Legal Times

 

September 14, 2010

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center surveyed 150 of the estimated 300 immigration detention facilities operating between August and December 2009.

 

From Legal Times:

Thousands of people in immigration detention facilities are unable to get lawyers because of geographically-isolated facilities, government restrictions on phone contacts, and inadequately funded legal information programs, according to a national survey.

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center, which provides legal services to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, surveyed 150 of the estimated 300 immigration detention facilities operating between August and December 2009—representing about 97% of 32,000 detention beds. It also interviewed 148 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing legal aid to detained immigrants.

Among the survey’s findings:

·        80 percent of detainees were held in facilities which were severely underserved by legal aid organizations, with more than 100 detainees for every full-time NGO attorney providing legal services.

·        More than a quarter of detainees were in facilities where the ratio was 500 or more detainees per NGO attorney, and 10 percent of detainees were held in facilities in which they had no access to NGO attorneys.

·        In 17 percent of facilities, the government-funded Legal Orientation Program allows NGOs to present legal information sessions. In 28 percent of facilities, NGOs offered “Know Your Rights” presentations without any government funding; 55 percent of detention facilities, holding about a quarter of detainees, offered no program to provide detainees with information about their rights.

·        Of the 25,489 detainees in the 67 detention facilities surveyed regarding detainee phone access, 78 percent were in facilities where lawyers were prohibited from scheduling private calls with clients.

·        None of the facilities in the phone survey allowed detainees to make collect calls to attorneys unless the attorneys had pre-registered with the facility’s contracted phone company.

“In this day and age, with all the technology available, it does seem that no one should be precluded from a fair day in court simply because he is unable to communicate with any attorney by telephone,” said Claudia Valenzuela, the center’s associate director of litigation.

The geographic isolation of many of the facilities is stark, according to the report. For example, the Chippewa County Jail in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., is 346 miles from the nearest city. The facility in Hatagna, Guam, is 6,000 miles away, and the Grand Forks County Jail in Grand Forks, N.D., is 315 miles from the closest city.

Detained immigrants do not have a right to court-appointed counsel in immigration proceedings, said Mary McCarthy, the center’s executive director, adding, “We continue to receive letters and calls from immigrant detainees and their families all over the country looking for a lawyer. Legal counsel truly makes a difference.” She noted a 2005 Migration Policy Institute study finding that 41 percent of detained individuals applying to become lawful permanent residents who had legal counsel won their cases, compared to 21 percent of those without representation.

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Daily Herald

 

September 9, 2010

Nearly half of the region’s poor live in the suburbs,

 

From Daily Herald:

Elmhurst College is nestled in Illinois’ wealthiest county – 19 DuPage County communities have household incomes averaging over $100,000 – yet one of the first lessons new students are taught is the plight of the area’s poor.

More than 500 Elmhurst students recently took part in a unique freshman orientation where they’re introduced to the college’s Poverty Project, a mission the church-based, liberal arts school undertook last year to raise awareness about poverty – both locally and around the globe.

The students spent five days pondering questions like “What will you stand for?” “Who are your heroes in social justice?” and packed more than 119,000 meals for Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit group with locations in Schaumburg and Aurora.

College officials say they’re not trying to be a social service organization, but rather, to instill good ethical values and educate students about what’s going on around them.

Elmhurst College President S. Alan Ray said engaging the students with the real world enhances their formal education.

“One male nursing student said he thought when people lived in poverty, it was their own fault. They weren’t working hard or trying to get out of their situation,” Ray said. “When he went out and met people, he changed his mind about that. He now knows that sometimes people get trapped in it.”

Even, increasingly, in the suburbs.

The state recently announced a record 1.6 million people are on food stamps. Unemployment in Illinois remains at about 10 percent, and 14.4 percent of the population in suburban Cook and Kane counties – literally tens of thousands of people – are now classified as low income.

In order to survive, a family of three in Lake County must earn $58,000 a year, according to the Heartland Alliance’s 2010 Report on Illinois Poverty. One out of every 10 Lake County families doesn’t earn that much. And that’s not even the most expensive suburban county to live in.

“These aren’t your parents’ suburbs,” Professor Robert Gleeson, from Northern Illinois University’s Center for Governmental Studies, told an audience during one of the Poverty Project panel discussions.

While the recession contributes to the problem, there’s a bigger, more long-term reason why more suburban residents are financially struggling, says Amy Terpstra, the associate director of Heartland Alliance’s Social IMPACT Research Center.

Terpstra says the suburbs have seen an increase in low-paying service jobs and a decrease in good-paying, family-supporting jobs.

While the percentage of poor people in the city of Chicago has held relatively steady since 1980, the poor population in the suburbs has tripled in some areas.

“Forty-four percent of the region’s poor live in the suburbs,” Terpstra said. “And there are really unique challenges with being poor in the suburbs. Transportation and services are more challenging to find.”

While some people might assume the majority of the poor are immigrants, Terpstra noted that the immigrant poverty rate is only sixth-tenths of a percentage point higher than nonimmigrants – 12.7 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively.

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Temporary Work Program May Lead to Full-time Jobs

The SouthtownStar

 

September 7, 2010

A state worker training program, administered by Heartland Alliance, to get the unemployed and underemployed back to work this summer will likely result in real jobs for many Southland participants

 

From The SouthtownStar:

A state worker training program designed to get the unemployed and underemployed back to work this summer will likely result in real jobs for many Southland participants when the program ends in a few weeks, according to local employers.

Illinois responded to abysmally high state unemployment rates with Put Illinois to Work, which paid qualified parents and young people to learn jobs at businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Program organizers boast that the $10 an hour eclipses the state’s $8.25 minimum wage.

In Chicago’s south suburbs, where the unemployment rates tend to run higher than elsewhere around the city, folks in need of a paycheck clamored for open spots.

Now, happy with their workers, several south suburban businesses are going to make permanent offers to their temps once the program expires at the end of September.

The Ministers Conference of South Suburban Cook County welcomed 20 workers, said Kimberly Haynes. She’ll try to hold onto nine of them, pleased with their progress.

One young woman can set doctor’s appointments from the front desk of the Family Christian Medical Center in Harvey. A guy hired as a janitor turned out to have some basic computer skills. Now he’s teaching computer classes.

“We got a pretty diverse group we were able to work with and help out,” she said.

Put Illinois to Work harnessed federal stimulus money to find jobs for parents and young adults in need of work.

The state’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national average for the past several years, and solidly in double digits since May 2009.

After the program was announced in April, more than 60,000 people applied for jobs. The state was overwhelmed with more applicants than positions and stopped accepting applications.

But for those who got in early, the state’s Department of Human Services has been routing unemployed people to all kinds of entry-level jobs across the state for $10 an hour. Workers and employers commit to at least 30 hours of work a week until Sept. 30, when federal funding for the program runs out.

More than 600 businesses and organizations in the Southland are participating. That translates to about 9,000 people hired in Chicago’s south and southwest suburbs and on the South Side, according to a Department of Human Services spokesman.

In southern Cook County, many of the jobs have come from child care centers and other tiny businesses as well as dozens of churches.

Statewide, almost 26,000 people have been hired by 4,700 employers. As of mid – August, Illinois had used some $194 million in federal money. The state is eligible for up to $292 million.

“With this really difficult economy, it’s hard to get your foot in the door,” said Jill Geltmaker, who heads the program for Heartland Alliance, the agency coordinating Put Illinois to Work and cutting the paychecks. “Once people have a chance to do that, we really do have a fair number of people who are going to be moving into very strong employment opportunities.”

Heartland also worked with other community-based groups to help place workers with jobs and help applicants refine their job skills.

Heartland, a social service agency, made sure applicants qualified and checked them against the state’s sex offender registry. The agency also helped with criminal background screenings for employers who requested them, she said.

Any employers who break the rules – say by trying to lay off existing workers to rehire them on the government’s dime – get kicked out of the program, Geltmaker said.

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Volunteers Help Compile a Name Registry of the City’s Homeless.

Time Out Chicago

 

September 2, 2010

Heartland Alliance is participating in a nationwide effort to house the most vulnerable.

 

From Time Out Chicago:

“Excuse me, sir,” Debbie Reznick said to a heap of brown blankets on a sidewalk. A bearded, dazed face popped up. “I hate to wake you, but I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.” With each query, the man’s story became clearer: 38 years old; from California; homeless for 14 years; has lived in Chicago eight months; no health problems; doesn’t abuse drugs—except pot, occasionally. “Actually, I don’t abuse marijuana,” he joked. “I smoke it.”

“When I asked about education, he told me he has his master of fine arts,” said a dubious-sounding Reznick, a staff member of the charitable Polk Bros. Foundation.

“So there you go,” replied Mike Newman, an architect. “That’s where an M.F.A. will take you.”

Hours earlier, at 4am on August 25, Reznick and Newman had joined about 40 other sleepy volunteers in the then-unopened public library in the Goldblatt’s Building on Chicago Avenue. They would soon set out into the chilly predawn to wake homeless people sleeping on the streets and administer a six-page survey. The goal: to create a homeless name registry and identify the most vulnerable among them. Based on information gleaned from 38 questions (e.g., “How many times have you been to the emergency room in the past three months?”), the 125 most at-risk will get priority placement into permanent housing by December.

This was the final day of the citywide effort; in three days, 150 volunteers administered 738 surveys. (Based on a biannual count last held in February 2009, there are about 800 unsheltered homeless in the city.)

“The rules you’ve been following all week still apply,” said Liz Drapa, associate director of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which partnered with the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness and the city’s Department of Family and Support Services to conduct the survey, the first of its kind in Chicago. “Don’t shake anyone to wake them up.”

Another organizer called out, “Do we have any French speakers today? Someone we met yesterday is from Mali.”

By 5am, the group hit the streets in teams. The six-person squad led by Ed Stellon of social-service provider Heartland Alliance covered areas under overpasses along the Kennedy Expressway in Wicker Park and Bucktown. In the shadow of the interstate along Webster Avenue, volunteers dispersed, armed with surveys, clipboards and stacks of $5 Dunkin’ Donuts cards, the modest reward for those who complete the survey.

Stellon climbed through a hole in the overpass fence to access people asleep in the bridge’s upper nooks. In Spanish, he interviewed a 65-year-old Cuban expat named Santiago who lay shirtless on foam pads beside pictures of Jesus he’d taped up. “He told me he doesn’t need money, doesn’t need anything but God,” Stellon said.

Reznick moved to a couple of women curled up next to a guardrail. “Mother and daughter living on the streets together—victims of domestic violence,” she later reported. “The daughter was living with a boyfriend, but he started abusing her. She’s got some really bad physical injuries—the deepest cut I’ve ever seen on a leg—and she’s pretty sure she’s pregnant.”

Around 6am, as the sky began to brighten, the rumbling of vehicles on I-94 grew louder. “People are going to work,” Stellon said, smiling. “They have no idea they’re driving over someone’s home.”

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News24.com

 

August 17, 2010

Heartland Alliance helps track down child traffickers sneaking minors through Haiti’s porous border.

 

From News24.com:

On market days, Clarine Joanice sits on a plastic chair by the crowded bridge marking the northern border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Every time a child walks by, she gently grabs its arm and asks the accompanying adults for travel papers.

Joanice is a child protection officer with the Heartland Alliance, a small US-based rights group helping to track down child traffickers sneaking minors through Haiti’s porous border.

Since January’s earthquake that killed more than 250 000 people, the group has stopped 74 children it suspected were being trafficked out of the country.

“We stop everyone, public cars, private cars, trucks, children on foot,” explained Joanice on a busy Monday morning, as thousands of vendors carrying merchandise crossed the dusty bridge into the Dominican town of Dajabon.

Over 100 children cross the border each week, with that number doubling during school vacations. Southern crossings closer to the capital are even more jammed, and controls there are next to non-existent.

Before January’s devastating quake, an estimated 2 000 minors were trafficked into the Dominican Republic annually, according to official figures.

Since then, the Haitian police’s Minor Protection Brigades (CPM) has stopped 3 000 minors on the border, 750 of whom carried no documents.

Despite this and the international outcry that followed an attempt by US missionaries to illegally take 33 children into the Dominican Republic in the chaotic aftermath of the quake, Haiti still lacks the proper legislation to clamp down on the trafficking of minors.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and Unicef have provided technical assistance to the government in drafting a law, but the proposal remains under revision.

Lack of legal framework

“This lack of legal framework seriously hinders our work pursuing traffickers,” said CPM commissioner Renel Costume.

While immigration officers are stationed at the Ouanaminthe border post and UN troops and police are also on the lookout for illegal activities, almost nobody gets stopped on market days.

Further south at the Belladere crossing – some five kilometres from the Dominican town of Elias Pina – there isn’t even an immigration office.

The rusty gate into the Dominican Republic closes at 18:00 and it is not unusual for people to walk right around it after hours.

Under the bridge that separates Ouanaminthe and Dajabon lies “Massacre River”, named for the slaughter of Haitians by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in the 1930s and now often the scene of drownings.

“Sometimes smugglers take children across the river by making them hold onto a cord,” Joanice said. “But if something happens or they get scared, they just run away and leave the children there.”

The Heartland Alliance’s border control initiative, which interviews and registers children, parents, and potential traffickers, is often the only form of traffic prevention at key border posts.

“It’s a mess, the border is totally open,” Ramsay Ben-Achour, Heartland Alliance’s Haiti director told AFP. “It’s very easy to traffic children.”

Joanice related a recent experience in which her team stopped a man crossing the bridge with a 10-year-old girl who started to cry and said she didn’t know him.

“He just told us, ‘let me go sell her, I’ll pay you half of it’,” she recalled. “Fifty-fifty.”

The Heartland Alliance has no mandate to arrest smugglers but cares for the children in custody until their families have been tracked down.

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Social Enterprises in the Heartland

JustMeans.com

 

August 17, 2010

 

 

From JustMeans.com:

120 years ago, prior to the emergence of social enterprises let alone the establishment of the Social Enterprise Association, back when Chicago was the fastest growing city on the globe, the Heartland Alliance materialized to address the myriad needs of people struggling to overcome poverty, social marginalization, or inimitable vulnerability due legal or medical problems. Spawning from the Chicago Travelers Aid and Hull House organizations that assisted people new to Chicago, particularly women and youth, with housing, employment, assimilation and resettlement issues, the Travelers Aid of Metropolitan Chicago merged the two non-profits into a single entity that evolved with the local and national culture during the Depression, post-war era, large-scaled waves of immigration and social change. As homelessness reached pandemic proportions in the 1980s, the organization became one of the first to respond, birthing the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and co-founding the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. In 1995, the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights name was formally adopted to more adequately reflect an expanding portfolio of services: housing, health care, economic security, and legal protections services. Today, the organization focuses its resources and efforts on human rights. By assisting those living in poverty or danger of violence to improve their lives, the current day organization facilitates realization of their inherent and legally mandated human rights. Too frequently, those fleeing from violence or multi-generational poverty have no other place to find individualized help than through the Heartland Alliance.

Today, the Heartland Alliance performs much of its work through three wholly-owned subsidiaries and one affiliate: Heartland Housing, Inc.; Heartland Alliance Health, Inc.; Heartland Human Care Services, Inc.; and Heartland International Health Center, respectively. Their unique corporate structure creates a strategic advantage ensuring continued growth, financial flexibility, a diversified portfolio of services, and extensive opportunities to leverage resources. By also providing Cross-Cultural Interpreting Services as well as a Social IMPACT Research Center, the organization has effectively created additional streams of revenue while fulfilling a unique, cost-effect option for other organizations. Through the Cross-Cultural Interpreting Services program, Heartland Alliance offers a cost-effective, high-quality interpretation and translation service inmore than 30 languages with interpreters and translators professionally trained in health care, legal, and community services interpretation and translation. As a full-service research and evaluation resource, the Heartland Alliance Social IMPACT Research Center, commonly referred to as simply IMPACT, facilitates other organizations’ efforts to raise awareness of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, affordable housing, health care, human rights, employment, income supports, and asset development. IMPACT promotes solutions designed to enhance the quality of life for poor and low-income individuals by evaluating programs, conducting customized market studies, analyzing policies, documenting systems, and producing final evaluation reports to inform community leaders, policymakers, and program operators of strengths and weaknesses of their impact on social issues.

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