Executive Director’s Message

The year has gotten off to a sobering start. Foremost in our thoughts and prayers have been the people of Haiti as they face one of their most formidable challenges. The role of poverty in this disaster cannot be overlooked. This catastrophic event has shown how important it is for us to connect as humans and reach out to others in greater need.

We, in California, face a man-made disaster. In the proposed 2010-2011 state budget, California is looking at a $19.9 billion deficit over the next year; half consists of a $6.6 billion shortfall for the remainder of 2009-10 and a $12.3 billion gap in 2010-11. According to the California Budget Project over one-third (34 percent) of the Governor’s $8.5 billion in proposed "expenditure solutions" target health and human services programs.

If the state does not receive $6.9 billion in federal funds, the budget proposal would eliminate the California Work Opportunity & Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, one of the most important safety net programs for families and children in California. This program provides cash aid and services to eligible needy California families to support housing, food, and other basic needs as you can see from the client stories below. Almost 1 million CalWORKs recipients are children. Healthy Families, a program that provides health coverage to 874,000 California children would also be eliminated under this proposal. Additionally, the In Home Supportive Services program (IHSS) is targeted for elimination under this proposal. This program allows disabled Californians to remain safely in their homes and out of higher cost nursing homes. This program was a target of last year’s budget cuts, but those cuts were not implemented after a federal judge ruled that the cuts would likely violate federal law and cause "incredible human suffering" to seniors and people with disabilities. The Medi-Cal program also is a target of these cuts. It is estimated that in Los Angeles County alone, there are approximately 2 million uninsured people. Cutting Medi-Cal and Healthy Families will only add to these numbers. Resources are stretched thin and these cuts will undoubtedly cause further delay in much needed healthcare. Already approximately 300,000 women will not get necessary breast cancer screening due to last year’s budget cuts. More cuts will only tax our already over-burdened emergency rooms and county clinics.

Unfortunately the proposal would impose cuts to services most needed by LAFLA’s clients—the poor, children, seniors and those with disabilities.

What can we do about this? The answer to the budget quagmire is not simple, but requires all of us to step up and take a fresh look at poverty, its root causes and to propose bold solutions that bolster safety net programs, including decent wages for workers, education and the divide between urban and rural poor. We can only do this in partnership with the public and private sector, and you our partners for change. One example of innovative thinking is LAFLA’s involvement in The California’s Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities Project in in numerous communities including South Los Angeles, Boyle Heights and Long Beach. These 10-year initiatives are aimed at tackling issues that contribute to the overall health of communities and LAFLA is an integral part of the planning committees. In the spring, LAFLA will hold a town hall meeting where other thought leaders can develop a response to the proposed budget cuts before the May budget revise. At all levels we are working to ensure that LAFLA is responsive, adaptive and creative in how we work with our communities.

For example some of our current work includes the Los Angeles City Homeless Prevention Project (LACHPP) aims to prevent the cycle of evictions for residents by stabilizing their housing and providing needed social services to break the cycle of poverty that keeps residents from permanent housing. LAFLA’s Youth Law Project works with at risk youth in the areas of government benefits, education law, and guardianships with an emphasis on representing children who are unable to live with their parents due to abuse or neglect. We have worked on the important issues of school enrollment for homeless youth, advocating for youth who are at risk for expulsion due to behavioral issues related to abuse, and obtaining benefits and services so youth can remain with relatives when their parents can’t or won’t care for them. We have a new phone and computer system that will ease how our clients reach us and allow us to quickly work with callers to help them find solutions to their problems.

We have a duty to protect the safety net and must work with those in poverty to help them find their own solutions. We need you to join us in these challenging times. As the world has risen to the challenges in Haiti, we at LAFLA, our donors, partners and staff must rise to the challenge of poverty within our midst.

Silvia R. Argueta, Executive Director

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Saving Homes of Widows
with Compassion and Litigation

Since the beginning of the housing crisis and subsequent recession, LAFLA’s Consumer Law Unit has been busy assisting poor and low-income clients who were cheated out of their homes by unscrupulous mortgage brokers and lenders. Here’s the story of legal action LAFLA took on behalf of three widows who were victims of financial elder abuse. The elderly women unwittingly entered into refinancing agreements and almost lost their homes.

Josephine, Norma & Delores
Josephine Otero and Norma Cosio are 75 -and 76-year-old best friends who own their homes located in the areas of Pico Rivera and Whittier. Prior to August 2007, they had reverse mortgages that provided them monthly income that didn’t need repaying during their lifetimes. In August 2007, the elderly women attended a presentation entitled "Take Advantage of Your Home Equity/ Values Are Dropping/ Refinance Now!" The presenter convinced the women to refinance their reverse mortgages to instead get lump sum cash payments. At the end of the meeting, the scammers convinced the women to pay $14,680 and $13,000 respectively from their reverse mortgage credit lines. The same scammers tricked Delores Stroud, a 79-year-old, Spanish-speaking widow with a second-grade education. They asked her to pay $9,400 to refinance her loan and then presented her with loan documents printed only in English.

Says William Flanagan, LAFLA’s consumer litigator: "Without their knowledge or permission the broker provided false information about their monthly incomes on their loan applications and the lender, without documentation, placed them in "Pick-a-Pay" option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) loans—very complicated and risky loans with indexed monthly and deferred interest payments. As a result, the elderly women were only able to make minimum monthly payments and did not have sufficient income to pay the monthly mortgage payments due on these option ARM loans.

LAFLA’s attorneys stepped in and sued the brokers and lenders on behalf of the women to rescind the loans for violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act and to secure damages based on financial elder abuse and negligence. The lender agreed to settle the cases and to significantly modify the loans so that our clients can live in their homes for the remainder of their lives.

Pro Bono Update: LAFLA Welcomes 2010 Law Fellows

LAFLA is pleased to welcome the following outstanding law associates to its offices. Joanne Byon has joined the Community Economic Development Unit, focusing her work on the Small Business Assistance Project. Joanne spent last summer working at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in its Emerging Companies Group in Los Angeles and Menlo Park. She plans to return to the firm in January 2011. Gerald Kim, also from Orrick has started with the Consumer Law Unit, focusing on foreclosure litigation and financial elder abuse. Gerald is proficient in Korean. Bayard Ronan Johnson, a graduate of Washington University School of Law, comes to us from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP to work in LAFLA’s Housing and Eviction Defense Units. In fall 2010, Danielle Barnes will begin her fellowship in LAFLA’s Santa Monica Office after graduating from the University of Michigan Law School.

Skadden Fellow to Join Housing Unit

Angela McNair-Turner, a 2010 UC Berkeley School of Law graduate, has accepted a Skadden Fellowship at LAFLA. Formerly a LAFLA summer law clerk, Angela will begin working in the legal clinic sponsored jointly by LAFLA’s Housing Unit and the LA Community Action Network (LA CAN) in fall 2010. She will help provide expanded representation to homeless families in downtown Los Angeles. Angela is particularly interested in the cross over between housing and family law.

Case Management Adds Value to Family Law Cases

From left to right, Family Law Case Managers Kathryn Cronin, Karen Tu and Jacqueline Menendez

For many years LAFLA received a sizable grant from the County of Los Angeles to provide legal assistance to California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) recipients who are victims of domestic violence. It became clear to the attorneys working on the project that many of their clients needed more than just legal assistance if they were to recover from their trauma and successfully navigate the world. Fortuitously, the County for the first time in 2008 made it possible for legal services agencies to seek funding for case management to complement their legal services. LAFLA applied and received funding for two social workers. County project manager Chris Frau expressed the hope that LAFLA’s system would serve as a model for other legal services agencies in the future. The first grant year has ended, and, according to Ana Storey, Family Law managing attorney, the program has been a resounding success

Explained Storey, "When you consider the nature of the abuse our clients suffered, and how it has affected every aspect of their lives, you realize that effective high-quality service must also address all of those ancillary areas that directly impact our ability to achieve successful legal outcomes for our clients. We need our clients to be able to both cooperate with a lawyer and to fulfill the sometimes difficult requirements set out by the court. Before LAFLA had social workers, attorneys tried to provide some case management as best we could. Having social workers on staff has freed us up to concentrate on our clients’ legal needs."

LAFLA’s social workers help clients recover from the effects of trauma related to domestic violence and to establish self-sufficiency. Case management services include both individual case management (connecting clients to services) and a 12-week psycho-educational support group called S.E.L.F. (Safety, Empowerment, Learning, and Friendship). S.E.L.F. assists clients in understanding the dynamics of both domestic violence relationships and healthy relationships, as well as the effects of domestic violence on the mental and physical health of clients and their children. Special attention is given to safety planning and restraining orders when ongoing contact with a batterer must continue due to custody and visitation exchanges. The program concludes with a focus on future decision making and violence prevention.

The case management program at LAFLA is unique in that staff members specialize in domestic violence and also are trained to understand how the legal process impacts client daily functioning. The program works in tandem with legal services, empowering clients through education and awareness, and supporting them in ending the cycle of violence in their families.

Successful Case Studies
Ms. F., who had been with her abuser for 17 years, came to LAFLA for legal services. Several attorneys assisted her to get a divorce and custody of her three minor children. The case management team helped Ms. F. find housing. She has since graduated from the support group and continues to work on her parenting skills. Her social worker, Kathryn Cronin, says that she is "empowered, confident, and capable of protecting herself and her family."

Another client, Ms. M., had been so emotionally damaged by domestic violence that she had trouble leaving the house and completing her day-to-day activities. Moreover, her son also suffered serious mental illness exacerbated by his father’s abuse, and required round-the-clock care. The client initially contacted LAFLA for help with her immigration status. Immigration attorneys helped file a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petition that allowed her to access government benefits, and started the process of adjusting her status. Her social worker then assisted her to get a full range of CalWORKs services, including mental health counseling and a career planning assessment. Just a few years ago Ms. M was struggling with survival at the hands of her abuser but she is now working with her LAFLA social worker to secure safer and more affordable housing and to prepare for future employment.

Adds Storey: "The LAFLA CalWORKs team is proud to offer clients an innovative and integrated program that serves as a model to other providers of assistance to abuse survivors. The addition of the social work staff to the legal component broadens LAFLA’s domestic violence expertise and joins two service-oriented disciplines that greatly increase the potential for long-term impact for LAFLA’s clients and the community at large."

Santa Monica Office
Embodies Community Office Vision

Stephanie* came in to see one of LAFLA’s family law attorneys at its Santa Monica Office because she needed help with child custody, visitation and support. Her son Ben* was only four years old and suffered from severe cerebral palsy, requiring him to rely on breathing tubes. Ben’s father was a violent drug addict and would alternately vanish for long periods of time and then resurface demanding custody and visitation, which frightened Stephanie. Susan Millmann, a senior family law attorney, took the case and noticed that Ben was on Supplemental Security Income (SSI). She immediately involved Karla Barrow, the office’s managing attorney, who has extensive government benefits experience. The advocates were able to work together to ensure that the child support order was drafted in such a way as to minimize the impact on the amount of SSI the child was receiving so that the client could better support her son. Although our advocates at the office are specialists in a particular area, they often work together across substantive legal specialties to provide holistic assistance to clients.
* Client names have been changed.

This case is but one example of the community-based approach that LAFLA’s Santa Monica Office employs. The Santa Monica office is funded primarily by the City of Santa Monica’s Community Development Program and, therefore, serves primarily Santa Monica residents. The Office handles cases of family law, domestic violence, housing, eviction defense, government benefits, as well as some limited immigration and consumer law work. These substantive areas were determined by the City of Santa Monica and LAFLA as critical community needs. The Santa Monica Office also operates a domestic violence clinic at the Santa Monica Courthouse where clients with a variety of family law issues can be assisted.

"While others focus on a particular area of law and look for trends, we see the impacts on our clients as a whole," explained Barrow. "For example, some domestic violence cases can lead to increased eviction proceedings or a greater need for government benefits. We are also beginning to get clients who are applying for government benefits for the first time."

The Office is also employing innovative approaches to obtain reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities. Currently, Senior Attorney Denise McGranahan is handling two cases where she is arguing that landlords should be required to accept Section 8 housing subsidies as a reasonable accommodation for disabled tenants. In such cases, LAFLA is able to provide multiple services in a way that is very meaningful and convenient for the clients. One legal issue that has arisen concerns hospitality/tourism workers, some of whom live in Santa Monica and have not been paid their full wages. The advocates are looking to increase services to these residents.

As the needs of their clients are extensive, collaboration and partnerships are invaluable to this holistic approach. LAFLA’s advocates have built relationships with a large network of social service agencies both within and outside the City. Although this is partly mandated by city officials, LAFLA goes beyond what is required to ensure that their clients receive the full range of social services, from shelter to mental health services. In addition to these collaborations, the Santa Monica office has historically worked with local officials such as the City Council, Housing Authority, Rent Control and the Police Department.

Barrow remembers one such partner, Santa Monica Mayor Ken Genser who recently passed away. "We worked closely with the mayor on issues affecting low-income people in Santa Monica. He was a strong partner in our cause, and his passing is a big loss for the people of Santa Monica," she says.

New Long Beach Office
Provides Improved Accessibility

Amid the attendance of dozens of board members, political and civic leaders, staff and Long Beach community members, LAFLA launched the re-opening of its Long Beach Office on December 16. LAFLA Board members Susan Anderson Wise , Jim McAdams and Karen Adelseck, with the assistance of Council Members Tonia Reyes Uranga, 7^th District and Robert Garcia, 1^st District, helped kick-off the event. LAFLA has been serving poor and low-income families in Long Beach and the surrounding area since 2001, when it merged with the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach, founded in 1953. Musical entertainment was provided by The International Children’s Choir of Long Beach and Cal Poly’s University Jazz Band. More Photos.

From left to right: Council Member Reyes Uranga, Council Member Garcia, Karen Adelseck, Jim McAdams of Pierry & McAdams and Susan Anderson Wise Help Launch Long Beach Office.

In the News

• On Dec. 29, 2009 Government Benefits Attorney Nicole Perez, who oversees LAFLA’s Bill Smith Homeless Veterans Project, was quoted in a "Daily Journal" article about the various legal aid programs serving this population.
• Managing Attorney Ana Storey and Senior Attorney Kate Marr were interviewed by the "Los Angeles Times" for a news story about domestic violence and immigrants. The story will appear in February.
• LAFLA’s Santa Monica Office will be profiled in February on CitiTV, a local cable channel. Managing Attorney Karla Barrow discussed local issues relevant to the population including affordable housing, domestic violence and homelessness.