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LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO, INC.
An annual event held on the playing field at San Diego High School. The standdown assists veterans with clothing, food, shelter, and legal assistance. The three-day event also assists veterans with substance rehabilitation and the chance to appeal any outstanding warrants.
A project of the Housing and Community Development Team, "Adopt-A-Building" provides direct technical and organizational assistance to tenants residing in HUD-insured apartment complexes that are at risk of converting to market rate apartments. The project assists HUD residents to use various options to retain and protect affordable apartment units in San Diego County. The project conducts workshops for HUD residents teaching them about tenants' rights and responsibilities.
The Adopt-A-Building staff of one attorney and two paralegals is in constant contact with tenants of targeted complexes, and the private and public agencies involved in administering the housing subsidy programs. As a recipient of an Outreach and Training Assistance Grant [OTAG] the program attends tenant meetings, provides technical and organizational support for tenant groups. The attorneys and paralegals allocate the vast majority of their time and resources to defense casework. Actually advising clients, negotiating resolutions to ongoing Court of administrative actions, and preparing and representing clients. This involves contact with other bar members, interviewing and field work, collection of evidence, legal research and writing, and trial work. The Team is committed to highlighting the abuses to which tenants are subjected in a crushingly tight housing market by bringing selected cases on tenants’ behalf. These cases seek to expose terrible housing conditions, abusive invasions of privacy, or failure to follow legal procedures in dispossessing tenants.
Community Education: There is an extremely high demand for Team personnel to speak to community groups, tenant organizations, and as part of panels designed to train attorneys and professionals in the housing field. The team maintains a policy of trying to meet every reasonable request for speakers within the parameters of LSC regulations.
PAI Involvement: The team works closely with the PAI program to involve private attorneys in cases of substantial merit. Working very closely with Clare Maudsley, there is a seamless connection between the intake activities of the PAI program, and the CRT and Housing Teams. The purpose is to ensure that the LSC desire to involve the private bar in LC grantee operations does not create a layer of bureaucracy to come between an eligible client and the need for almost immediate assistance.
