• Search for:
    13Sep, 2023
    Jacksonville Area Legal Aid launches new branding with latest annual report

    Fifty years after adopting its current name, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid is updating its branding with the release of its 2022 annual report, the first document to bear JALA’s new logo.

    >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

    Titled “Housing Takes Center Stage,” the report shines a spotlight on JALA’s work to prevent unlawful evictions and foreclosures, ensure fair housing laws are enforced, and resolve other landlord-tenant issues.

    Out of the 6,724 cases JALA handled in 2022, JALA closed 2,618 housing cases, representing nearly 40% of its closed cases.

    “Preserving shelter is our highest and best use, and we remain focused on that mission,” the report states.

    JALA’s annual report also cites a recent report by the City of Jacksonville’s Special Committee on Critical Quality of Life Issues, which states that “The City should work with and financially support the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid office in efforts to reduce eviction rates, human displacement and homelessness.”

    That work gets a boost in Mayor Donna Deegan’s new budget, which recommends greater funding for legal aid.

    JALA’s 2022 annual report includes a full-page infographic with data on JALA’s services in housing and other areas, including family law and domestic violence prevention, veterans’ legal services, disability benefits, and services provided to seniors and to children with a combination of medical and legal issues.

    Among the data on JALA’s services in the annual report:

    • 286 evictions avoided through attorney intervention and $472,832 in financial relief secured for renters

    • 124 foreclosures prevented and $468,415 secured in financial relief for homeowners

    • 3,643 people used JALA’s online eviction prevention tool

    • $661,000 in class action settlements for landlord’s failure to rectify substandard conditions and refund deposits for 2,836 tenants

    • $939,725 in income and assets protected by averting predatory lending and illegal debt collection

    • $1,164,497 in family support secured for

    … Read the rest
    17Aug, 2023
    AppalReD Legal Aid receives grant to help victims of domestic violence

    HAZARD, Ky. (WYMT) – AppalReD Legal Aid is a non-profit law firm that provides free legal services to people that qualify in 37 counties across the state.

    The organization received a $10,000 grant from WellCare to help victims of domestic violence get out of their situation. The program is called Appalachian HOPE, Homeless Outreach Prevention Effort.

    Weekday broadcast of WYMT Mountain News First at Four

    Cassandra Combs, a staff attorney with AppalReD Legal Aid, said they have already been able to help 15 clients because of the grant money.

    “Which, that money is going fast and it’s going to those who really deserve it which is great,” said Combs. “I actually had one of those clients, I helped them get tires to flee a domestic violence situation here in Perry County.”

    Combs said, although the services that AppalReD Legal Aid provide are free to clients, there still may be fees they have that the client cannot afford.

    “We can help them avoid having to cash out probably the last $200 to their names,” Combs added.

    The grant gave AppalReD Legal Aid the ability to spread the Appalachian HOPE program to all of the counties that they support.

    “This should give them and us peace of mind that we can help you file that divorce we can help you file for custody and pay a friend of the court or a guardian ad litem fee,” Combs said.

    Copyright 2023 WYMT. All rights reserved.

    … Read the rest
    12Apr, 2023
    Help for crime victims drops to ‘crisis level’ in WA

    When Heaven Strothers learned two of her children had been sexually abused by her then-husband, it felt like “the floor shattered and fell out from underneath” her.  

    She didn’t know what to do until a prosecutor connected her with the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center. The people there saved her oldest daughter from “falling through the cracks,” said Strothers, who agreed to the use of her name in discussing the abuse. The Seattle Times typically does not name crime victims or make them identifiable without consent.

    Strothers’ oldest was abused for nearly a decade, and a younger daughter for potentially a year, based on her medical history, until Strothers’ ex-husband was arrested in March 2014. Strothers became a single mother overnight. She tried to help her kids heal while filing for divorce.

    Strothers’ ex-husband pleaded guilty later that year. Her daughters spent months in therapy, obtained through the resource center, to come to terms with what happened.

    The agency “was super-helpful for me as a parent, because I didn’t know what I was about to face,” Strothers said. “I just was so lost.” 

    Because of cuts to federal funding, the heads of the resource center and other victim services in Washington worry they may not be able to help as many people as they do today. 

    Washington’s network of crime victim services — which includes sexual assault resource centers, domestic violence programs and child advocacy centers — want $132 million in state funding for the next two years, citing an increase in demand coupled with the decrease in federal funds.

    The groups detailed their request in a letter to lawmakers saying the victim services network “has never been weaker” financially. 

    “As one organization shuts down or a survivor or family is placed on a waitlist, the remaining network of

    … Read the rest
    10Apr, 2023
    Suspect already facing legal problems for abuse, harassing his ex-girlfriend now charged with tracking her with AirTag, officials say

    HOUSTON – A man who investigators say restrained his pregnant girlfriend against her will with handcuffs, and then violated his bond conditions and two protective orders, is now accused of tracking the same woman using an apple air tag.

    KPRC 2 legal analyst Brian Wice weighed in on the cases against 26-year-old Romeo Jerome Frank.

    “This defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence like any other defendant accused of any other crime,” Wice said. “Make no mistake, he has demonstrated a pattern of escalating conduct that suggests he could be a capital murderer waiting to happen.”

    On July 28, 2022, Frank was accused of restraining his then seven-month-pregnant girlfriend for hours with handcuffs during an argument. He was charged with unlawful restraint.

    The woman also got a temporary protective order against Frank.

    On August 7, 2022, Frank allegedly violated the order by reaching out to the woman again.

    “Protective orders may be effective on one level, but bullets go right through them,” Wice said.

    Court documents show Frank continued to contact the victim for months even though another final protective order had been granted.

    In December, he was slapped with the felony of violation of protective order or bond conditions.

    “The fact that he’s charged with an offense that carries time in the penitentiary will hopefully be the one that finally gets his attention,” Wice said.

    But the allegations continued after the felony charge.

    The woman told police she recently found an Apple AirTag that investigators determined Frank put in her car at the end of January to track her.

    He’s now also being charged with the unlawful installation of a tracking device.

    “His pattern of escalating criminal behavior ought to frighten everyone,” Wice said.

    WIce added that the felony alone could land Frank behind bars for

    … Read the rest
    10Sep, 2022
    In new gun law, a quiet breakthrough for victims of abuse

    WASHINGTON — Nikiesha Thomas was on her way to work one day when she told her sister that she was thinking about getting involved with domestic violence prevention.

    The idea gave Keeda Simpson pause. Her younger sister had never mentioned anything like that before, and she was bringing it up in a phone call just days after filing for a protective order against her ex-boyfriend.

    It was their last conversation.

    Less than an hour later, Thomas’ ex-boyfriend walked up to her parked car in a southeastern neighborhood of the nation’s capital and shot through her passenger window, killing the 33-year-old.

    It’s cases like hers, where warning signs and legal paperwork weren’t enough to save a life, that lawmakers had in mind this summer when they crafted the first major bipartisan law on gun violence in decades.

    The measure signed by President Joe Biden in June was part of a response to a harrowing string of shootings over the summer, including the slaying of 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

    The package included tougher background checks for the youngest gun buyers and help for states to put in place “red flag” laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people adjudged dangerous.

    Also tucked into the bill was a proposal that will make it more difficult for a convicted domestic abuser to obtain firearms even when the abuser is not married to or doesn’t have a child with the victim.

    Nearly a decade in the making, lawmakers’ move to close the “boyfriend loophole” received far less attention than other aspects of the legislation. But advocates and lawmakers are hopeful this provision will save lives and become a major part of the law’s legacy.

    “We have so many women killed — one every 14

    … Read the rest