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Today, marks one month since the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in Louisiana. Our lives have changed in ways that were unfathomable before 
now. The impact of the pandemic has been especially severe in southeast Louisiana where so many of tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs worked in low-paying jobs, doing gig work, or in the hospitality industry. Before this crisis, they had little money left at the end of each month. Now they’ve survived weeks with no to little income combined with no job prospects. Even people lucky enough to receive Louisiana unemployment benefits have gotten at most only $249 per month, one of the lowest unemployment benefit rates in the country.
While new federal programs created through the CARES Act and changes made through the Governor’s emergency orders will provide relief for many, it may be months before some in our community receive the help they need. Yet day-to-day needs like food, housing, and medical care will not wait for unemployment checks or stimulus funds to arrive. Low-income and other vulnerable residents often bear a disproportionate share of the impacts of disasters as they struggle to make ends meet for their families and keep a roof over heads.
Thanks to supporters like you, SLLS continues to fight hard for the low-.jpg)
income people impacted by COVID-19. Our advocacy helped suspend evictions in both private and publicly funded housing – ensuring that low-income tenants could be safe in their homes during the crisis. Though all evictions in our state are illegal through April 30, 2020, many tenants have contacted us, fearful that they still will end up on the street with some landlords cutting off their utilities, locking them out of their homes, throwing their belongings on the street, and engaging in other threatening actions. We continue to represent these tenants – advocating for them with their landlords and filing restraining orders in court when needed. Your support has made it possible to keep many of the tenants in their homes.
Click on the links below to read more stories about our work and the experiences of the people we serve:
Just as we have during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the BP Oil Spill, the 2016 Louisiana Floods, and other crises, SLLS remains committed to meeting the challenges of COVID-19 by
fighting for the rights and protection of low-income people in our communities. Louisiana and its families have been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of March 29, 2020, our state has over 3,500 cases of coronavirus. Over 3 out of every 1,000 residents of Orleans Parish has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Outside of New York, New Orleans has the highest per capita rate of COVID-19 in the country.
With schools closed and businesses shuttering doors, many low-income people, already struggling to make ends meet, have lost their jobs or are unable to work. During the week of March 15, 2020, over 70,000 unemployment benefits claims (compared to an average of 1,500 claims per week during normal times) were filed. Our workers, already stressed by concerns of how to keep their families healthy and safe, now have to also worry about whether they can keep a roof over their heads, whether their family will have enough food to eat, and whether they can access the civil justice system to protect them when they most need it.
As we end the week, unfortunately, the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on our communities only grows. Many now consider New Orleans the coronavirus epicenter of the country. The death rate for coronavirus in Orleans Parish is more than double that of any other county in the United States - including New York. Even after the federal government issued a major disaster declaration for Louisiana, our governor warned that our hospitals are at risk of running out of capacity by the first week of April.
SLLS is dedicated now, it always has been, to fighting for justice for the people we serve. Over the past two weeks, we have been working hard – albeit in different ways – to protect vulnerable people. Thanks to supporters like you, we can continue to provide high-quality legal representation, advocacy, and community education for low-income and vulnerable people in our communities throughout COVID-19 and its long-aftermath. We've included some highlights of this emergency response below.
With the end of this disaster nowhere in sight and with the situation, laws, and policies changing daily, SLLS supporters like you play a vital role in protecting low-income people and ensuring their needs and experiences are heard and considered by policy makers. Your support provides high-quality legal representation to the most vulnerable in our communities - ensuring that they have a safe place to stay, where they can maintain social distancing, and where they know they can access the food, medical care, and other resources they need during this frightening time.
We hope you will considering joining us in this work by making a donation or joining our team of volunteer attorneys, professionals, and law students. You can make a donation online at: https://slls.org/donations/. We've included more information about volunteering below. Thank you for joining us in the fight for fairness. Your role in it is as important now as it ever has been.
To protect the health and safety of our clients, volunteers, and staff, we quickly shifted to providing legal services remotely. To make this transition possible, we quickly purchased new equipment and other technology and redesigned programming to ensure our services remain continuously available to people in need. We are happy to report that we have completed this transition without any break in services for our clients. People wanting to call to connect with their attorneys or to apply for services can call the local SLLS office serving them or apply online. Information for our offices and our online application can be found at slls.org
On 3/25/2020, SLLS launched a COVID-19 Legal Helpline (1-844-244-7871) so people who have legal problems arising from COVID-19 can access the information and legal help they need more easily.
In collaboration with community partners, we are fighting for policy changes to mitigate some of the most dire impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on low-income people. We advocated and achieved moratoria on evictions, foreclosures, and Medicaid terminations throughout our state. We continue fighting for the rights of vulnerable people – particularly people who are homeless, people living with disabilities, and the elderly – to ensure they can stay safely in their homes; can access the unemployment benefits, food stamps, and healthcare benefits they need; and can access the courts for emergencies – like protective orders – to keep their families safe. Thanks to advocacy by SLLS and its partners:
Our attorneys are representing clients to address the serious immediate impacts of this disaster. Here are a few examples:
Our SLLS Pro Bono Program is moving to mobilize volunteer efforts to assist in the response. If you’re interested in joining us in our work to fight for fairness for low-income people, please contact:
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January 2020 We are excited to kick off 2020 continuing our work to increase access to justice. We start this year with a new home for our Hammond office, new services to break down legal barriers to people who are re-establishing their lives after leaving incarceration or after escaping family violence, and a renewed commitment to fight systemic problems that unfairly hurt low-income and vulnerable people. Many thanks to all of you who volunteer their time or contribute financially to make this work possible! We're excited to have you with us and look forward to all that we will accomplish together this year. -Laura Tuggle, SLLS Executive Director |
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Pro Bono Attorneys Change Lives
In 2016, Donna*’s elderly mother passed away. At the time, Donna lived 25 minutes away from her mother’s house in Washington Parish. Her cousins asked to move into her mother’s home, which she allowed them to do since she needed to stay close to her job. Two years later, Donna learned that her cousins had held two yard sales, selling off her mother’s belongings. She was heartbroken.
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