Legal agency for poor hobbled
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
An agency that has provided legal help to disadvantaged people for 20 years has been hobbled by financial cutbacks and may have to end services to children and domestic abuse victims if money doesn't come through in a few weeks.
That prospect comes as distressing news to people such as Mary Scott-Lau, who three years ago was desperately seeking legal help to gain permanent custody of her 11-year-old foster son.
Scott-Lau eventually was awarded custody with the help of Na Keiki Law Center, one of the services provided by Volunteer Legal Services Hawaii (VLSH), an agency formerly known as Hawaii Lawyers Care.
Now the law center is no longer taking new cases, largely because VLSH has lost the help of Americorps, the federal program that suffered major cutbacks last summer.
Scott-Lau can foresee only personal tragedy for other needy children in her foster son's position.
If not for Na Keiki, the boy "would be really and truly on the streets," she said. "He would have fallen through the cracks."
Doug Matsuoka, who has worked in the legal agency's intake operation for nine years, said the shortage of help manning the phones has caused a drastic drop in services — advocacy in child support, divorce, bankruptcies, landlord-tenant problems and custody issues. VLSH records indicate that the agency handled 1,032 cases in the first two months last year; for the same period this year, the total fell to 454.
"We're definitely in a triage situation," he said. "Social-service agencies are like MASH units. We can't do anything about the war, but we can patch people up who are in bad shape."
VLSH still can tap pro bono work donated by attorneys but had relied heavily on a stable force of young lawyers or legal aides that Americorps funded to provide the quick turnaround service that crisis cases require. Last year Americorps turned down the VLSH grant request for $312,100, and the last 15 full-time Americorps positions lapsed at the end of October.
A single staff attorney remained to run Na Keiki, said Moya Gray, VLSH executive director. Ala Kuola, a program to give legal help to victims of domestic violence, has run with a skeleton crew on a short-term grant that runs out this month.
VLSH is one of the applicants for $300,000 in federal money to be issued by the state Office of Community Services, said OCS chief Sam Aiona, who added that the decision on the grant will be made in the next two weeks.
Without funding, Moya said, Na Keiki will probably have to shut down, and Ala Kuola may not survive in its current form, either.
Wayne Tanna, an attorney who serves as president of the agency's board of directors, cited a Hawaii State Bar Association study showing that only about one in 10 low-income people receives civil legal services, an indication of how underserved the needy already are.
But further reductions in crisis legal services could endanger lives: Ala Kuola was responsible for securing one of every four temporary restraining orders issued in Hono-
lulu last year, most of them for domestic-violence cases, Tanna said.
"Without (Ala Kuola), they won't be able to get the order in a timely fashion," he said.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
