An "Explosion" of Poverty Expected in the Gulf Coast: Advocates Prepare
Among the many uncertainties relating to the fallout of the BP oil spill in April off the Louisiana coast, there is at least one certainty: poor people and communities will be especially hard hit—their livelihoods, their homes, and their health, to name a few. An “explosion” of poverty is expected in the Gulf Coast area, according to one advocate participating in the June 22, 2010, Clearinghouse Review readers’ conference call, on which 19 advocates representing nine states discussed the oil spill, state budget cuts, foreclosures, health care reform, and other legal topics.
Legal aid advocates and volunteers in the Gulf Coast communities are gearing up to assist clients with employment, housing, tax, and language access issues and claims. For example, they are compiling helpful resources on LawHelp, Louisiana’s online guide to free legal help, administered by Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, and on ProBonoNet. Already overloaded and underfunded, legal aid programs in the Gulf Coast are working together to figure out what their role is in the aftermath of this unnatural disaster and how to most effectively assist the expected surge of clients.
Conference call participants from other parts of the country discussed how state budget cuts are affecting their clients, ideas for establishing and preserving utility assistance for poor people, questions about working with the Social Security Administration on overpayment issues, the need for achieving relief in mold cases, and the challenges of accessing benefits in an era of web-based applications and declining access to public libraries’ computers, among others. Which of these topics would you most like to see covered in Clearinghouse Review? Vote now in a new two-question survey.
The discussion was part of a regular conference call series hosted by Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, a publication of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Want to share your advocacy stories and article suggestions? Clearinghouse Review will host another conference call in October, tentatively scheduled for October 26. For more information, contact Shriver Center staff attorney–legal editor Catherine Dorn Schreiber.
