Legal Aid's Fight to Re-purpose West High School

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

31 years ago this month, the Kansas City Missouri School District closed West High School.  Ever since the District closed West, Michael Duffy, who leads Legal Aid’s Economic Development team, has been fighting to either get it re-opened or repurposed.

Thanks in good part to Michael’s work and the work of the many other people and organizations that Michael has partnered with, Kansas City’s West Side has been revitalized and is now a wonderfully vibrant community. Through all this time, however, West High has been a decaying eye sore in the middle of the neighborhood.  Still, Michael has never given up the fight to get West High redeveloped.

Five years ago, Michael and Westside Housing Organization (WHO) approached the District with an acquisition and financing proposal that would have redeveloped the building as a mixed use apartment complex with low-income and market rate apartments.  A similar project that Michael helped create nine years ago at Villa Del Sol on the West Side is a national model for urban core redevelopment.  The District, however, turned down the Michael’s West High School redevelopment proposal three times.

Finally, last night, with the building in much worse condition than it was five years ago, the District preliminarily accepted a new, similar plan that Michael and WHO put together.  Again, the project would be mixed use revitalization of the buildings and will require Michael and WHO to assemble roughly $40 million in funding to make it work.

I am confident, that they are up to the task.  The result will be one of the biggest improvements in the urban core of Kansas City in a long time.  Congratulations to Michael, his partners at WHO and to everyone else who has worked on this project.

Effie Day

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Effie Day

39 years and 364 days ago, a young lawyer, fresh out of law school, started as a $4 per hour attorney for Legal Aid of Western Missouri.  She was smart, fiery and full of passion about the cause.



Tomorrow marks Effie Day’s 40^th year with Legal Aid.  In those years, Effie has litigated thousands of cases protecting the rights of low-income people to access healthcare through Missouri’s Medicaid program.  As prevailing counsel in numerous appellate cases, she has, for all practical purposes, written Missouri’s Medicaid law.  As a result of her successful appeals, Missourians now have the right to challenge the denial of Medicaid and to be informed why their claim was denied (Grant v. Toan).  The state can no longer use hearsay, out-of-court statements of non-examining physicians to support a denial of benefits (Bell v. Missouri State Division of Family Services) and Missourians with disabilities can qualify for Medicaid on the basis of multiple maladies (Crudup v. Missouri State Division of Family Services).



Although she has proven herself to be a talented appellate advocate, Effie’s passion is in helping individual clients obtain the benefits they deserve under the law.  She patiently and tirelessly assists her clients, often working well into the night and on weekends.  In the last twenty years alone, Ms. Day has provided representation for over 4,200 clients, winning well over 90% of the Medicaid appeals cases that she handles.

For the last seven years, Effie has also led Legal Aid’s Medicaid Appeals Project, at Truman Medical Center.  The staff at Truman refer patients to Legal Aid who have been denied Medicaid benefits and who the staff at Truman believe should receive those benefits.  Legal Aid staff then appeal these decisions.  The project has led to over 1,400 Truman patients, who are permanently and totally disabled, receiving Medicaid benefits after having had those benefits improperly denied.  The project has also generated well over $10 million in revenues for Truman for services, which the hospital would otherwise have had to write off.

Effie Day has brought justice to thousands of people throughout the state of Missouri.  Many of her clients had never had any one fight for their rights before Effie took their case.  By steadfastly protecting her clients’ most fundamental rights, Effie has given them faith that the justice system in Missouri can work for them.  She has taken away pain and given access to basic care to them and, in doing so, has made the state a better place to live for all of us. 

For Effie, tomorrow will be like any other day here.  She’ll come to work and devote herself completely to her clients’ cause.  If you get the chance, I hope that you will interrupt Effie’s work for a moment tomorrow and thank and congratulate her for the tremendous job that she continues to do for her clients.