Page 12 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

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The Challenges
Poverty prevents individuals from avoiding legal issues that eventually bring them to the justice system . Individuals often fail to recognize they have legal issues, and those living in poverty are the least likely to perceive they have legal issues .8 Low-income individuals can ill afford everyday necessities and have little or no access to preventative measures that can avoid legal problems . For example, poor people don’t have wills or do estate planning . They often do not get divorced or legally separated, causing a myriad of legal issues involving adults and children .9
Poor persons are often unable to resolve their legal problems because they rely on external resources to pay for the necessities of life . They simply don’t have money . They also often have social services needs due to mental and physical disabilities, addiction, age, and domestic violence that are not addressed .10 Families get evicted and become homeless because of denials of public grants, loss of rent subsidies, or child support or maintenance that is not paid .11 Parents fail to pay child support due to being indigent, creating legal problems for the non-payor and further impoverishing the payee .12 Individuals lose their governmental benefits such as public assistance, rent subsidies, or Social Security income and then require administrative hearings .13 Hospital or medical bills go unpaid due to Medicaid or Medicare problems . Mentally ill individuals and drug- addicted individuals are evicted due to unmanaged behaviors because of inadequate or ineffective social services .14 The elderly also lose their housing .15 Parents lose custody of their children due
8 reBecca l. sandafur, civil needs and puBlic legal undersTanding, available at http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/ uploads/cms/documents/sandefur_-_civil_legal_needs_and_public_legal_understanding_handout.pdf.
9 frances leos marTinez & lucy wood, a home BuT no will: proBlems faced By low-income homeowners lacking access To proBaTe sysTems in Texas (2004), available at http://www.utexas.edu/law/centers/publicinterest/docs/no_will_ homeowners.pdf. See generally ruBy k. payne, Bridges ouT of poverTy: sTraTegies for professionals and communiTies 56 (rev. ed. 2009) (providing that for those living through generational poverty “many marital arrangements are common-law. Marriage and divorce in a legal court are only important if there is property to distribute or custody of children”); Catherine New, Divorce Too Expensive for Poorest Americans, New Study Shows, The huffingTon posT (Aug. 20, 2014), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/divorce-expensive-americans_n_1811821.html.
10 payne, supra note 9, at 191 (rev. ed. 2009); ACLU women’s righTs proJecT, domesTic Violence and homelessness, available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/dvhomelessness032106.pdf; Florida council for communiTy menTal healTh, menTal healTh and poverTy facT sheeT (2007), available at http://www.fccmh.org/ resources/dos/MentalIllnessandPovery.pdf; Zachery Levinson et al., A State-by-State Snapshot of Poverty Among Seniors: Findings From Analysis of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, The henry J. kaiser family foundaTion, http:// kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/a-state-by-state-snapshot-of-poverty-among-seniors/.
11 See generally Jonathan L. Hafetz, Homeless Legal Advocacy: New Challenges and Directions for the Future, 30 fordham urB. L. J. 1215 (2002) (identifying some of the causes of homelessness as a decline in affordable housing, a decrease in federally subsidized housing, and “[r]estrictions on eligibility for public assistance and the relative decline in grant levels in the past two decades”).
12 See Ann Cammett, Deadbeat Dads and Welfare Queens: How Metaphor Shapes Poverty Law, 34 B.C.J.L. & soc. JusT. 233 (2014) (noting that child support enforcement tools include “withholding, suspension, or restriction of drivers’, professional, and occupational licenses for individuals who owe child support,’ garnishing up to sixty-five percent of salaries, and requiring that overdue child support be reported to the national credit bureaus” and stating that these measures actually result in parents being less able to provide and children not receiving the support sought).
13 See generally Hafetz, supra note 11.
14 Id. at 1230 (stating that mental illness is an important factor in causing homelessness, but that it must be viewed “in the context of changes in mental health policy. Proportionally no more Americans suffer from mental illness now than a generation ago; yet mentally ill people make up an increasing proportion of the homeless population. Many mentally ill people become homeless after their discharge from health care institutions to the street or shelters. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (“McKinney Act”) places considerable emphasis on mental illness through funding for supportive housing and homeless outreach programs”).
15 Id. at 1259 (stating that the “increase in homelessness among elderly persons is primarily due to the declining availability of affordable housing and growing poverty among certain segments of this age group”).
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality