This report completes a review of how federally-funded legal aid programs
in New York violate their mission of helping the deserving poor by pursuing
a political agenda and representing individuals unworthy of taxpayer-provided
legal representation.
Welfare Residency Requirement Overturned
In 1994, legal services lawyers overturned a state law that mandated
a residency requirement for individuals seeking full welfare benefits.
The law specifically limited Home Relief benefits for persons who had lived
in the state for less than six months to 80 percent of the full welfare
grant. Home Relief is a state-funded program that provides assistance to
individuals who are not eligible for federal aid. The legislature
adopted the residency requirement to ease the financial burden on state
and local governments. However, Monroe County Legal Assistance Corp. and
Southern Tier Legal Services successfully argued that the law was unconstitutional
because it violated the poor’s right to travel.
See Cerisse Anderson, “Welfare Benefit Limit Struck as Unlawful,”
New York Law Journal, May 25, 1994, pg. 1
Erie County Sued for Requiring Welfare Applicants to Look for Work
In 1995, Neighborhood Legal Services of Buffalo sued Erie County for
adopting a “get tough” job policy that requires childless adults to look
for a job before applying for welfare. Legal services claimed that Erie
County was violating state laws which required the county to provide education
and job training to single applicants (Welfare applicants with children
are still eligible for training assistance). County officials said that
the individuals represented by legal services in the suit had actually
turned down jobs the County found for them. Said one official: “We certainly
don’t feel we’re asking too much to require someone...to look for work
before they apply for welfare.” Neighborhood Legal Services was forced
to drop the suit in January, 1996 after the state legislature passed a
law eliminating the requirement that local governments provide job training
to adult welfare applicants without children.
See Matt Gryta, “Judge Urges Accord,” The Buffalo News, May
18, 1995, pg. 4
Buffalo Legal Services Group Sues for Higher Welfare Payments
In 1995, Neighborhood Legal Services of Buffalo filed a lawsuit in an
attempt to force Erie County and New York State to pay higher shelter grants
to welfare recipients. Erie County currently pays between $205 to $215
a month to welfare recipients who need assistance with rent payments. However,
legal services contends that the allowance is too low and should be increased
to $450. The increase was estimated to cost Erie County and the state an
additional $64 million a year. County officials argued that the suit was
unnecessary because the women represented by legal services, supposedly
at risk of eviction, had not even applied for available public housing.
In addition, officials said that thousands of other welfare recipients
in the county had no problem living within their welfare budgets. Legal
services groups in other parts of the state, including Nassau-Suffolk on
Long Island, won similar suits forcing additional welfare expenditures.
To stop the costly litigation, Governor George Pataki has introduced legislation
to more or less freeze shelter allowances at their current levels.
See Matt Gryta, “Two on Welfare Lose Legal Plea,” The Buffalo
News, February 20, 1995, pg. 5
Legal Services Defends Tenants in Drug-Related Evictions
Neighborhood Legal Services of Buffalo is currently representing six public housing tenants who are being evicted because of family members’ involvement in illegal drug activity. For two years, the Lackawanna Municipal Housing Authority has followed a strict lease policy that holds tenants responsible for the illegal activities of relatives or guests. Lackawanna, like housing authorities elsewhere, believes that the most effective way to combat crime is to evict tenants who allow relatives or visitors to engage in such behavior. However, Neighborhood Legal Services says that evicting tenants not directly charged with crimes violates their rights. “And what about the rights of the other tenants?,” rejoins Charles Barone, Executive Director of Lackawanna. “They have the right to privacy and to not have people pounding on the doors at 2 a.m. looking for drugs.” In addition, says Barone, President Clinton’s recent endorsement of a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” policy for public housing residents who commit a crime is a clear endorsement of Lackawanna’s eviction policy.
See Tom Ernst, “Eight Tenants Face Eviction,” The Buffalo
News, May 25, 1996, pg. 5C
New York City Lawmakers Battle With Legal Services
This year, several Democratic members of the New York State Assembly sent a letter to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver complaining of legal services political advocacy and requesting a review of how state funds for legal services are being spent. The letter was sent by Queens Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing) and co-signed by 21 Democratic colleagues. In the letter, Mayersohn complained that Brooklyn Legal Services, an LSC grantee, had overstepped its mission of helping the poor by getting involved in highly political disputes between feuding ethnic groups. Mayersohn was referring in particular to BLS’s two-decade long representation of Hispanics in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn who have been involved in a bitter and contentious rivalry with Hasidic Jews over housing. Mayersohn and other Assembly members have long been critical of legal services political advocacy and its attempts to keep drug dealers in public housing. Said Assemblyman Jules Polonetsky (D-Coney Island), “Some are wondering, when budgets are tight, [whether] we want to support legal services that give priority to drug dealers and that cross the line in advocating one side of a community against another.”
See Laura Williams, “ Pols Go To Battle With Legal Aid
Group,” Daily News, March 1, 1996, pg. 1