By Suzanne Potter
Members of the Legal Aid community rallied on the Capitol steps in Sacramento on Thursday to promote due process, economic justice, fair housing and access to health care.
Advocates from the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Legal Aid Association of California also met with lawmakers to push for a new budget that reflects those values. Cori Racela, executive director of the center, said huge federal cuts to Medi-Cal and food assistance are worsening poverty and making people more vulnerable.
“As we face some very dark and troubling times,” she said, “Legal Aid provides support and solidarity to help people understand and assert their rights and navigate crises.”
Among their demands, she said, is asking policymakers to protect the Equal Access Fund, which helps Legal Aid organizations stay afloat. They’d also like to see more funding for programs to combat homelessness and support low-income families.
Racela said California’s leaders need to think big and find ways to promote economic stability.
“In California, we’re the fourth-largest economy in the world, and we have one of the highest poverty rates in the country,” she said. “We have over 7 million people living in poverty, over 15 million people who are on our Medi-Cal program. “
Carl Pinkston, operations director for the Black Parallel School Board in Sacramento, which works to close opportunity gaps for Black students, said Legal Aid’s services are crucial for families forced to fight unlawful evictions, benefit denials or discrimination.
“Particularly in this moment where the Department of Education is being dismantled, where the resource-rich law firms are coming after our community,” he said, “we need Legal Aid – more so now than ever before.”
A 2024 report on the “justice gap” from the State Bar Association found Californians received inadequate or no legal help at all for 85% of their legal problems. And people in the Golden State sought legal help for only 32% of their civil legal problems, often over concerns about cost.
