue tax refunds.
(back to top)
The stress of being involuntarily removed from her home led to a heart condition for 74 year-old Rose Doyle, sending her to a nearby hospital. Hospital staff wanted to operate, but Mrs. Doyle told them her primary care doctor had previously advised her that surgery could further jeopardize her health.
The hospital filed a petition for a permanent guardian to be able to make a decision about the surgery, accompanied by a psychiatrist’s medical certificate stating that Mrs. Doyle suffered from mental illness. The certificate did not contain any diagnosis or documentation of mental illness. Mrs. Doyle was sent to a nursing home, even though she expressed a strong desire to return home. She remained in the nursing home against her will and without access to her personal belongings for three months.
With the help of her legal aid attorney, things turned around. Mrs. Doyle filed an objection to the guardianship petition and a motion for an independent competency evaluation. A psychiatrist evaluated Mrs. Doyle and found her to be competent. Her primary care doctor of twelve years also supplied a letter stating that she was quite capable of making informed medical decisions.
On the basis of this evidence, the hospital dismissed the underlying guardianship petition. Mrs. Doyle was able to live independently with the help of home care services.
(back to top)
After fleeing an abusive marriage, Hong Nguyen settled her four children into an apartment while she worked full time as a manicurist. She was able to support her family with the help of a Section 8 housing subsidy.
Things changed when new upstairs tenants caused serious property damage. Water and even refuse leaked into Hong’s apartment from above. One room was irreparably flooded and family possessions were ruined.
When the landlord was contacted his assistant accused Hong and her children of living on taxpayer’s money and being lazy. Meantime heating costs soared as the ceilings and windows cracked. Hong withheld rent. She soon received an eviction notice.
Hong contacted her local legal aid office. She was advised to call the local Board of Health, who found 30 code violations. Knowing an eviction would cost Hong her Section 8 subsidy; her legal aid attorney documented the conditions and went with Hong to court. Her landlord agreed to a settlement and Hong has now moved her children to a clean apartment.
(back to top)
Lou and Janice Gray were living in a rented apartment with their three children when Lou’s mother offered to loan them money for a down payment on a house. Lou had been suffering from dizzy spells and seizures and found it difficult to continue at his job.
When they found a house, all the banks they approached refused to give them a mortgage because of their poor credit and low income. Their real estate agent finally referred them to a mortgage broker who was willing to take on their mortgage. Janice was making $15,000 per year at her job while Lou received about $15,600 per year in Social Security benefits. Lou’s poor credit made him ineligible to be on the loan, so the broker added their daughter, Tammy, who made $9,000 per year working part-time and attending college, to the loan as a co-signer. The Grays were told they would receive a two-year adjustable mortgage at 9 percent interest and put down a deposit of $10,500.
By this time, they had been forced to move into two hotel rooms because another tenant was moving into their apartment. Then, when they went to sign some papers before the closing, they were told their loan would have an interest rate of 11.5 percent. The broker said they could refinance in six months, but if they backed out they would lose their deposit. Living in a hotel and feeling they had no other choice, they signed the necessary paperwork. At the closing, the Grays were asked to sign many documents they had never seen before without a thorough explanation of their contents.
The Grays tried to keep up with the loan payments, but they gradually fell behind and had to borrow money. When they tried to refinance their house with a different mortgage company six months later, they were denied. Lou tried to go back to work driving trucks, but it was too much of a strain on his health. Two years from the date of the closing, their mortgage rate rose from 11 percent to 14 percent. The mortgage company kept calling to find out when the next payment would be made. Eventually the company began foreclosure proceedings.
With nowhere else to turn, Janice called social services agencies and other organizations in her area for help and finally got in touch with Neighborhood Legal Services (NLS) in Lawrence. An NLS attorney discovered that the mortgage broker had inflated Janice and Tammy’s incomes by four times on the mortgage papers so they would qualify for a higher cost home loan – one that they could never have afforded.
The mortgage company initially blamed the broker and refused to take responsibility, but the attorney managed to get the company to forgive half of the late payment fees the Grays owed, as well as renegotiate their mortgage to a 7 percent fixed interest rate. The Grays are now able to afford their mortgage and are no longer in danger of losing their home.
(back to top)
|
