Pro Bono: Loop lawyers see them every day

By Margaret C. Benson
Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation

In the morning, as office workers walk east from the Metra or west from the El and on the reverse commute after work, they see the men hawking “Streetwise,” rattling plastic cups, or silently standing with a hand out.

At lunch, people avert their eyes from the women, some of them holding babies, huddled on the ground outside office buildings and St. Peter’s Church. People, who live in the city, or near a suburban downtown, also see them on weekends. They are the homeless.

How can you use your legal skills to help people in this extreme condition?

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless has an answer to these questions.

While the coalition’s Law Project litigates a variety of cases on behalf of homeless people, including employment discrimination and human rights work, 80 percent of their work involves representing homeless families and their children on educational access issues.

Coalition attorneys, with the assistance of pro bono counsel, fight to force schools to admit homeless pupils and to prevent school districts from expelling children for a variety of reasons, including not having a fixed ­address. Attorneys litigate to enforce federal laws that mandate equal treatment of homeless children in classrooms, ensure that homeless children have access to appropriate special education programs, and access to free transportation. Pro bono attorneys can help research the law, write legal memos, serve as co-counsel in court, and represent clients in administrative hearings.

The coalition also serves an important ­advocacy and policy role for the homeless population. Pro bono attorneys can work on significant class-action cases, help draft legislation and policies and, in some cases, lobby in Springfield or Washington.

For attorneys interested in helping the home­less face-to-face, the coalition arranges pro bono opportunities through Project HELP (Home­less Experience Legal ­Protection), where attorneys from large law firms provide free legal services to residents of two Chicago homeless shelters.

Participating law firms are responsible for providing attorneys to the shelters for one hour each Thursday afternoon for one month. In that hour, attorneys meet with clients, learn about their legal problems, advise them, and perform follow-up services as necessary.

A similar program, run by Chicago Volunteer Legal Services and available to any interested attorney, operates out of the West Suburban PADS shelter in Oak Park, one Thursday evening a month between October and May.

The legal issues attorneys experience in both programs are similar. Often, the most immediate is public benefits. Many homeless people may suffer from mental or physical disabilities that entitle them to social security disability (SSD), supplemental security income (SSI) or veterans benefits.

Unfortunately, the claims system established by the feds to get those benefits is not the most user-friendly. Although clients struggle mightily to navigate it, attorneys are able to gather the necessary evidence, assemble the required documentation, and convince the powers that be of the validity of these claims. Success brings a monthly stipend that allows a homeless person to secure stable housing and resume life off the streets.

Homeless people may also need help expunging criminal records that are hindering their ability to get work, negotiating with creditors, and modifying child support orders that continue to tick away despite the payor’s inability to pay. In some cases, attorneys can help individuals resolve problems created by a stolen identity.

Sometimes, all the clients need to know are their rights.

Do they have a case? Could the police officer, landlord, boss, guy in the store, do that? How can they protect themselves next time it ­happens?

One of the best things any attorney can do is to sit down face-to-face with a person who you normally walk past on the street and ­listen, converse, and advise. All too often, homeless people are ignored. When attorneys don’t ignore them, but give them time, attention and help, our profession is ennobled.

Sometimes “access to justice” seems like an unreachable goal. Justice is such a big, amorphous word. Access to an attorney, however, is a concept we can all wrap our brains around. Give legal help at a homeless shelter once in a while, or help a homeless student get free bus service to school, and you have achieved equal access to justice - all by yourself.

If you are interested in doing more than purchasing your weekly issue of “Streetwise” from the guy on the corner near your office, consider volunteering.

Contact Laurene ­Heybach at the Law ­Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, (312) 435-4548, or at lheybach@ yahoo.com. Contact Veronica ­Rodriguez at Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, (312) 332-1649, or at vrodriguez@cvls.org. They’ll put you to good work.