|
|
|
||||||||||
Thank you for visiting the The Atlanta Legal Aid Society has represented Atlanta's poor in civil legal cases since 1924. Our work helps our clients deal with some of life's most basic needs -- a safe home, enough food to eat, a decent education, protection against fraud, and personal safety. Our clients come from Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett Counties in Georgia. |
Offices
|
||||||||||
There could not have been a more perfect day for our annual Run For Justice, through the beautiful Oakhurst neighborhood. More than 850 (yes, eight hundred and fifty!) people ran for Atlanta Legal Aid on Saturday, November 14, and raised $15,000! Thanks to everyone for this tremendous support! Special thanks to everyone at Daily Report. Our Leader, Executive Director Steve Gottlieb, did not win first place, but had a good time recruiting the next generation of public interest lawyers. He said, "It was a great day for a run. Tons of people; it seemed more crowded than I can remember. I saw old friends, but I was actually taken by how many people I did not know. The Run, just like Legal Aid, seems to have become an Atlanta institution."
More pictures and the list of Winners, coming soon! Olmstead Symposium an Experts on Olmstead from around the country came to the October 23rd Georgia State School of Law Olmstead Symposium. The symposium was one of several events being held over a twelve-month period to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark civil rights decision for people with disabilities. Olmstead, which was litigated by the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, holds that most people with disabilities have the right to live in the community rather than be segregated in institutions. Over 150 people attended the symposium which was so popular that it had to be moved to a larger facility to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend. Organizers never dreamed so many people would come – clearly the overwhelming interest demonstrates the importance of Olmstead. Attendees included representatives from the state, the Justice Department, the Office for Civil Rights, and advocates from the disability community. That so many of the original players in the case as well as nationally recognized disability rights educators and advocates attended was impressive, however, as significant was the fact that many community self-advocates came as well and were part of the discussion on where to go from here. Attorneys from the Atlanta Legal Aid Society kicked off the symposium with a behind-the-scenes discussion of how they set up the case and litigated it. What followed were thought provoking and inspiring talks on how Olmstead has evolved, constitutional issues, and a state official’s perspective on Olmstead. Atlanta Legal Aid’s Charlie Bliss and Talley Wells compared Olmstead to Brown v. Board of Education and offered insights into how the evolution of school desegregation can inform what happens next with the desegregation of institutions. See Atlanta Legal Aid: The Movie
You have read about us in the news; you have seen our web site; now experience the heart and soul of Atlanta Legal Aid in this short film. |
I will begin by thanking everyone who worked to put this event together and especially everyone who arranged for me to participate. I have never been able to think of a funny way to start a presentation about Olmstead because because, to me, it is about the tragedy of confining and segregating people --- not just 10 years ago when the case was decided by the United States Supreme Court -- but today. In 1999, Justice Ginsberg began the opinion in Olmstead v. Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson by asking this question: The answer, the Court said, is: YES! This is the question and answer that I want to keep in mind now that we are 10 years past the day that the Court asked and answered it. In beginning some thoughts about the Olmstead case today, I realize that even though I am not very good at jokes, the people I meet in institutions help me maintain a sense of humor, people who live in segregated, crowded, noisy, often dangerous institutions . . . but who retain not only a determination to preserve dignity in humiliating circumstances, but, in many cases, a sense of humor. As an example, I would like tell you about a young woman (I’ll call her Dee) with whom I spent the afternoon last week. When I spoke with her, she had been confined for more than 6 months in one of Georgia’s state psychiatric institutions. I asked her: “So, while you are stuck in the hospital, tell me a little about the treatment you are receiving.” I want to share with you her answer: “Well,” she said, “ the truth is that we go to the same groups day after day. They take us to a building called the “treatment mall.” My illness is bi-polar so I am supposed to go to “bi-polar” class. I went so many times for 2-3 months that I was falling asleep. So…. after that, I began attending “schizophrenia” class. No one seems to mind.” Dee was frustrated and bored. She watched others leave who had families. She became more, instead of less, depressed. She had two small children living with their father who missed her and she missed them. And here’s the saddest part. No one on the hospital staff thought that she needed to be there anymore. Dee had been in state hospitals many times but had never been discharged with a decent community-based service plan, never provided with a placement with staff supports, never had a job-training program, had never even heard of peer supports. Instead she had been discharged many times homeless shelters and personal care homes where she paid with her SSI check. Staff in these homes were not trained; she never stayed very long. At this point, Dee had lost her way, lost her connections, lost her confidence . . . she had nowhere to go where she could be supported and brought back to a promising place. She had lost her way, but not forever . . . I suspect that we have all been in some version of this lonely place. I wanted to tell Dee’s story to help us remember why Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, the plaintiffs in the Olmstead case, went to court in the first place in 1995 and fought through the federal court system until the Supreme Court decision in 1999 and then for another year in mediation to insist on a community-based treatment plan with appropriate community services and some built-in guarantees that they would not be re-institutionalized except for short periods after everything else had been tried. They went to court because Elaine was about to be discharged to another homeless shelter and Lois had been in and out of state hospitals and personal care homes dozens of times since she was 14 years old. She was 25 and Elaine was in her 40’s. Neither Lois nor Elaine was, in fact, ever re-institutionalized after they were provided with adequate community services. More. . . . Disaster Relief Information
| ||||||||||
|
Partially funded by
|
