State provides $5 million increase to legal aid
By Psyche Pascual
Staff Writer
A State Bar-administered pool of money that finances legal
services for low-income people, seniors and people with developmental disabilities got
a big boost after Gov. Jerry Brown last month approved an additional $5 million
in funding.
The Equal Access Fund’s jump in funding is sizeable for one that
has remained at roughly $10 million since its inception in 1999.
“It really is quite a victory,” said Catherine Blakemore,
executive director of Disability Rights California, based in Sacramento, which
helped about 25,700 people with the Equal Access funds it received last year. “We
have a real priority to reaching out to targeted communities with
disabilities.”
The Equal Access Fund is one
of several the State Bar administers for legal services in California. About
100 legal aid organizations get money from the State Bar to provide legal help to
low-income people, seniors and people with developmental disabilities across
the state. Among many other things, these organizations work to prevent
domestic violence, keep families in their homes, connect veterans to benefits and
keep farm workers safe.
“This is a terrific step in
the right direction,” said Kelli Evans, senior director administration of
justice at the State Bar. “Not only will the funding make a real difference in
the lives of thousands of individuals and families who need legal help but it’s
a smart investment for California. Studies show that for every $1 spent on
legal aid, $6 or more is returned to the state.”
Blakemore said the funding increase will help her
organization hire at least three new attorneys who could offer legal services
for people with disabilities, including those who don’t speak English or who
lack access to specialized types of health care. The increase in funding will also be a boon to California
Rural Legal Assistance, which has 18 offices in 24 California counties,
Executive Director Jose Padilla said. Last year, CRLA also received Equal
Access funds and helped about 44,000 people.
As the poverty rate has grown with the recession, so have
the numbers of poor people who need legal help, Padilla said. Many rural
pockets of California also have lower-than-average ratios of legal aid
attorneys to low-income people compared with more populous regions of the
state.
“The money is very, very big for us because we’re in so many
rural counties, and there are very few legal service providers that we share
that money with,” Padilla said.
Padilla said he hopes to add seven to eight new attorneys in
two primary areas: to serve people in communities that speak indigenous
languages and in rural areas where the attorney population is so sparse, there
is virtually no access to legal services.
In most counties, there is one legal aid attorney for every
10,000 people, Padilla said. He said CRLA will use the money to extend legal services
to those areas where access to legal aid attorneys is hard to find, such as
Madera County, which only has one attorney for every 39,000 people.
Both Blakemore and Padilla said they would continue working with
the State Bar to secure a permanent increase in Equal Access funds. California lags
behind at least 20 other states in the average amount it spends per person on
legal services, both pointed out.
“California used to be a real leader in this area and now
it’s 22nd,” said Blakemore, the executive director for Disability Rights
California. “We’ll work with all our partners to have this funding continue.”