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Sunday, October 12, 2008
Ind. Courts - Legal Aid closings in Fort Wayne; 50 year anniversary in Evansville
Rebecca S. Green reports today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in a story that begins:
By the end of the year, a long-time legal resource for low-income people in the area will close its doors forever.The Evansville Courier & Press today has an interview with Attorney Scott Wylie, a board member of the Legal Aid Society of Evansville, on its 50th anniversary. A quote:And the decision by the Legal Services of Maumee Valley to cease operations comes at a time when more people may find themselves in need of its services.
The non-profit agency, which has existed since the 1960s, finds itself caught in a fight over dwindling resources available to those who provide free or nearly free legal assistance to those with little money. * * *
With Legal Services of Maumee Valley’s closing, at least four other organizations remain in Allen County to provide legal assistance to the poor and elderly: Indiana Legal Services, Volunteer Lawyer Program of Northeast Indiana, Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, and the referral service at the Allen County Bar Association.
These agencies provide a variety of services to the area’s low-income residents – legal advice, family law, housing,consumer law, and aid in gaining access to government benefits.
It is the addition of some newer groups – Indiana Legal Services and the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic – that shrank the pot of money available to Legal Services of Maumee Valley, according to Steve Morgan, the business manager for the organization.
In the not-so-distant past, Legal Services of Maumee Valley received the majority of its funding from Legal Services Corp., a national grant-making organization that funnels money from federal sources to legal aid organizations around the country.
But in the late 1990s, Legal Services Corp. shifted how it provided funding, sending all money earmarked for the Hoosier state to the Indiana Legal Services main office in Indianapolis, where it was then sent out to branches around the state, including one in Fort Wayne that serves a 10-county area in northeast Indiana.
Q: Who provides the funding for the Legal Aid Society of Evansville?A: Uniquely in Evansville, it is a partnership between Vanderburgh County and the city of Evansville. They are the two primary supporters. We remain one of the very few metropolitan areas in the country that has a publicly supported Legal Aid Society for civil legal needs. The third leg of the stool, so to speak, on funding is the United Way locally. They provide our third largest source of funding.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 12, 2008 09:30 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts