Creative Advocates Transform Lives
Getting benefits where benefits are due.

Our goal is to change lives. We do this by litigating issues that attack the underpinnings of poverty, working with community agencies and grassroots groups to improve conditions facing our clients, and undertaking community economic development projects. But we also change lives by giving our clients confidence and skills that allow them to solve their own problems. Here is one such story of a changed life.

In 1997, Ms. R thought she had achieved the American Dream. She and her husband had two children, aged five and eight, two cars, a two-story house in Riverside, and good jobs—he worked at the Albertson's distribution center, and she worked for the post office. They had built a deck onto the back of the house and put away $10,000 for their children's college. But just after the couple's tenth anniversary, everything changed. The change seemed to happen overnight. Looking back, though, Ms. R sees that all the signs were there: his schedule became erratic, he was moody and easy to anger. He had taken up drugs.

It is much easier to lose things than to accumulate them, and, in the space of a year—as her husband retreated further into the drug world—she lost almost everything, including her mind. She became depressed and had a miscarriage, and then became unable to work. Her son's grades began to slide. With no money coming in, she lost the house and her excellent credit was ruined. Her husband spent the children's college money. Then she filed for divorce.

Ms. R still breaks down at the thought of all she lost. "I started working when I was 13," she says, "and I have always worked so hard. It's like everything was just snatched away."

After the house was sold in foreclosure, Ms. R took her kids and the car that her husband was supposed to make payments on as part of the divorce settlement, and went to live with her mother. She received a chilly reception, however, because eight people were already living in the small two-bedroom house in East Los Angeles. She and her kids had to sleep on the kitchen floor. Her sisters told her children not to sit in any of the chairs and urged Ms. R to move out. Often she drove to what seemed like a safe neighborhood and parked under a street lamp. Her son lay on the backseat and Ms. R put her own seat back as far as it would go and tried to sleep with her daughter on top of her. They used their clothes as blankets.

Turned down by the County
Although she held off as long as she could, Ms. R finally went to the Department of Public Social Services, across from LAFLA's East Los Angeles office, and applied for aid. She was denied because the worker told her she owned a house. She showed the worker a copy of the notice of foreclosure sale. The worker still refused to let her apply. She tried to apply again in November of 1999. This time she was turned down because she owned a fairly new car—even though her husband actually owned it, and it had been in a car accident that left it barely driveable. She begged to get food stamps, if nothing else, but again was refused. She left her interview crying. Two of the women in the DPSS office told her to go across the street to Legal Aid.

That's where her partnership began with LAFLA intake screener Monica Gallegos. Together they waged an intense, almost daily campaign to get benefits for Ms. R. According to Monica, it seemed that several workers at the Belvedere DPSS office made it their personal goal to keep Ms. R from getting any benefits. Ms. R thinks it was because she still managed to dress nicely, even though she had very little money, and the workers assumed she didn't really need aid.

First Monica sent Ms. R to car dealers up and down Atlantic Blvd. to get estimates on the value of her car. The dealers faxed the estimates to Monica, who in turn faxed the estimates to the DPSS. They were all considerably lower than the ceiling amount for benefits. Each time Ms. R went to the DPSS office, Monica had her call from the pay phone in the lobby to keep her abreast of what was happening. Monica advised Ms. R about which actions were not allowable and what regulations were being violated, so that she could respond immediately. Eventually, LAFLA won benefits for Ms. R.

Maze of bureaucracy
The problems didn't stop after the benefits started. The worker told Ms. R she couldn't get the one-time housing allowance to move into an apartment because she could live with her mother. After giving her a voucher to move temporarily into a motel, the worker called the Department of Children's Services to report that Ms. R was raising her children in a motel. When Ms. R used her Medi-Cal card, the dentist couldn't find it in his computer. Monica straightened it out with the DPSS on one line and the dentist on the other.

Then when Ms. R found a training program that would lead to a job if she passed an exam, they cut off her benefits. She had to miss classes and put off taking the exam to go to the DPSS office to explain that she wouldn't be paid until she passed the exam. They insisted that she bring in Social Security cards for her children instead of calling to verify information, a perfectly legal and easier alternative, which caused her to miss more classes and further delay getting a job.

Though Ms. R feels that her tribulations made her stronger, she says she couldn't have made it without Monica, who is "her angel." "Monica," she says, "kept me from driving off a cliff. She kept telling me I would make it." And she did. Now she has a job working for an insurance company and an apartment in Gardena. Her son is doing well in school. She has continued to work with Monica one day each week, though this time on behalf of others who are having trouble with DPSS.

Ms. R volunteers her time with LAFLA for two reasons: "because Legal Aid was there for me when no one else was, and so I can stop DPSS from doing to other people what they did to me." Each time she helps somebody else address their problems with county services, it makes her feel a little stronger.

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