At this month’s general meeting, we had the pleasure of meeting Laurel Anderson from the Legal Aid of Southeastern PA! She gave us a great overview of what Legal Aid does and the exciting things she works on specifically for them.
Legal Aid of Southeastern PA serves across Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, and Bucks counties providing civil legal services for individuals that are low income. People can reach out directly via their online form for help with civil legal matters such as challenging administrative decisions, benefits being unjustly terminated, evictions, etc. Laurel phrased it as “cases that aren’t suing someone and getting someone money.” 😀
The services that Legal Aid provides are for low income folks, but they provide information and resources to everyone. Laurel told us that even if you don’t think you’ll qualify for aid, you should still call and the helpline can point you towards helpful resources!
Here are some examples of cases that Legal Aid assists with:
- Domestic violence (this one is for ANY INCOME LEVEL!)
- Evictions
- Safety/habitability issues of rental housing
- Mortgage foreclosure
- Wills, power of attorney, guardianship (especially for seniors)
- Veterans’ services
- Medicaid / SNAP benefits appeals
- Utility assistance
- Disability benefits
- Criminal record clearing/sealing and pardons
- Name changes
Laurel specifically works on the last two, records clearing and name changes, which she refers to as the ‘happy cases’! 😀 She told us about how she has helped numerous people get their records sealed to become eligible to apply for jobs that they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. For example, many nursing students seek her help to have their records cleared or sealed to apply for nursing positions!
We also talked a lot about the pardon process. We learned that PA is one of the top pardoners in the country, but there’s currently an 8 year backlog of pardon cases here, and even if you finally get a pardon hearing with the governor’s office after waiting all that time, you still only have slightly more than a coin-flip success rate to get the pardon.
She also told us how name changes can be tricky, whether for gender affirming name changes or any other reason, so Legal Aid is a great resource, especially for folks who have mismatching ID documents or who are homeless.
Her big message to us was, if you’re in a situation and you’re not sure if Legal Aid can help, GIVE THEM A CALL! Even if they can’t help directly, they’ll point you in the right direction. She closed with one impactful story of a veteran who Legal Aid was able to help secure $4000/month of benefits for life, where he was previously surviving on closer to $1000/month.
Legal Aid can truly make a life-changing impact, and it was great to hear from Laurel and ask her so many questions!
Follow Legal Aid of Southeastern PA here on Instagram, and check out their website for more info. Here are some other resources Laurel recommended too!
At the end of our meeting, we talked about our upcoming events for PXV Mutual Aid through the end of the year! We have our next Trash Pickup, Turkey Trash, scheduled for Sunday November 15th at 10:30 am. In December, we’ll be partnering with Orion and using their space to hold a gift wrapping table for our community during Phoenixville’s Downtown Holiday Shopping Nights (or whatever they’re called – we spent a while going back and forth on that 😂).
Stay tuned for the exact details and signups, but we’ll definitely need wrapping supplies! If you have any wrapping paper, ribbons, tape, scissors, etc. lying around that you don’t need, please set them aside for our wrapping event! The goal of this wrapping station is to meet and engage with the community, and the wrapping will be free to all, with donations accepted but not required.
TBD if we’ll have another monthly meeting in December or wait for the new year, but we’ll share all the info as we finalize it. It was so nice to share a meal with those who could make it Monday and to see all of your beautiful faces!
