VLAS Special programs

1)         LawLine, Virginia Legal Aid Society's intake and advice hotline, provides screening, assessment, referrals, information and legal advice to most of Virginia Legal Aid Society's applicants during their first contact with VLAS regarding a new problem.  Six intake paralegals and two attorney supervisors, geographically divided among three offices but united by a Voice over Internet Protocol phone system and a client database on the Internet, provide this service from 9 AM until 3:30 PM on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (with Wednesdays reserved for training and catch-up).  Callers needing extended service, whether the drafting of a document or the filing of a lawsuit, will be referred by the LawLine to a local VLAS office, their information saved and instantly available via Kemps CaseWorks (case management software) on the Internet to the local office.  The system receives about 10,000 calls per year, providing 2500 with legal advice, referring about 2,000 to local VLAS offices for extended assistance, and providing remaining callers who cannot be helped with referrals or printed materials. 

2)         Housing Improvement and Preservation (HIP), a project funded by United Way of Central Virginia (Lynchburg) and the City of Danville to provide advice and representation in evictions, foreclosures, correction of hazardous conditions, and renovation or construction of affordable housing.

3)         Strengthening Families with Children (SFC), a project funded by several foundations  to strengthen low-income families with children by increasing access to health care and education, increasing and preserving financial resources, and increasing stability for families in transition. 

4)         Senior Citizens Legal Assistance, funded by Piedmont Senior Resources, Central Virginia Area Agency on Aging, Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia, Lake Country Area Agency on Aging, and Southern Area Agency on Aging, to provide advice and representation to senior citizens in social or economic need.

5)         Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Program, in which the VLAS Lynchburg office recruits volunteer accountants and creates clinics at which low-income Virginians eligible for the EITC can receive assistance in preparing their tax returns.

6)         Private Bar Involvement (PBI) Program, which involves approximately 150 attorneys in providing representation to VLAS clients, most often in divorces, bankruptcies, wills, and guardianships.

7)         Financial Freedom is a financial budgeting and consumer awareness project that we present every three months in the Lynchburg area as a six-week series of classes, In Danville/Pittsylvania, with the support of funding from the Danville Regional Foundation, VLAS offers two sets of these classes every eight weeks in 2009 and 2010.  In 2010 we hope to expand this program to other parts of our service area.

8)         Community Legal Education provided by VLAS involves regular presentations by attorneys and paralegals to community groups, senior nutrition sites, tenant organizations, and service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary chapters.  Topics include information about legal aid services in Virginia and specific legal topics such as tenant rights and responsibilities, consumer laws, and Medicaid planning. 

9)         HEAL (Health, Education, Advocacy, Law) Project:  HEAL is an innovative medical-legal collaboration designed to ensure that families' and individuals' basic needs for food, safe housing, income, nutrition, family stability, and health insurance are met so that physicians can be more effective in preventing and treating health problems. The project trains health care providers to identify poverty-based barriers to maintaining a patient's health; connect medical and legal professionals in jointly solving obstacles to improved health outcomes; bring the health of low-income children better in line with expectations for children of higher-income families; and provide direct, proactive legal assistance to patients experiencing problems.

In Lynchburg, VLAS began this partnership with the Lynchburg Family Medicine Residency in 2006, and Managing Attorney Jeremy White, staff attorney Geri Greenspan, and Dr. David Gregory are the coordinators. In 2009, VLAS received funding to hire an attorney dedicated to this project and expand it to other Lynchburg health providers including the Johnson Health Center and the Free Clinic.

In Suffolk, with the support of funding from the Obici Healthcare Foundation, VLAS hired a full-time HEAL director in September 2007. In the first two years of the grant, VLAS received over 200 referrals from local area health care providers and completed more than 100 cases. 

VLAS currently seeks funding to expand HEAL to our offices in Danville, Farmville and Emporia.

10)     Food Stamp Application Expediting (in development):  with by the State Information Technology Consortium in Herndon and the Virginia Department of Social Services, VLAS successfully applied for a USDA Food and Nutrition Service grant to expedite Food Stamp applications. When implemented in 2010, we will ask LawLine callers if they would like to apply for Food Stamps and if so, ask other questions necessary, and submit the information electronically to DSS, making the process easier and faster for clients. We will also seek to involve other legal aid programs in Virginia and across the country in using this technology.