Blight Fight Continues

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Kansas City is on the cutting edge nationally on the issue of how to reduce the number of abandoned properties in the city’s urban core and Legal Aid of Western Missouri’s Economic Development team is playing a key role in that work.

In the last week, there have been two articles in the Kansas City Star discussing Legal Aid’s partnerships with the city, neighborhood associations, law firms, banks and others to turn blighted, abandoned property into high quality, occupied housing. The first dealt with beneficiary deeds that keep money (in the form of home equity) that is desperately needed in the urban core, in the urban core.

The second was on the front page of the Star yesterday morning and dealt with an initiative conceived by the Post-Foreclosure Task Force, which Legal Aid’s Michael Duffy leads and in which the city is a close partner. The idea is to get local banks to provide financing for high quality rehabbers to rehab many more abandoned properties than they are able to do now.  You may have seen this on TV as well.

This is exciting work that can make a gigantic difference in increasing property tax revenues, decreasing crime and, most importantly, improving the quality of life in the city’s urban core.

We have a lot of great partners in this work including, just to name a few—city manager Troy Schulte, Council members Ed Ford and Cindy Circo (and really the entire City Council), John Wood and David Park who lead the city’s efforts to address abandoned and dangerous buildings in the urban core, and neighborhood leaders too many to mention.

In the coming year, I’m hoping that you’ll hear more about the expansion of these excellent projects.

From Eyesore to Asset: Neighborhoods Win

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

In case you missed it, there was an excellent article on the front page of the Kansas City Star this morning highlighting the community development work that is being done by Legal Aid’s Economic Development team, including: Michael Duffy, Jeff Williams, and Ron Nguyen, along with former Legal Aid attorneys Gillian Ruddy and Kendra Mosley.  

 

(Click here to read the article.)

 

As the article shows, the work that Michael, Jeff and Ron are doing, now with Jennifer Wieman, Rachel Hogan and Peter Hoffman joining in, is on the cutting edge nationally in fighting urban core blight caused by abandoned housing.

 
Like so many other Legal Aid projects, even though the Economic Development team is doing fantastic work, very few people in the area know about it.  The article in the Star will help change that and, by doing so, will help solidify the funding that we get for this work from the City and from private foundations for the team’s work.  It will also help us make a strong case for increased funding for this important work in years to come.

Thanks and congratulations again to Michael, Jeff, Ron, Gillian, Kendra, Jennifer, Peter, and Rachel for the recognition for jobs well done.

                                                                       

Kansas City Mayor Praises Legal Aid's Response to the Joplin Tornado

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I was at the KCMBA’s Liberty and Justice Gala last Saturday, which was a marvelous event.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James was at the event and gave a great speech talking about the excellent work that Legal Aid’s attorneys do and particularly highlighting our response to the Joplin tornado.

You can read the Mayor’s speech on Legal Aid’s website here.

Happy Thanksgiving

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There’s pretty much no pretense or commercialization to it. It’s a great time to relax with family or friends and test out your talents in the kitchen. I also like to take some time during the holiday to think about all of the things I have to be thankful for.

In these times of partisan bickering, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that, even after the economic downturn, we as Americans in the 21st century are among the wealthiest and most fortunate people to have ever walked the planet (although we are sometimes not all that great about sharing that wealth among ourselves). Things that we take for granted, including a warm, dry place to sleep at night, aisle after aisle of food in the grocery store, abundant clean water and indoor plumbing remain luxuries for many. I am thankful for those things.

I am also thankful for the opportunity to work at a great organization with lots of wonderful staff members. And most of all, I am thankful for my wife and two sons, each of whom bring tremendous joy into my life.

I find that when I take the time to think about these simple joys in my life, it makes me appreciate them all the more. It’s an exercise that I would recommend to anyone. With that, I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Good News for Legal Aid Clients

Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

There’s good news from Washington, DC: Missouri Senator Kit Bond announced on Thursday that he is co-sponsoring a bill to provide $10 million of federal funding for a Medical-Legal Partnership demonstration project.

Medical-Legal Partnerships are collaborations between healthcare providers and Legal Aid programs in which medical staff work with legal staff to resolve the legal problems of low-income patients (e.g. guardianship, Medicaid denials, domestic violence and housing issues, etc.). The Medical-Legal Partnership concept started in Boston and has been so successful that it has now been replicated in over 180 hospitals and health centers around the country.

Studies have found that even when a legal problem does not appear to be directly related to a health issue, resolving the legal problem often has health benefits. For example, a mother in a domestic violence situation whose son is diabetic may be so focused on keeping her family safe that she doesn’t monitor her son’s insulin intake and diet. When Legal Aid helps the mother obtain a protective order or divorce, her ability to tend to the child’s treatment for diabetes greatly improves.

Legal Aid of Western Missouri has a tremendous network of Medical-Legal Partnerships, making our MLP one of the 5 largest MLP’s in the country. Our MLP began with our partnership at Children’s Mercy Hospital and its clinic at Operation Breakthrough. Legal Aid also has a partnership with Swope Health Services and a new partnership with KC Free Health Clinic. We also have a collaborative partnership with Kansas Legal Services (KLS) at KU Medical Center’s Department of Family Medicine, in which we represent KU’s patients who are Missouri residents and KLS represents the Kansas residents.

In terms of hospital staff training, outcomes tracking, Medicaid appeals success, and collaboration with other programs, our medical legal partnerships are on the cutting edge.

Katie Cronin has done a tremendous job in creating and growing the medical-legal partnerships at Children’s Mercy, Operation Breakthrough, Swope Health Services and KU Medical Center. Effie Day also has done excellent work in building our Medicaid Appeals project at Truman Medical Center. Although this is technically not a Medical-Legal Partnership because the medical staff is not involved in the program, it is now one of the largest Medicaid Appeals partnerships (and probably the largest) in the country and is the envy of MLP’s across the country.

The other reason why these programs are such a success is because of our partners. Dr. Jeffrey Colvin at Children’s Mercy Hospital worked for the original MLP at Boston Medical Center. He has been a tireless advocate for MLP at Children’s Mercy and throughout the area. Dr. Colvin recently met personally with members of Senator Bond’s staff to encourage the senator to sponsor the MLP demonstration site legislation. Lydia Jones at Truman and Lewis Popper, the former General Counsel at Truman have also been tremendous, tireless advocates for that program.

I believe, if the demonstration project is created, Legal Aid of Western Missouri would be a leading contender to be one of the demonstration projects. So, this is very good news.

Legal Aid's Longtime Employees

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

One of the greatest resources that Legal Aid has in representing our clients is the experience and leadership of our staff. We have nine attorneys and one support staff member in a broad range of practice areas who have been with Legal Aid for more than 30 years. And we have another 15 staff members who have been with us for more than 20 years.

What’s more, not only are our staff experienced, they have stayed on the cutting edge of their areas of expertise. Many are nationally or regionally recognized as some of the best attorneys in their fields. So, regardless of whether our clients need help with Medicaid or SSI issues, public housing problems, immigration questions, foreclosure prevention or help in eradicating urban blight. We have talented, experienced casehandlers to help them.

At this year’s Justice for All Luncheon on June 15, we’ll be honoring the Legal Aid veterans who have been with us for more than 30 years. They are:

Effie Day (Medicaid and other state public benefits)
Suzanne Gladney (Immigration)
Michael Duffy (Community Development)
Bill Shull (Managing Attorney Warrensburg Office)
Jane Worley (Public Housing and private landlord-tenant issues)
Julie Levin (Public Housing and private landlord-tenant issues)
Susan Kephart (Foreclosure prevention)
Sam McHenry (Employment and guardianship issues)
James Marshall Smith (Federal benefits)
Yolanda Hernandez (Bilingual legal secretary)

These seasoned advocates are also great teachers and are bringing along many talented newer attorneys at Legal Aid to follow in their footsteps.

We’ll also be honoring two retirees who were with us for more than 30 years: Dick Halliburton (former Executive Director and consumer law) and Fred Rich (mental health and special education).

Morris Dees, the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center will be our speaker. Please join us if you can. It will be a great event.

Visit http://www.lawmo.org/JFA_MorrisDees.htm to reserve or purchase tickets. Please contact Karen Cutliff at kcutliff@lawmo.org with questions.

Fun with Legal Aid

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

We had two great fundraising events over the weekend. Friday night was the first annual Volunteer Attorney Project Team Trivia Night contest. 120 participants tested their knowledge of the arts, literature, food and bearded coaches in the NCAA basketball tournament-- among other things. It was a blast.

The competition was intense but Mizzou Minutiae a team organized by stalwart VAP supporter Tim Monsees emerged victorious.

And in the beautiful weather on Sunday morning, 175 runners and walkers participated in the Lawyers’ Association of Kansas City’s Run for Justice on the Plaza. Proceeds from the event go to support Legal Aid. Many thanks to the LAKC’s Kent Erickson, Corey Unrein (who was on sight at 4:30 in the morning getting things set up) for their work in organizing another great run.

I am also pleased to report that we had two Legal Aid runners win their age division. Amber Cutler won the women’s 25-30 category and Dick Halliburton completed the course in under 25 minutes to win the men’s 70 and over category. In addition to being a fundraiser for Legal Aid, this was also a Legal Aid Wellness Committee event and we had lots of runners and walkers out soaking up the beautiful morning.

Thanks again to everyone who worked on these events.

Volunteer Attorneys Give Marlborough Neighborhood a Bright Future

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

There are times when you have to fight and scratch to make a project work and then, thankfully, there are times when things work out much better than you had even hoped.

Steve Chinn’s work for the Marlborough Neighborhood is a shining example of the latter. About a year ago Latricia Scott Adams, the Director of our Volunteer Attorney Project and I made a presentation to a group of about 30 Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP attorneys about possible volunteer projects that the firm could take on. One we suggested was adopting an urban core neighborhood. Steve was at that meeting and immediately took interest in the idea.

As the Chair of Stinson's Public Law Practice Group, Steve knows a lot about community problem solving. It’s just that normally he devotes his time to massive, multi-million dollar projects like developing the Kansas Speedway.

Under Steve’s leadership, Stinson Morrison Hecker adopted the Marlborough neighborhood, a low-income neighborhood in southeastern Kansas City. Steve immediately put his skill and experience to work in solving problems for the neighborhood.

And the work that they have done has been tremendous. They have gotten the state and federal government to approve the neighborhood association as a tax exempt not-for-profit organization. They are fighting an unlicensed, under-aged drinking establishment that is a major nuisance and serious danger in the neighborhood. When the federal government suggested using the old Bendix plant, which is just outside the neighborhood, as a lead waste storage facility, Stinson attorneys drafted comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement and the proposal appears to be dead.

Stinson attorneys are also working closely with the neighborhood and a local community development corporation to create a model block in the neighborhood, in which the city will focus resources.

Steve goes to all the neighborhood association meetings, so he can address whatever legal questions come up. All told, 13 Stinson attorneys and one Stinson paralegal have put in over 300 hours on the project.

Steve reports that the work is gratifying and fulfilling. The neighborhood, in turn, is ecstatic about the firm’s work. Betty Ost-Everly, the Marlborough Community Coalition President reports:

Many people have commented at what Marlborough has been able to accomplish in a very short amount of time and have wondered how. From start-up discussions in May 2008 to present, we have established governance, received Nonprofit status from the State of Missouri and our 501(c)(3), protested against the Federal Government's proposal of placing a Mercury storage facility at the Bannister Federal Complex, and started on the long and arduous task of stablizing housing in the four neighborhood association areas that make up the Coalition. Absolutely none of that could have been possible without Stinson. The firm came to us as part of Legal Aid’s Volunteer Attorney Project, and has worked alongside the Coalition and in partnership with Legal Aid and Neighborhood Housing Services to help us. This area has been neglected for a number of years, but with Stinson's help, we are looking to a much brighter future.

Many thanks to Steve and to Stinson for their fantastic ongoing work on this project.

Post-Foreclosure Task Force Makes a Difference

Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

Some times, when you have good, practical problem-solving skills you can make a giant difference.

A great example of this is the problem solving work that Legal Aid’s Michael Duffy and the Post-Foreclosure Task Force that he leads has been doing lately. One of the projects that the Task Force has been working on lately has been to assist local community development corporations (“CDC’s”) in overcoming obstacles to their use of $7 million in federal stimulus funding that was provided to Kansas City to rehab blighted, foreclosed properties in the City’s urban core. The City sub-contracted with the CDC’s to do this work.

This funding presents a race against the clock. If the developers fail to have commitments to use the funding by October 1 this year, all of the uncommitted funding must to be returned to the federal government. On the other hand, if the funding is committed to rehabbing specific houses by October 1, then, when the houses are sold, the proceeds will be placed in a revolving fund to rehab more houses. So, if properly and timely used, the funding will actually do much more than $7 million of rehab work.

One of the major obstacles that the CDC’s found in doing this work was that HUD policies for the project prohibited them from spending any money toward the purchase of a house until their plans for renovation of the house had been approved by the City. This process takes approximately 6 weeks and sometimes longer. HUD’s policy meant that the CDC’s would often find a house, negotiate a price with the seller, then having tentatively established a price, prepare plans and submit them to the City for approval. Once the plans were approved, they would return to the seller, only to find that the house had already been sold.

Not only was this a tremendous waste of resources for the not-for-profit developers, it threatened to keep them from meeting their October 1 deadline. Furthermore, the problem, in theory, was easily solvable. If the CDC’s could offer the owners of the houses some sort of contingency or option agreement, that provided the sellers with minor compensation (say $500 per house) in exchange for a commitment to sell the property if City approval came through (which it consistently has), then they could eliminate the risk of the house being sold during the approval process. HUD’s policies for the project, however, prohibited this, not only in K.C., but nationally.

Michael brought this problem to the attention of the Post-Foreclosure Task Force, which includes members of the City Council of Kansas City, representatives of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, neighborhood organizations, bankers and other major stakeholders who have been impacted by the blight that foreclosures have caused in Kansas City’s urban core. It’s essentially a think-tank for reducing the blight caused by foreclosures.

The Post-Foreclosure Task Force saw the solution to the problem and negotiated with HUD attorneys in Washington for a change of the policy. After lengthy debate, HUD agreed to a change in the rules, nationally. This means that the CDC’s in Kansas City will be able to use all of the $7 million in federal stimulus funding to rehab foreclosed properties and use the proceeds from the sale of those properties to create a revolving fund to rehab even more properties. And developers around the country will be able to do the same. The result is that tens of millions of dollars, and perhaps hundreds of millions dollars, can now be used nationally to rehab blighted urban core properties.

That is good problem solving with a great impact.

Legal Aid Makes History

Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

Judith Esrig, an attorney in Kansas City, has researched and drafted a 50 page history of Legal Aid of Western Missouri. Ms Esrig’s work captures many proud moments in our history that our staff and supporters will find enlightening. (An excerpt from the history is below.)

We want to collect as many great Legal Aid stories as we can. If you know of anyone we should be talking with to get good and important stories about Legal Aid’s history, please let Shelly Wakeman know. You can reach her at swakeman@lawmo.org. Similarly, if you have pictures or other good Legal Aid memorabilia that you would be willing to let us use for the history, we would be much obliged.

Our hope is that the history will be completed and ready for distribution some time next year.

Excerpt from Judith Esrig’s History of Legal Aid of Western Missouri

“Jack Rabbit” Courts

[When Legal Aid was initially founded in 1910, there were] especially egregious abuses in the Justice of the Peace court system. Creditors garnished the wages of employees of the forty railroads that entered the city. No matter where the employees lived, service of process was made in Kansas City. Workers could not travel back to Kansas City to defend these actions; the result was default judgments in favor of creditors.

In 1910, the Legal Aid Bureau, established by city leaders and Kansas City attorneys, investigated the situation, prompting a change in the Missouri law that governed Justice of the Peace courts – called “Jack Rabbit” courts” by critics. The Bureau, the first publicly funded legal aid facility in the nation, was formed because attorneys and the city’s Public Welfare Board realized that many men and women needed legal assistance, but could not afford to pay for it. Frank P. Walsh convinced six other Kansas City lawyers, James P. Aylward, Edward J. Flemings, Frank E. Parker, S.A. Dew, Elias Grenman, and John B. Gage to spend one day a week, two hours a day, working in the Bureau’s office, which was located at sixth and Walnut Streets. Along with wage garnishment, the Bureau handled threatened evictions, collection of wages, and recovery of property.

Effie Day

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

I am pleased to announce that Missouri Lawyers Weekly has selected Effie Day, the Director of Legal Aid of Western Missouri’s Medicaid Appeals Project at Truman Medical Center as a winner of one of its Women’s Justice Awards for 2010. And it’s no surprise as to why Effie won the award.

For the last 37 years, Effie has devoted herself and her career to improving the lives of low-income Missourians and improving their access to healthcare. Through her persistent and tenacious representation of her clients, she has improved the lives of thousands of low-income Missourians.

In 1972, Effie was one of seven women to graduate from the University of Missouri School of Law and once she got her degree, she went straight to work for Legal Aid of Western Missouri for about $5.50 per hour. (The following year Legal Aid reduced attorneys’ salaries even further to keep the agency afloat.)

She has become one of the most effective litigators to ever work for Legal Aid. In her career, Effie has litigated thousands of cases asserting the rights of low-income people to access healthcare through Missouri’s Medicaid program. As prevailing counsel in numerous appellate cases, Effie has, for all practical purposes, written Missouri’s Medicaid law. She has been counsel in most of the major appellate cases that define the rights of Medicaid beneficiaries in Missouri, including:

--Grant v. Toan, (United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri) (established the right of Medicaid beneficiaries to challenge the denial of services and required the Division to inform beneficiaries if it had denied claims);

--Savage v. Stangler, 795 F.2d 643 (8th Cir. 1988) (challenging a Division proposal that the home of institutionalized Medicaid applicant may be considered in determining financial eligibility for Medicaid benefits. The publicity surrounding this case led to a change in law in Missouri, exempting the homes of nursing home patients, when determining eligibility for Medicaid).

Effie was also prevailing counsel in Slayden v. Stangler, (United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri) (the Division is required to establish a process for replacement of stolen and lost AFDC checks within a reasonable amount of time) and in Thompson v. Toan, (United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri) (established the process for prompt processing of AFDC benefits statewide in Missouri).

Although she has proven 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 nights and weekends. Over her career at Legal Aid, Effie has represented more than 5,000 clients. She prevails in at least 90% of Medicaid appeals cases she handles and obtained Medicaid benefits for over 400 clients in the last ten years.

For the last five years, Effie has led Legal Aid’s Medicaid Appeals Project, which is a collaboration with Truman Medical Center, Kansas City’s primary public hospital. The staff at Truman refers patients to Legal Aid who have been denied Medicaid benefits and who the staff at Truman believes should receive those benefits. Legal Aid then appeals these decisions. The project has led to over 1,000 Truman patients, who are permanently and totally disabled, receiving Medicaid benefits after having had those benefits improperly denied. As a result of having Medicaid benefits, Effie’s clients have access to ongoing, proactive medical care, which substantially enhances their quality of life.

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

Lunch Hour Ethics

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director

It’s always been hard to get the mandatory one hour of ethics CLE’s each year and, in January, the Missouri Supreme Court announced that all Missouri lawyers will now be required to have two hours of ethics CLE each year, even in the current reporting year.

If you want a free and easy way of picking up an extra hour of ethics credit, Legal Aid can help. As you know, Missouri lawyers all have an ethical responsibility to do pro bono work. Legal Aid’s Volunteer Attorney Project team has created a free, one-hour CLE reviewing the ethical responsibility to do pro bono work and discussing the pro bono projects that VAP offers and which attorneys can use to satisfy their pro bono responsibility.

And we’re taking the CLE on the road. We will do over-the-lunch hour presentations to law firms and other groups of 10 or more attorneys. We’ll even come to your office. If you’re a solo practitioner or in a small firm, there’s no problem. Give us a call and we will get you signed up for a session at another firm or we’ll put together a group of attorneys for a CLE.

Call our Volunteer Attorney Project Director, Latricia Scott Adams at (816)474-1413 x 234 to schedule your CLE.

Law Student Open House

by Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director


My thanks and congratulations go out to Katie Lamb and everyone who worked with her to make Legal Aid’s first annual recruiting open house a success.

The event, which was held in the central office on January 11, drew in 39 law students, including 3 from KU and 5 who drove in 2 hours from MU. Legal Aid had 7 openings for new attorneys in 2009, including 3 newly created positions, based on new grant funding. For most of these openings we received 50 or more applications. So getting large numbers of applicants has not been a problem.

We have found, however, that often times we get the best, long-term attorneys when we hire people who have already clerked for us. When law students do internships, they give us the opportunity to see their commitment to serving low income people and their talent in representing our clients. So the open house focused on encouraging students to do internships with Legal Aid. The open house and our other recruiting efforts have generated enough interest that we will have to make the internship application process competitive over the summer this year.

Another goal of the open house was to increase awareness of job opportunities at Legal Aid among minority law students, to work toward increasing the diversity among our attorneys. The invitations to the open house originally went out to minority law student organizations at the three area law schools and was spread to other student organizations. As a result we had some good diversity among the participants.

The original idea for the open house came from Karen Hester, who is the Director of Career services at KU, but Katie and her volunteers did a great job of making it happen and giving the students a good experience. My hope is that this will become a Legal Aid tradition.

New Beginnings

by Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

This is a time of many new beginnings at Legal Aid:

• We’ve just completed a big chunk of our 3-year strategic planning process and we’re ramping up to implement the plan;
• We’re collaborating with the KCMBA to set up hundreds of lawyers, who the KCMBA has recruited to do pro bono work, with the training, resources and case assignments they need to do their volunteer work; and
• I recently experienced a wonderful, personal, new beginning. On November 9, my wife, Beth Lombardi gave birth to our son, William Neil Lombardi.
  

At the same time, these are very difficult times for our clients. Foreclosures are stealing homes, not only from homeowners but from renters who may be completely up-to-date on rent, but lose their housing when their landlord fails to pay the mortgage (at least one quarter of KC foreclosures are on rental housing). Domestic violence is becoming more frequent and more violent. And people with disabilities are being denied access to healthcare at an
alarmingly high rate.

One of my goals in these exciting and challenging times is to help get the word out to the community about the great things that are going on at Legal Aid. So, with the help of our talented development staff, I’m taking a shot at starting a blog for the organization.

My vision of blogging is to provide you with frequent, brief highlights of what our organization is doing, the challenges that we face and how we’re collaborating with other organizations to meet those challenges.

I also plan to provide other information that you can use and enjoy, from tips on great restaurants that you might not have heard of (Teocali at 25th and Holmes in Kansas City, for example, is a hidden gem, with excellent fajitas and green enchiladas) to local hiking trails, recipes, gardening tips, etc.

Legal Aid is doing great work and part of that work is to collaborate and build relationships with other organizations and individuals throughout our community. So, please join us. Together we will do great things. I hope you’ll follow along.