Below are some descriptions of the work that we did in New Orleans during the 2008 Spring Break trip.
Six of us worked with the Southeast Louisiana
Legal Services, in Hammond, LA, to assist individuals in receiving their Road
Home money. Hammond is on the other side of Lake
Pontchartrain from New Orleans. The area was severely affected by Hurricane
Katrina and many feel it has been under-served compared to the City of New
Orleans. Road Home is a federal program that can provide individuals with
money to rebuild their homes or alternatively may buy property at its
pre-Katrina value so that the former owners can purchase homes elsewhere.
While the program is a great concept, complications, including Louisiana's use
of French civil law instead of English common law, make it very difficult for
many to qualify for the Road Home funding.
Many of those occupying old homes have
difficulty providing proper title or power of attorney over the property
because it has been passed down through the family over many generations
without a will or other documentation. Property may be titled to a
deceased grandparent with many aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins potentially
holding an interest in the property. We assisted on drafting Affidavits
of Death, which are a shortcut for giving a property interest to the person
seeking the Road Home funding. We also spent time contacting those who've
requested assistance with filing a succession or Affidavit of Death. We
would contact and survey them to determine if enough information was available
for SLLS to assist them. It was eye-opening to hear the stories of
Katrina survival and about the difficulty and frustration involved with
navigating assistance options.
Some of us worked with the Sierra Club and law
students from USC, Brooklyn, Chicago-Kent, and other schools to work on
clean-up and improvement projects. We worked in the 9th ward and spent
the first half of the week clearing a field to build a community garden.
One of the adjacent land-owners offered his field to be included in the garden
and we worked there as well. The remainder of the week was working on
assisting Mrs. Wells, a homeowner, with repainting her home. We scraped
off all of the old paint, primed the house, and repainted the outside in three
days. Our own ingenuity assisted in the work when we introduced the
"paint-brush-taped-to-a-stick" to save the day. The work was
very rewarding and it was nice to be able to start a project and see the
finished result.
Around a dozen of us
participated in the FEMA Trailer surveying project. The project was
focused on surveying and meeting with occupants of the government-provided
trailers to learn about their eviction status. The trailers are believed
to contain unsafe levels of formaldehyde, which may cause serious health
problems. Many of the trailer occupants are having a difficulty moving
out because of a shortage of affordable housing options post-Katrina.
We drove throughout New Orleans and surrounding areas to survey FEMA trailer
park residents and to document any possible legal and housing issues where the
residents might need assistance. The project did not always go
smoothly. Some groups were sent to closed trailer parks and no one seemed
to have an up-to-date list of the park's exact locations and status. Most
of the parks we visited were exclusively FEMA trailers while some locations had
a mix of government and privately-owned trailers. Despite the occasional
confusion, we got the chance to meet with many residents and to speak with them
about their experiences. Many had lived in the small trailers since the
hurricane, having lost everything, and were now facing eviction with few
options for permanent residence elsewhere in the city. Some remained
optimistic about their situations and told us about their new jobs and
grandchildren, while others were weary of any strangers knocking at their door
that could not offer any concrete help. We listened to their stories, took
notes and provided what information we had.
It's frustrating to realize the limits of what one can do and we could only
document their problems and provide them with contact information for
assistance. The problems of poverty, racism, and the government's inadequacy in assisting these vulnerable citizens were all clearly exemplified
during our time in Louisiana. In a few months the trailers will only be a
memory. It will only be that much easier for us to forget the people that
live there and what the fact that those parks existed says about our country.
New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation (NOLAC) provides free legal services
to low income residents in the greater New Orleans area who are involved in
civil actions. As volunteers, we performed research for staff attorneys
working on varied cases. We assisted on a child custody dispute for a
family partially displaced by Hurricane Katrina and on a housing dispute
between a local resident of subsidized housing and the City of New Orleans
Housing Authority. Volunteers also assisted staff attorneys with client
intake and processing.
Some of us worked at the New Orleans Public Defender's Office where we worked
alongside students from other law schools. We assisted with first
appearances, interviewing clients, writing memos, and calling clients'
families. For the first appearances, we were the first people to talk
with our clients after they had been incarcerated, and the information gathered
during our interview was used to attempt to minimize our client's bond.
We also had the chance to work with the attorneys working on high-profile cases
by researching and producing memos. All of the students spent much of
their day in jail interviewing clients or viewing first appearances. Some
of the students had the opportunity to sit in on a trial and see the justice
system from the inside. This was a great experience that allowed us to
use the skills we learned in lawyering and to understand what it means to be a
real advocate or lawyer in
the best sense.
Here's a synopsis of
what we did at the City Attorney's office:
- addressed a
request to 1 of the council members that a religious group hold a weekly
prayer meeting in city hall. In doing this we
researched the law regarding free excercise and the establishment clause of
the 1st amd. and prepared a memo advising the City fo the legal
implications for the different courses of action it might take.
- answered a
procedural question concerning a case already tried with the City as
defendant where the plainitiff was now seeking a new trial but had
not complied with the time requirements for the filing of such a motion
- addressed an
issuing concerning how the City may deal with employment records gathered
by it's own headhunters during the recruiting process
- sat in on and
acted as gopher for a hearing before the Alcohol and Liquor Commission
where the liquor licenses of establishements were being threatened
