Trump's presidential budget proposes to eliminate funding for a program helping those with low incomes obtain legal representation for things like obtaining restraining orders, preventing foreclosures, and ensuring elderly people aren't scammed by lenders.
News Story (NATIONAL)
Lisa Needham
Rewire
May 22, 2017
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
Tags: Funding: Federal
Organizations mentioned/involved: Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
News Story (NATIONAL)
Lisa Needham
Rewire
May 22, 2017
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
Tags: Funding: Federal
Organizations mentioned/involved: Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
DETAILS
For more than 40 years, the United States has had an existing government program, the Legal Services Corporation, that provides funds for legal aid services at more than 800 locations. Through LSC-funded programs, people with annual incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty threshold are eligible for representation in civil cases for critical needs—things like obtaining restraining orders to protect domestic violence victims, preventing foreclosures, and ensuring elderly people aren’t scammed by lenders. However, it has always been abysmally underfunded, even during the Obama era. At its current level of funding, for every person legal aid offices help, they have to turn away another.