|
CJP |
|
Community Justice Project |
|
Improving the Lives of Low Income Pennsylvanians |
|
Harrisburg Office 118 Locust St. Harrisburg, PA 17101 (717) 236-9486 (phone) (717) 233-4088 (fax) 1-800-322-7572 (toll free)
Pittsburgh Office Suite 1705 429 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (412) 434-6002 (phone) (412) 434-5706 (fax) 1-866-482-3076 (toll free)
Hispanic Outreach Offices (Ayuda en Espańol)
Pittsburgh Suite 1705 429 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (412) 434-6176 (office) (412) 715-1750 (cell) (412) 434-5706 (fax)
Reading c/o Centro Hispano 501 Washington St. Reading, PA 19601 (610) 741-7995 (phone) (610) 372-2619 (fax)
Hazleton 2 East Broad Street Room 204 Hazleton, PA 18201 (570) 582-5816 (phone) (570) 459-5815 (fax)
|
|
Hispanic Outreach Project |
|
The purpose of the Hispanic Outreach Project is to expand the Community Justice Project's impact advocacy into the Hispanic community by placing bi-lingual, bi-cultural paralegals in areas of the state outside of Philadelphia where there are growing Hispanic populations. Working under the supervision of CJP attorneys, the paralegals provide advocacy on public benefits and self-sufficiency, employment and education, doing outreach to inform clients of their rights and opportunities in these and other areas of the law of importance to the community. This work enables CJP to connect with the Latino community and to identify issues of concern to Latinos. CJP uses a variety of legal strategies and creative advocacy to address these concerns and attempts to find solutions, which will have community-wide impact El proposito de este proyecto es expandir el Community Justice Project a la comunidad hispana al proveer paralegales bilingües y biculturales en areas fuera de Philadelphia donde la comunidad hispana se encuentra en crecimiento. Trabajando bajo la supervisión de los abogados del Community Justice Project, estos paralegales proven ayuda para conseguir beneficios públicos y la auto-suficiencia, trabajo y educación, hacen orientaciones para informar al cliente de sus derechos y las oportunidades que existen en varias areas de la ley las cuales pueden ser de importancia para la comunidad. Este trabajo permite que el Community Justice Project se conecte con la comunidad latina mientras identifica los problemas que afectan y preocupan a los latinos. El Community Justice Project usa una variedad de estrategias legales para poder atender las preocupaciones de los latinos mientras se trata de conseguir una solucion de los mismos para asi poder conseguir un impacto en toda la comunidad. Nota. La pagina web del CJP mencionara que la ayuda bilingüe o los interpretes, están disponibles sin costo alguno, a fin de acceder a nuestros servicios. |
|
Proyecto de Conección con la Comunidad Hispana |
|
Goals and Structure CJP’s targeted outreach and advocacy in Hispanic communities began in the fall of 2003. While CJP currently has Hispanic outreach staff in each of its four offices, the Reading and Hazleton offices focus almost exclusively on advocacy in Hispanic communities. We provide individual client advocacy, mostly through the work of paralegals supervised by CJP lawyers, but the focus of this outreach and individual advocacy is to identify and address broad legal problems in these immigrant communities.
Project Staff Outreach and advocacy staff consists of three paralegals and one attorney, all native Spanish speakers. Benita Mejia, Paralegal Reading 610-685-1270 Natalia Gomez , Paralegal Hazleton 570-582-5816 Alfonso Barquera, Paralegal Pittsburgh 866-482-3076
Areas of advocacy Litigation is usually limited to class actions or cases for multiple clients. CJP’s advocates can represent immigrant clients even if they are not legally present in this country. Typical cases we handle are claims for government benefits, some limited immigration matters, wage claims, housing problems, civil rights claims, Title VI language access claims, discrimination claims, police abuse claims, and education cases.
Recent Litigation for CJP’s Latino clients Special Education in Public Schools CJP filed and is prosecuting a class action lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s formula for distributing special education funding to school districts. Claims are made under the IDEA, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Equal Education Opportunities Act, and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the case is presently in discovery. Plaintiffs seek an order striking down the statute distributing the money based on the total number of students in the school district and requiring distribution based on the number of students who are disabled, the cost of providing services to the disabled students, and the ability of the districts to raise money from tax revenues locally. Many of CJP’s clients are Latino students who are disabled and need added services because of their limited English proficieincy.
Overtime Pay CJP recently settled a nationwide FLSA class action against a mattress company with plants in eight states. A related, state court, class action under Pennsylvania’s Minimum Wage Act was also settled. In both cases, plaintiffs had been paid an overtime supplement on their hourly wages, but they had been paid no supplement on production bonus pay they had earned.
Family and Medical Leave Act Violations CJP settled a Family and Medical Leave Act case against a major national retail chain. CJP’s client had been fired from her job for missing work to be with her daughter who was paralyzed and in the hospital. The client received back wages from the time she was fired. In another FMLA lawsuit, CJP recently recovered back pay from a produce company that fired its client for failing to provide medical forms showing her medical condition. In the lawsuit, CJP claimed that the forms and instructions were not provided in Spanish and that such forms were required by the FMLA.
Title VI Language Access CJP filed a VI complaint with the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) against the Greater Hazleton Health Alliance on behalf of three clients who were not provided proper emergency room treatment at its hospital. CJP’s clients complained they could not communicate in English and the hospital did not made services available through communications they could understand. HHS found that the hospital’s procedures were inadequate to ensure access to Hispanic patients. The hospital agreed to follow many added procedures in the future to ensure access to Spanish-speaking members of the community.
Civil Rights and Rights of Immigrants CJP played an important role as local counsel for Hispanic plaintiffs in the case successfully challenging the City of Hazleton’s anti-immigrant ordinances. The ACLU, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Connor carried most of the weight of this litigation that resulted in ruling that the ordinances are unconstitutional and permanently enjoined. The favorable decision in this case, Lozano, et al., v. Hazleton, will have an impact on the many other municipalities in Pennsylvania (and across the country) that have passed copy-cat ordinances that impact negatively Hispanic people all over the Commonwealth. CJP’s clients recently filed a civil rights lawsuit against nineteen individual police officers and agents of the U.S Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit claims the officers were motivated by prejudice against Hispanic non-citizens and broke into their home, seized them, and searched them and their home without a warrant and in violation of their constitutional rights.
|