US churches challenge anti-poor law
-30/11/05
The National Council of Churches USA, an
US churches challenge anti-poor law
-30/11/05
The National Council of Churches USA, an official ecumenical body, and 29 other American faith-based organizations, are urging the US Congress to end a law they say hurts poor families who need legal advice.
ìOur faith calls us to advocate for the ëleast of theseí within our society, and to seek the common good,î says the Rev Dr Eileen Lindner, the NCCís Deputy General Secretary for Research and Planning. ìThe 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.î
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 ìprivate money restrictionî 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 and Alan Mollohan, respectively the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that allocates funds to federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) which funds legal aid groups, the faith organizations 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 the 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 NCCís member faith groups – representing a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American and Living Peace churches – include 45 million people in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.
[Available from the Ekklesia shop: two books by Jim Wallis – God’s Politics, Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It; and Faith Works, Lessons on Spirituality and Social Action.
Also on Ekklesia: Neglect of poor in US budget bill immoral, says leading evangelical; US churches respond to bias claims; American church leaders condemn torture; US Christians call for phased withdrawal from Iraq]
US churches challenge anti-poor law
-30/11/05
The National Council of Churches USA, an official ecumenical body, and 29 other American faith-based organizations, are urging the US Congress to end a law they say hurts poor families who need legal advice.
‘Our faith calls us to advocate for the ëleast of these’ within our society, and to seek the common good,’ says 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 and Alan Mollohan, respectively the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that allocates funds to federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) which funds legal aid groups, the faith organizations 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 the 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 people in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.
[Available from the Ekklesia shop: two books by Jim Wallis – God’s Politics, Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It; and Faith Works, Lessons on Spirituality and Social Action.
Also on Ekklesia: Neglect of poor in US budget bill immoral, says leading evangelical; US churches respond to bias claims; American church leaders condemn torture; US Christians call for phased withdrawal from Iraq]