Legal aid office closes

Legal aid office closes
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Aug. 14, 2002

It's a lot tougher to fight city hall or the provincial government after the Legal Services Society of B.C. was forced to close its Burnaby office last week.
Besides losing 75 per cent of their staff across the province, the society which provides legal aid no longer has the mandate nor funding to continue its poverty law program, which offered financial assistance when people on low income tried to challenge any of a long list of government decisions.
"This is a major change," LSS paralegal worker Angela Rigby said Thursday afternoon, as she packed up boxes and prepared to move to a new office in Vancouver. "The practice of poverty law has been completely cut from the budget."
Gone is the subsidy that used to help low income families appeal government or court decisions on child access and custody issues, court orders on family maintenance, income support payments or even decisions from the human rights tribunal or residential tenancy branch.
Starting this week, people who seek legal advice on any of the above issues will now either have to accept advice over the telephone from a centralized call centre staffed by paralegals, or do without.
And even those services that are still provided by legal aid will no longer be accessible from Burnaby.
"What's significant is that our clients are going to have to go into Vancouver just to get an application (for legal aid). And when you live on a limited income, you don't always have bus fare," Rigby said.
Residents of Burnaby will be particularly hard hurt by the cutbacks because the city has so few other non-profit legal resources, such as those provided by the Welfare Rights Advocacy Group in New Westminster or the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and First United Church in Vancouver.
In addition, those non-profit agencies will be too busy helping people from their own communities to give assistance to Burnaby residents, Rigby said.
The end result will be less money in the hands of those people who are already impoverished, and a corresponding increase on other social services.
"There'll be a strain on the food banks and I think you'll see a rise in petty crimes," Rigby said.
When the Burnaby office closed to the public last Thursday, half of its staff - three lawyers and three support personnel - were laid off. The remaining six staff people will now be located at the regional LSS office in Vancouver.
The Burnaby office handled over 4,000 applications for legal aid in the 2000/01 year, making it one of the busiest of the 17 branches, 14 community law offices and 14 native community law offices in the society.
Across B.C., LSS provided 50,513 referrals, gave summary advice in 11,114 cases and provided duty counsel in 49,872 trials over the same year-to-year period.
The society also lost its publication budget, which produced pamphlets containing free legal information for the public, plus its Legal Resource Centre, which offered a library style service for people wanting to research their own legal cases.
The printed information, which used to be handed out at LSS offices and other locations, will now be primarily offered over the Internet.
When the provincial government originally announced the changes last spring, the BC Law Society passed a motion of censure against B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant.

HOW TO APPLY FOR AID THAT'S LEFT...:

Even though major cutbacks have hit the legal aid program in British Columbia, there is still some help available for people on low income who find themselves in court.
The Legal Service Society of British Columbia still offers assistance in most criminal matters, refugee hearings or immigration- related legal problems, in family law problems related to violence or child apprehensions and for court hearings under the Mental Health Act.
To qualify for legal aid, a person can not have more than $10,000 in 'real property' (i.e., assets not including a family home), a vehicle worth more than $5,000, equity in a business, an income above $1,250 per month for a two-person family, or other assets worth more than $4,000 for a two-person family.
The society may negotiate a repayment of legal aid if there is a reasonable chance that a client will receive a substantial amount of money during or after the conclusion of their case.
To apply for legal aid, call the LSS provincial call centre's toll-free line at 1-866-577-2525. Other information is available at the society's web site at www.lss.bc.ca.