wfn.org | NCC: make it easier for the poor to get legal help

["NCC News" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of Churches urges end of federal law 
That restricts access to legal aid for low-income families 

New York, November 29, 2005 -- The National Council of Churches USA and 29
other faith-based groups are urging Congress to end a law they say hurts poor
families who need legal advice.
 
"Our faith calls us to advocate for the 'least of these' within our society,
and to seek the common good," said the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner, the NCC's
Deputy General Secretary for Research and Planning.  "The protection of the
access to legal counsel for rich and poor alike stands at the heart of the
commonweal and is consistent with our moral precepts."
  
The NCC and other faith groups want Congress to end a law that prohibits
federally supported legal aid organizations from spending state, local or
private funds to provide legal assistance to low-income families. 

Every day, the groups say, thousands of low-income individuals and families,
including some of the most vulnerable members of our society, cannot obtain
the critically important legal help they need to cope with a range of civil
legal problems that have destabilized their lives.

A recent study reveals that at least four in five low-income Americans are
unable to obtain legal help when they need it.	 

The so-called "private money restriction" interferes with the ability of
legal services lawyers to help low-income individuals and families in a wide
array of cases, including unlawful evictions, prisoner reentry, religious
asylum, domestic violence, predatory lending, disaster relief, and many
others. 

In the letter to Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.),
respectively the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee that allocates funds to federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
that funds legal aid groups, the groups call for an end to the private money
restriction.
 
Federal law prohibits the use of LSC grant money for certain types of legal
representation.  Legal aid organizations may spend their own funds on these
restricted categories of advocacy only if they first establish a physically
separate office with separate staff, office space, and equipment. 
  
The NCC and other faith-based groups say this compulsory physical separation
imposes unnecessary expenses on cash-strapped legal aid programs and creates
costly obstacles to private philanthropy.  As a result, legal aid
organizations are unable to help low-income people in a number of important
types of cases even with non-federal funds.   

In addition to being troubled by the harm this law inflicts on low-income
people, faith-based service providers are concerned that if the physical
separation model were to be imported into faith-based settings (as may occur
if the government continues to defend this model in litigation and policy
debates), the result -- equivalent physical separation of secular and
faith-based activities -- would undermine the public-private partnership
model that delivers important social services to low-income communities.
 
A parallel effort to fix the private money restriction is ongoing in the
courts.  Represented by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law,
three New York legal aid programs have challenged the constitutionality of
the physical separation requirement.   

A federal District Court judge ruled last year that the application of the
restriction to the three programs violated their First Amendment rights to
advocate for their clients.  But the government appealed the District Court
ruling in the case -- Velazquez v. LSC -- so the future of legal services for
the poor remains in jeopardy.  

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches has been the
leading force for ecumenical cooperation among Christians in the United
States. The NCC's member faith groups -- representing a wide spectrum of
Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American and Living Peace
churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local
congregations in communities across the nation. 

The letter to the congressional representatives can be downloaded at
www.ncccusa.org. For more information about the private money restriction or
to join the growing campaign to restore justice to legal aid funding, go to
www.brennancenter.org.

Contact Rebekah Diller: 212-992-8635 
NCC News, Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2252, pjenks@ncccusa.org; Leslie Tune,
202-544-2350, ltune@ncccusa.org