Podcasts about central virginia legal aid society

This episode concerns a new law that took effect in 2022. It's known as the No Surprises Act, and it is meant to protect patients from surprise medical billing. When surprise out of network charges occur, providers can no longer bill patients for anything more than their in-network cost-sharing. This applies to ll commercially insured individuals and people who incur out-of-network services and surprise bills. Listen in to have your questions answered by local expert and Senior Managing Attorney Robin Leiter-White of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society. Central Virginia Legal Aid Society: https://cvlas.org/ Legal Aid Justice Center: https://www.justice4all.org/

Last week, the federal government, in a limited way, extended the eviction moratorium in place since the start of the pandemic. It's a temporary solution to a long-looming crisis — a crisis we explored in our series "The Scarlet E: Unmasking America's Eviction Crisis" back in 2019. In this excerpt from that series, we catalog the long line of thefts and schemes — most of which were perfectly legal at the time — that led to where we are today: a system, purpose-built, that extracts what it can, turning black and brown renters into debtors and evictees.  Matthew Desmond [@just_shelter], founder of The Eviction Lab and our partner in this series, and Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, point us toward the legal and historical developments that evolved into the present crisis. And WBEZ's Natalie Moore [@natalieymoore], whose grandparents moved to Chicago during the Great Migration, shows us around a high-eviction area on Chicago's South Side.  

In this episode, we explore Todd's story about how our economic system failed him at every turn - from losing his job, to not receiving unemployment, to losing his home, and more. We also speak with Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation at Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, on the policies, procedures, and failures that got us here. Tune in for a heck of an episode that is merely the tip of the iceberg of what millions are facing across the nation. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thejusticereport/message

Home is in your heart and in your head, but mostly home is on land — acreage parceled out, clawed at, stolen, denied for decades and decades. First, there was Field Order No. 15, the Union Army’s plan to distribute 40-acre plots to the newly emancipated. That was a promise broken almost immediately. Later, there was the Great Migration, in which millions of African Americans fled north, where governments, lenders, and white neighbors would never let them own their land and build their own wealth. And now a system, purpose-built, extracts what it can, turning black and brown renters into debtors and evictees.  In this excerpt from our series, The Scarlet E: Unmasking America’s Eviction Crisis, we catalog the thefts and the schemes — most of which were perfectly legal — and we ask how long this debt will fester. Matthew Desmond, founder of The Eviction Lab and our partner in this series, and Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, point us toward the legal and historical developments that evolved into the present crisis. And WBEZ’s Natalie Moore, whose grandparents moved to Chicago during the Great Migration, shows us around a high-eviction area on Chicago’s South Side.  

Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and highs will climb back up in the 60s. Tonight / tomorrow the rain comes and you’ll likely be stuck inside, so (safely) spend a little time outside today.Water coolerAs of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 254 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and six people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 28 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 9, Henrico: 11, and Richmond: 8).Yesterday the Governor closed schools through the end of the academic year and levied new restrictions on businesses. Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has the details and you can read the Governor’s press release and Executive Order here. I’ll get to schools in a bit, but now there’s a whole list of businesses considered non-essential that must close by tomorrow, including: Theatres, museums, gyms, salons, barber shops, tattoo shops, bowling alleys, arcades, zoos, and escape rooms. Restaurants, however, may remain open but only to offer delivery and/or takeout. Conversely, now there’s a whole list of businesses that are considered essential and may remain open, including: Grocery stores, dollar stores, labs, cell phone retailers, automotive repair facilities, home improvement stores, liquor stores, gas stations, banks, office supply stores, and laundromats. If your store isn’t on the list you’ve got to “limit all in-person shopping to no more than 10 patrons per establishment, adhere to social distancing recommendations, sanitize common surfaces, and apply relevant workplace guidance from state and federal authorities.” I think this allows bike shops, another essential retail business, to stay open. The Governor also upped his recommendation against gatherings of more than 10 people to an official ban, beginning tomorrow. Then, at 7:30 PM last night, the Chief Executives of Virginia, D.C., and Maryland (of which the governor is one) issued a joint statement asking the federal government to provide additional support to the region because the region is home to the…federal government. Perhaps this was in response to Trump’s bananas comments that run counter to his own public health officials about ending social distancing and restarting the country’s economy in a couple of weeks.You should read RPS Superintendent Kamras’s response to the Governor closing schools for the rest of the school year. To quote a bit, “These are truly unprecedented times. While every family is facing new challenges, I am most concerned about those within our community who already struggle with the injustices that come with poverty, institutionalized racism, and/or immigration status. This extended closure will only amplify these injustices. At RPS, we will move heaven and earth to support these – and all – families in our community. And we will make sure our employees continue to get paid, have full benefits, and receive the support they need to navigate these very difficult times. I want to reiterate what I said to our students in my first closure message: RPS may be officially closed, but we are always open to support you in any way we can. If you need anything at all – anything – please email me at jkamras@rvaschools.net. We are here for your and we love you.” In the aforelinked Virginia Mercury piece, Ned Oliver has some details on what the heck this means for students moving forward, and the Superintendent says the Virginia Department of Education will provide some guidance today. Stay tuned.Yesterday afternoon, the City announced that they’ve had an employee test positive for COVID-19. This pushed City Council to cancel their regularly scheduled meeting, saying “In taking a leadership role on behalf of Richmond residents and with the upmost caution and responsibility with regard to the Governor’s statewide ban on gatherings of more than 10 persons and today’s announcement by the Mayor of a city employee testing positive for COVID-19, Richmond City Council has canceled its Formal Meeting scheduled for tonight. This meeting will not take place and proposed legislation on the docket will be rescheduled for a future date.” As I said yesterday, I’m interested in (and now starting to get nervous about) how local governments can continue to meet and pass important legislation during This Most Unusual Time. Council even had a plan in place to adhere to the 10-person gathering ban and social distancing requirements! But still they canceled! Unfortunately, now I’m not sure how the legislation (ORD. 2020–092) to extend the deadlines (originally March 31st) for tax exemptions gets passed. Maybe they’ll revisit their plan of attack and call a special meeting next week?Martin Wegbreit from Central Virginia Legal Aid Society has a column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about how the Virginia Supreme Court decree around stopping evictions hasn’t yet had the intended effect. At least in Richmond, as of yesterday, it sounds like courts are starting to get the message. How are folks supposed to #stayhome if they’re getting kicked out of their homes!Let me quote this tweet from Matthew Yglesias in full: “So that people can have places to go outside while maintaining distance, cities should look at opportunists to close streets to vehicle traffic so there’s more space for joggers, random walks, and kids running in circles to blow off steam.” Local transportation expert Mariia Zimmerman suggests Monument Avenue—both in the City and County—and I agree.@RTDBrainTrust has put together their now-annual RVA Journalist Tournament, and the Round of 64 is now open for voting: First side of the bracket here, second side of the bracket here. There are some really fascinating matchups, but the marquee head-to-head in this first round has to be the RTD’s Mark Robinson vs. Michael Paul Williams. Absolutely brutal. We’ve got no more sports, so let this totally-for-fun, good-natured thing temporarily fill the sports-shaped hole in your life.This morning’s longreadNaked and Very, Very AfraidWhat’s it like to be on Naked and Afraid? Terrible? Awesome? Awesomely terrible?All the cameras staring. I took off my bra. Deep breath. Stepped out of my underwear. Here I was, naked. “Great!” said Rachel. “Now put it all back on, and we’ll film from a different angle.” I only took off my clothes twice. That was something Rachel had warned me, that the first day was “television.” I’d follow the script, if not by words then by action: two people remove their clothes, walk to a landmark, meet each other, and offer whatever joke or earnest greeting they’ve rehearsed. They find burlap bags, which disguise their microphone transmitters, and a map, which always looks like it was made with Kid Pix. They locate a water source, head toward it—and the rest of the challenge is up to them. No script, no guidelines, no plan. Rachel showed me the map: patches of yellow, dotted with garish clip art of lions and crocodiles. I laughed. As long as I was naked, I might as well make friends with the crew. “OK,” I said. “We all know these maps are ridiculous, right?” “I made the map,” said Rachel. “It’s really good,” I said.If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

We're tracing the thread between housing, eviction and -- yep, you got it -- Navy Hill. Joining us for this episode are friends of the show Allen-Charles Chipman and Omari Al-Qaddafi, as well as Palmer Heenan of Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.

We have an eviction crisis, which is really just one part of a broader housing affordability crisis. Incomes are too low for rents. Rents are too high for incomes. The barriers to home-buying are growing, especially for younger Americans. The wealth gap between black and white Americans is spreading, driven largely by inequalities in housing. The shockwaves from the foreclosure crisis continue. And in some cities, gentrification drives up costs and drives away low-income families.   Luckily enough, there are solutions — quite a few of them, in fact. In this fourth and final episode of The Scarlet E: Unmasking America’s Eviction Crisis, we evaluate the proposals, which range from subtle to significant. First, a look back on a solution that worked in some places and was allowed to fail in many others. We visit Atlanta, home to the nation’s first public housing projects. We learn how the city has since destroyed or converted all of its public housing. And with the help of Lawrence Vale, author of Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities, we look at one public housing project, in Boston, that continues to thrive. And then we look at solutions, both proposed and in-play. Again in Atlanta, we meet landlord Marjy Stagmeier, whose unique model improves nearby schools’ performance — and still turns a profit. We speak with sociologist Matt Desmond about the need to fully fund our Section 8 housing voucher program, and to encourage, or compel, landlords to accept voucher-holders. And we touch on the housing proposals from several Democratic candidates for president. Matt wonders whether our federal housing policies — for instance, the mortgage interest deduction — are subsidizing those most in need. We also ask New York City Councilmember Mark Levine and South Carolina legislator Marvin Pendarvis about possible reforms in our housing courts. We hear from Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, about how Richmond turned its shame over its high eviction rates into policy. And we consider ways that some cities might increase their affordable housing supply by doing away with restrictive, exclusionary zoning policies. Music by Mark Henry Phillips. To hear other episodes of The Scarlet E and to learn about the eviction stats in your own state, visit onthemedia.org/eviction. Support for “The Scarlet E” is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Melville Charitable Trust. Additional support is provided by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and “Chasing the Dream,” a WNET initiative reporting on poverty and opportunity in America. Support for On the Media is provided by the Ford Foundation and the listeners of WNYC Radio.  

President Trump claims to have struck a deal with Mexico to settle a dispute of his own making. On this week’s On the Media, a look at the lives of the people who stand to suffer most. Plus, how the path to America’s eviction crisis begins, in part, with the Great Migration.  1. Bob Moore [@BobMooreNews], freelance reporter based in El Paso, on the human reality at the border amidst the latest Trumpian mendacity. Listen. 2. We continue our four-part series on eviction by charting the persistent line between racist housing policies, localized profiteering and the devastating plunder of generations of wealth. Guests include Matt Desmond [@just_shelter], founder of the Eviction Lab; Natalie Moore [@natalieymoore], reporter for WBEZ; and Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society. Listen.

What would happen to the administration of justice if the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors chose to relocate their general district and circuit courts outside of downtown Charlottesville? That was the subject of a panel discussion held at the February 17 breakfast of the city and county Democrats. "We came up with this topic a couple of months ago as we were kicking around ideas and really felt like what was getting lost in all this discussion was the impact moving the courts might have on on access to the courts, specifically for our most-marginalized residents," said Bekah Saxon, vice chair of the Charlottesville Democratic Committee. The panelists were: Albemarle County Supervisor Liz Palmer; Charlottesville City Councilor Kathy Galvin; Mary Bauer, director of the Legal Aid Justice Center; and Palma Pustilnik of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.  Palmer and her colleague Norman Dill have voiced their opposition to moving the courts in the past. However, in her remarks, Palmer sought to explain the motives of those on her board who have voted to study the idea. "I think I can do this pretty clearly because I share some of the same concerns," Palmer said. "I weigh them differently." Palmer said many city residents may not realize that each supervisor represents a specific district in the county. Charlottesville's five city councilors are all elected in one big district. Palmer's Samuel Miller District covers the southwest part of Albemarle including both urban and rural areas. "The courts were one of the very first things on our plate when I got on four years ago," Palmer said. "We got a presentation from our then-county executive [Tom Foley] who presented a plan for moving the courts somewhere out in the county." Palmer said one reason at the time included the possibility of lower capital costs, but a recent study has shown that not to be the case. Another reason would be to locate the courts in the county's population center. "Also given was the idea that if you're going to put $35 million of taxpayer money, is it appropriate to spend that $35 million in the city?" Palmer asked. "Or is it appropriate to spend that money in the county? That is something that supervisors were really wrestling with." In December, Council sent a letter to the Supervisors reiterating what the city is willing to do to keep Albemarle courts downtown. In response, supervisors agreed to place their process on hold until early March to allow for negotiations. "The city has already committed $6.5 million in its capital budget to make the courts reality," Galvin said. The funding would go toward building a joint General District Court on the site of the former Levy Opera house. Both localities jointly acquired the property in April 2005. Galvin said the city has also committed $10 million in its capital budget to build a new parking garage to serve the courts. In November 2016, Council agreed to spend $2.85 million on a lot at 9th Street and Market Street for this purpose. The same transaction for the Levy Opera House site also included the surface parking lot next door. "It is not typical you will see a parking garage associated with a social justice issue, but in this case it really is," Galvin said. "We're committing 100 spaces -- and the county doesn't have to pay for it -- to build that parking garage to enable their project to occur." Palmer said parking is critical for the county's ultimate decision. "We feel we have to have some ownership over how that is used," Palmer said, adding that Albemarle officials want to ensure disabled have access to the courts. The two other panelists focused on how a courts move would affect low-income individuals. "We have met no one in the city or the county who is poor who thinks moving the courts is a good idea," Bauer said, adding having the two jurisdictions' facilities in the same place reduces the burden for those who are in court. "I think any lawyer that practices regularly in the General District courts in either the city and the county has sat through a docket in which somebody arrives five minutes late saying they went to the wrong court. The difference between 606 East Market Street where the city's general district court and 501 East Jefferson Street where the county court is is about two minutes." Bauer said if the courts were not close together, many people would be late and would be penalized as a result. Pustilnik said she was glad the city and county have previously decided to co-locate their Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts in the same building. "Our court system in Virginia is designed in districts and in circuits and not in city and county," Pustilnik said. "Our judges are named to a district or to a circuit so they can serve in either a city or county court." Pustilnik said separating the courts would harm her clients by forcing her to be spread geographically across the two jurisdictions. *** Albemarle County has been operating under the assumption that a referendum is not required to move its Circuit Court. That's based on legislation that passed the General Assembly in 2017 that added this provision to state code: "In the case of the removal of a county courthouse that is not located in a city or town, and that is not being relocated to a city or town, such removal shall not require a petition or approval by the voters." A bill from Delegate Rob Bell (R-Charlottesville) would update state law to add this language immediately after the above section. "However, this subsection shall not apply to the removal or relocation of any county courthouse, whether located on county or city property, that is entirely surrounded by a city, and any such courthouse shall be removed or relocated only in accordance with the provisions of [other] subsections," reads Bell's bill. HB1546 passed the House with a 100-0 vote on Feb. 13. The item is now before the Senate Committee on Local Government.  TIMELINE FOR PODCAST: 01:00 - Introduction from Bekah Saxon 02:30 - Remarks from Supervisor Liz Palmer  10:00 - Remarks from Councilor Kathy Galvin 22:00 - Remarks from Mary Bauer 22:45 - Question from the crowd from Bruce Williamson of the Charlottesville Area Bar Association 25:30 - Bauer resumes her remarks 32:00 - Remarks from Palma Pustilnik 38:00 - Question and answer period Download

Access to Justice and Legal Services Part 1 & 2 Access to Justice and Legal Services is critical to ensure that persons of all economic levels and walks of life get access to the justice system. In this informative show, Marty Wegbreit of Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and Ali Fannon of the Greater Richmond […] The post November 8, 2017: Access to Justice and Free Legal Services appeared first on Locke & Quinn | Attorneys at Law in Richmond, VA.