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May-June 2009 Clearinghouse Review

The lead article in this issue highlights a model program to remove legal barriers to employment that low-income clients frequently encounter and that the Bay Area Legal Aid's public benefits unit developed ten years ago. Other job-related challenges are described in an article on improving state driver's licensing laws and in another on applying community economic development practice to help youths create their own jobs. Other articles discuss a new juvenile behavioral health court for youths whose delinquent behavior is traceable to a mental health condition; older women of color and regulations on the self-directed option fo delivery of Medicaid personal care services; and tips for vigorous representation of undocumented victims of domestic violence in state family court.

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About This Issue
The Legal Barriers to Employment Project--A New Model
When low-income clients seek employment, they often face myriad barriers, many of which are legal in nature—suspended driver’s licenses, bench warrants, or child-support arrears, for example. Ten years ago Bay Area Legal Aid’s public benefits unit turned its attention to the removal of these barriers through its Legal Barriers to Employment Project, leveraging its strengths to channel federal funding streams to assist clients in achieving stability and leaving welfare. Advocates elsewhere may be able to tap new resources, through the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to support similar work.

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Related articles
By Stephen Bingham and Luna Yasui
Older Women of Color and the Challenge of Regulating Cultural Competence
In communities of color, older women are a particularly precious resource, relied upon to transmit cultural values to the younger generation and, in many cases, to contribute to the rearing of their grandchildren and great grandchildren. Access to benefit programs that serve the needs of older women of color in appropriate languages and in a culturally competent manner is a key need for this population. Released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October 2008, regulations concerning the self-directed option for delivery of Medicaid personal care services have provisions that, if fully implemented, would resolve issues of language, cultural competence, and community-based services and allow use of family members as paid caregivers.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
By Georgia Burke and Katharine Hsiao
Vigorous Representation of Undocumented Victims of Domestic Violence in State Family Court
When undocumented immigrant victims of domestic violence appear in family court, abusers sometimes seek to use the victims’ undocumented status against them; the abusers argue, for example, that the court should consider lack of legal status in awarding child custody. Advocates must be prepared to respond to such strategies and be familiar with the primary immigration remedies available to victims of domestic violence: Violence Against Women self-petitions, the U visa, and conditional resident waivers.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
- The Violence Against Women Act Now Ensures Legal Services for Immigrant Women
- Immigrant Relief for Survivors of Domestic Abuse, Sexual Assault, Human Trafficking, and Other Crimes: A Violence Against Women Act 2005 Update
By Adela Carlin and Nora Phillips
Case Note: D.C. Circuit Says that Enhanced-Voucher Tenants Have "Right to Remain" and Landlord's "Benign Motive" Does Not Justify Source-of-Income Discrimination
Copies of this article are available for purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Julie Becker, Rebecca Lindhurst, and Antonia K. Fasanelli
Case Note: In from the Cold: Making Homeless Shelters Accessible to People with Disabilities in the Nation's Capital

By Amber W. Harding
Case Note: Domestic Violence Survivor Achieves Policy Changes at Michigan Management Company
Copies of this article are available for purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Sandra S. Park
Case Note: Jury Awards Cook $84,250 for Unpaid Overtime and Retaliation
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By Kathryn Youker and Rodolfo Sanchez
Fresno's Juvenile Behavioral Health Court: A Better Way to Serve Youth
Fresno County’s Juvenile Behavioral Health Court is devising a new way to serve youths whose delinquent behavior can be traced to a mental health condition. A group of attorneys and service providers from various segments of the juvenile justice system, united only by their belief that the system had to be improved, developed the specialized court to decrease out-of-home placements and improve outcomes for youths. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the court is having a positive impact.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
- Advocacy to Help Reentering Juveniles Get Back on Track
- Combating the Schoolhouse-to-Jailhouse Track Through Community Lawyering
By Jack Daniel, Amy Tillery, and Denise Whitehead
Youth Entrepreneurship Legal Services: A Model for Helping Youths Create Their Own Jobs
The employment rate among American youths in the summer of 2008 was about 32 percent, a sixty-year low. The employment prospects for youths in 2009 look even worse. One way for young people to find jobs is to create them through entrepreneurship. However, creating a successful business can be daunting, especially for a low-income youth without access to helpful resources. Community economic development lawyers can make a youth’s business idea a reality. Youth entrepreneurship legal services not only can put low-income youths to work but also can increase the economic health of the communities where the young people life.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
- What’s a Youngster to Do? The Education and Labor Market Plight of Youth in High-Poverty Communities
- Preparing Vulnerable Youth for Adulthood Through Workforce Development
By Dorcas R. Gilmore
Strength in Numbers: Legal Advocates and Community Organizers Partner to Fight Foreclosures
Through an innovative collaboration between Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County and a community organization, One LA-IAF (a member of the Industrial Areas Foundation), low-income homeowners who face foreclosure and who have a loan servicer in common were organized into groups, each group negotiating collectively with the servicer to modify the homeowners’ loans. Taking notice and informed by data gathered through the negotiations, policymakers and the Los Angeles City Council voted to fund a foreclosure prevention pilot project that grants “silent second” mortgages to some homeowners.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
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- The Power of Working with Community Organizations: The Illinois FamilyCare Campaign—Effective Results Through Collaboration
- Counseling Community Organzations
By Antonio Hicks
Foreclosure Defense: Understanding TILA Basics Is Essential
The Truth in Lending Act, or TILA, is a powerful tool every attorney can use to help clients facing foreclosure. TILA favors consumers and, with its remedy of rescission, it can put borrowers back into the position they were in when the loan was originated. Rescission can be claimed against any assignee of the loan. All attorneys working with clients facing foreclosure need to understand TILA, how it can be used, and its terms.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
- Foreclosure Equity Stripping: Legal Theories and Strategies to Attack a Growing Problem
- Protecting Elderly Homeowners from Predatory Mortgage Lenders
By Mark Ireland
News and Notes
Driving Out of Poverty: A Lawyer's Role in Driver-License Restoration
Driver-license suspensions can have a huge impact on low-income clients. Licensing laws affect the poor in a much more significant and often negative way than other people. Advocates in Wisconsin have made great strides in improving state-licensing laws as they relate to the poor, in part by striving to make suspensions more about safety than poverty. By studying the action in Wisconsin, advocates can gain a better understanding of licensing problems and aim to replicate the solutions in their own states.
Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related articles
- Restoring Drivers’ Licenses Removes a Common Legal Barrier to Employment
- Access to Identification Documents for Immigrants: Restrictions Undermine Public Policy Goals
By David Pifer and James A. Gramling
A Road Map for Challenging Voter Restriction Laws After Crawford
In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board a highly fractured U.S. Supreme Court last Term ruled that Indiana’s voter-identification law, commonly known as the “Voter ID Law,” did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. While this decision disappointed many, particularly with its use of the less stringent “flexible” balancing test, the silver lining is in so framing a voting rights case as to challenge successfully a law that impinges on the right to vote.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.

Related articles
- The Modern-Day Poll Tax: How Economic Sanctions Block Access to the Polls
- Homeless But Not Voiceless: Protecting the Voting Rights of Homeless Persons
By Steven D. Schwinn

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