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From the Executive Director and President GHLA had an excellent year in 2005. We opened more cases, expanded our service to low-income immigrants, received new funding from the legislature, and for the first time in several years, hired new advocacy staff. We also continued our efforts to make GHLA an ever more efficient and effective law firm that strategically uses our limited resources to address the effects and causes of poverty. The needs and perspectives of our clients continued to define the specific work of GHLA. GHLA attorneys regularly provided this high level of patient, thorough, and comprehensive representation. And with each new case, our attorneys met the legal needs of our clients, addressing their problems with housing, abuse and violence, health care, benefits, and employment. As you’ll see in the rest of this report, our staff used a variety of advocacy skills and legal remedies to address individual and systemic problems faced by the low-income community. GHLA’s Board of Directors continued to actively participate in the governance and oversight of the agency. As part of the Board’s effort to become even more of a resource to GHLA and its clients, members of the staff and Board conducted an organizational self-assessment. This work was supported by a grant from the Nonprofit Support Program of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Many of the recommendations that came from the assessment have already been implemented. The Strategic Planning Committee also used the assessment to frame ongoing discussions that enhanced Board participation with staff in strategic thinking and decision-making. Elam Lantz, Jr., Executive Director John H. Lawrence, Jr., President
Preserving Decent and Affordable Housing As cutbacks in government housing programs continued, many low-income families did not get the subsidies they needed, while others found their paychecks would no longer cover the rent. Budget cuts also led Housing Authorities to save money by removing families from their apartments using stricter policies and lowered tolerance for minor infractions. As the cost of housing went up, GHLA efforts to keep families in housing that they could afford took on a new urgency. Two GHLA housing cases led to important Appellate Court rulings. Correa v. Ward (91 Conn. App. 142, 881 A.2d 393), reaffirmed that a landlord cannot evict a tenant in retaliation for reporting housing code violations and that exceptions to this rule are limited to those found in the statute. Rodriguez v. Ancona (88 Conn.App. 193, 868 A.2d 807) affirmed that a tenant has a right to adequate damages after illegal entry by the landlord, that those damages are not worth less when a third party pays some of the rent, and that attorney’s fees must be calculated on reasonable time spent on the case, not a small percentage of the damages. During the year, the Hartford Housing Authority worked closely with tenants’ groups on a new vision and plan to redevelop the Bowles Park and Westbrook Village mixed-use housing projects. A GHLA attorney represented those tenants and actively participated in meetings to ensure that tenants’ interests became part of the plan. Protecting the Rights of Low-Income Workers Barely making it from paycheck to paycheck, with few resources and little choice of jobs, low-income workers are vulnerable to unfair and illegal treatment on the job. Through negotiation, litigation, and client education, GHLA attorneys helped clients to improve their working conditions, keep their jobs, and assert their right to be treated fairly. GHLA’s long campaign to win unemployment compensation benefits for part-time workers with disabilities achieved an important victory in 2005. In Fullerton v. Administrator, the Superior Court ruled that the Department of Labor’s eligibility requirements discriminated against workers whose disabilities limited them to part-time work. The Department appealed the Court’s decision; a GHLA attorney will argue the case before the Connecticut Supreme Court in the spring of 2006. Clients came to GHLA reporting that they’d been denied a job involving children because employer background checks revealed that they were listed, often inappropriately, in Connecticut’s registry of individuals accused of abusing or neglecting children. Upon investigation, GHLA attorneys discovered that some clients were never notified that they were being included in the registry, and were never given a chance to challenge the accusations. GHLA attorneys took a lead role in drafting and advocating for legislation to significantly improve due process protections for people named in the registry. The legislation requires written notice and a hearing before an individual’s name is placed in the registry, except in extreme situations when withholding notice is necessary to protect children or others. The legislation also allows individuals who are currently on the registry to appeal if they never received notice of the charges against them. The new notice and hearing procedures will allow the registry to serve the important purpose of protecting children, while ensuring that individuals do not unnecessarily lose the chance to work in the child care or other related fields. GHLA attorneys continued to reduce barriers to employment for people with criminal records. In addition to representing petitioners before the Board of Pardons, GHLA collaborated with national organizations to craft strategies that would require employers to fully evaluate the qualifications of a job applicant with a criminal record, rather than summarily denying the person employment. Protecting the Health, Safety, and Independence of Seniors In 2005, decades-old child support garnishment orders were suddenly being enforced against senior citizens’ Social Security checks. The orders were based on the obligor’s income many years ago and did not consider the person’s current ability to pay. GHLA clients with limited and fixed incomes couldn’t afford to have huge deductions taken from the checks they counted on to make ends meet. GHLA attorneys reduced the amount being withheld from client’s Social Security checks by winning court-ordered modifications, or by challenging the Social Security Administration's garnishment practices. In several cases, GHLA attorneys won significantly reduced orders and reimbursement for funds improperly withheld. GHLA attorneys worked to ensure that the independence and rights of seniors were protected during conservatorship proceedings in Probate Court. In hard-fought cases, GHLA attorneys argued that a conservatorship, if imposed at all, should be limited to the particular functions that the senior was unable to do. GHLA attorneys, sensitive to our clients desire to live in their homes or at least in their community, were instrumental in the passage of legislation requiring court authorization before a conservator can place a ward in a nursing home. The new law also requires conservators to exhaust all options for community placement before considering a nursing home. Promoting the Health, Privacy, and Rights of People Living with HIV The Aids Legal Network (ALN) is a collaborative project of Connecticut’s legal services programs that is based at GHLA. ALN’s most important direct service is to connect a client who is HIV+ with either a legal services lawyer or a lawyer volunteering time pro bono. The greatest demand for ALN’s services in 2005 came from clients who needed disability benefits, stable housing, or advance directives, such as powers of attorney and health care directives. When ALN identified other needs, it connected clients with a variety of appropriate social service programs. ALN worked closely with community and AIDS service organizations to expand the cadre of professionals who recognize when an attorney can make the difference for their clients. ALN staff helped to organize Connecticut’s major HIV/AIDS conference and the Connecticut Latino community health fair. They also organized monthly meetings of Hartford, Tolland, and Middlesex County HIV case coordinators, in order to keep current on issues and trends in the client community. With the addition of an Entitlement Resources Coordinator, ALN built the capacity to meet clients’ need for accurate and timely information about the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and other changes in the health care delivery system. Meeting Immigrants’ Legal Needs GHLA’s Immigrant Legal Needs Initiative received an additional year of funding through a grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Because many low-income immigrants don’t know about GHLA and are unaware of their legal rights or afraid to assert them, an essential component of the Initiative was community education and outreach to immigrant communities. GHLA staff regularly conducted legal education presentations and training for immigrants and their advocates. Outreach participants were particularly interested in information about government benefits, health care, employment, and family and domestic violence issues. To respond to the diverse immigrant population living in Greater Hartford, the Initiative’s general informational pamphlet was translated into nine languages other than English: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Nepalese, Vietnamese, Albanian, Bosnian, Polish and Russian. As was the case in all of GHLA’s priority areas, the focus of the Initiative was direct representation. This practice included cases involving housing, government benefits, employment, and family law issues. Rarely routine, these cases require strategies that address the effects of a client’s immigration status on eligibility for government benefits, access to legal remedies, safety, and financial stability. In addition, we continued the successful expansion of our practice to include representation of battered immigrants seeking protection under federal Violence Against Women Act immigration provisions. GHLA attorneys regularly filed VAWA self-petitions to the United States Citizen and Immigration Services on behalf of battered clients. In each of these cases, a GHLA attorney worked with the client to devise a comprehensive legal strategy to promote the immigrant's safety and well-being. For some clients, this meant that an attorney assessed how to preserve or pursue legal immigration status, coordinated advocacy among civil and criminal legal systems, advocated for the client within the child protection system, and assisted the client in obtaining public benefits or covering basic human needs. In many of the cases, GHLA attorneys also worked with the client to decide whether filing a divorce or custody case in family court would further the client’s interests. Enhancing the Safety and Economic Stability of Family Violence Victims GHLA staff have long recognized that enhancing the safety of family violence victims requires both a comprehensive and client-defined approach. For victims, the most effective safety strategies combine legal, economic, and social resources. In 2005, the Building Comprehensive Solutions to Domestic Violence Initiative (BCS) continued its effort to serve as a national catalyst for state and local movement toward broader, more responsive advocacy with family violence victims and their families. GHLA leads BCS, a collaboration between the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and GHLA. As part of its year-long Institute to expand advocacy approaches, BCS sponsored a 2-day meeting in Baltimore for the 15 state teams involved in the effort. The teams reported significant shifts in planning and thinking about services and described the concrete steps they took toward building more effective practices. A GHLA attorney updated the second edition of Guía de las leyes de violencia doméstica en Connecticut, the Spanish edition of the Guide to Connecticut’s Family Violence Laws. This resource was developed and updated as part of the Legal Advocacy Project, a collaboration with the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Maintaining Access to Healthcare and Government Benefits GHLA attorneys, working with a coalition of health care advocacy groups, successfully advocated for legislation that restored HUSKY health care coverage for certain low-income parents. This 2005 legislative change followed litigation (Rabin v. Wilson-Coker) by GHLA, Connecticut Legal Services (CLS), and New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA), which restored transitional Medicaid eligibility to 23,000 parents in 2003. This combined litigation and legislative strategy ensured that tens of thousands of working—yet low-income—parents would have access to health care. GHLA played a significant role in maintaining prescription drug coverage for low-income elderly and disabled individuals as a member of a Medicare Part D Coalition that successfully advocated for a State wrap-around package. The package ensured that Medicaid and ConnPACE recipients did not lose any prescription drug benefits under the new Medicare Part D program. This complex program presented substantial barriers for our clients. As members of the coalition, GHLA attorneys met regularly with DSS and others key players to identify issues regarding the rollout of Part D and to propose solutions to stem ongoing problems with implementation. In addition, GHLA regularly represented individuals who were improperly denied prescription drugs or charged co-pays. GHLA attorneys also partnered with community organizations to advocate for the restoration of State Administered General Assistance (SAGA) medical transportation. For our clients this service often is the difference between getting needed medical care and leaving health issues untreated. A GHLA attorney played a key role in negotiating a cost-effective solution that made use of the existing State transportation infrastructure. Staff notes We are delighted to announce several additions to our advocacy staff. Michelle Fica and Micheala Mitchell joined the staff and filled staff attorney positions. Robert Ricketts was hired as an advocate and will sit for the February 2006 Bar Examination. Arlington Smith was hired as Entitlements Resource Coordinator for the AIDS Legal Network.
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About GHLA • What's New • How
To Get Help • How You Can Help • Links Greater Hartford Legal Assistance, Inc. • 80 Jefferson Street
• Hartford, CT 06106-5035 |
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