About Len Rieser

A victory for families

Kameelah Davis-Spears, a Philadelphia parent, was stunned when her child was sent to a juvenile delinquency facility as the result of a fight in school. She got a second shock when, after his return home, she got a summons — for child support.

It turned out that the “child support” was money that she was going to have to pay the City to cover the cost of her son’s incarceration. Upset, she asked the City’s lawyer whether she should get legal advice. His reply, she said, made clear to her that she had better just start paying.

Fast forward through months of garnished wages, which put a hole in the family’s already-inadequate budget, to yesterday’s hearing before a committee of City Council. The hearing was prompted by the release of Double Punishment, a report by Justice Lab students Wesley Stevenson (3L), Kelsey Grimes (3L), and Sela Cowger (3L). With help from Prof. Colleen Shanahan, the students had conducted a months-long investigation on behalf of their client, the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project.

Wes, Ms. Davis-Spears, Lauren Fine of YSRP, and others testified before a crowd of parents, child advocates, City officials, social service personnel, Sheller Center supporters (including Steve and Sandy Sheller), and others. Council members, who clearly saw the practice as unjust, expressed appreciation for the students’ work.

And the hearing brought one more surprise: an announcement by Cynthia Figueroa, Commissioner of the City’s Department of Human Services, that the City will put an end to the practice. As the witnesses and Council members pointed out, that announcement is only a first step; making sure that collection efforts actually stop will take work. But it’s a victory — and, in an era in which fines, fees, and forfeitures are exacting double and triple punishment from poor families, it’s national (as well as local) news.

At the end of a long day, Prof. Shanahan delivered her own verdict: “I’m so, so proud of our students.” So are all of us at the Sheller Center.

Social justice spotlight: Wesley Stevenson

For our “Social justice spotlight” series, we ask students who participate in Sheller Center clinics and programs to talk a bit about their experience.  This week, we hear from Wes Stevenson, a third-year law student.

Over the past year, I’ve been working with the Sheller Center’s Justice Lab Clinic to end the City of Philadelphia’s practice of charging parents for their children’s incarceration costs.  During that time, every person I’ve talked to about the issue has expressed the same outrage and confusion I felt when I first learned this was happening.  Yes, this really happens, and it happens all across the nation.

This work is critical because the practice is fundamentally unjust, it hurts families during a critical time, and it has no real financial benefit for the City. And it has been going on for a long time.  Our work has been about ending the practice so no more families face these support orders.  But it has also been about holding the City accountable, for imposing these costs on working families for years, and ensuring that when the practice does end, it ends for good.

Philadelphia City Council has scheduled a hearing on the practice for March 3, 2017, at 11:00 a.m., in the Council chamber at City Hall.  I am grateful for the opportunity to testify at that hearing, alongside affected parents and advocates, and I’m hopeful that by the time I graduate, these collections will have officially stopped.

Report addresses strategies for preserving affordable housing

Philadelphia has a severe shortage of affordable housing.  “Danger of the Opt Out,” a new report developed by Fall 2016 Justice Lab students for Community Legal Services, shows that the City is at risk of losing even more affordable units as landlords opt out of participation in the Section 8 program.

The report notes that the loss of housing has a distinct racial impact, since 63% of African-Americans live in project-based housing compared with 44% of the city’s population, and that African-Americans are disproportionately likely to carry severe housing cost burdens. According to the report:

  • Over 9,000 units of affordable housing may be lost in the next 20 years across 86 Section 8 project based properties.
  • Eighteen of those properties are in gentrifying census tracts, which are at greater risk of opt-out due to changing neighborhood demographics. Of the 21 properties with Section 8 contracts expiring by 2020, six are located in a gentrifying tract.
  • A majority of affordable units are at higher risk of opt-out due to the owner’s for-profit status, since a profit-motivated owner is more likely to opt-out when they are able to obtain higher rents on the private market.

​Following release of the report, Community Legal Services attorney Rasheedah Phillips echoed its call for changes in the way PHA does business. Recommendations include stronger requirements for advance notice to tenants when their home is to be removed from the Section 8 program, and the development of an open database of all Section 8 properties and the dates on which their contracts with the program are set to expire.

Philadelphia Weekly covered the report, noting that it “offered a stark reminder of the extent of Philadelphia’s housing crisis.” The report has also been cited in a Harvard Law School blog, as well as by Voices for Civil Justice and other national organizations.

Center files brief on traumatizing effects of long-term detention on children

The Center’s Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, together with the Villanova Farmworker Clinic, has filed an amicus brief in support of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to revoke the license of the Berks County Family Detention Center.  That decision has been appealed by Berks County, which the federal government pays to confine immigrant families at the Center. For more information about the Center, see our publications page.

Our brief was filed on behalf of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, plus a number of physicians, psychologists, social workers, and nurses. Many of these individuals have visited the facility and and found that it poses a severe and unjustified risk to children’s health, mental health, safety and well-being. The brief documents abuses at the Center and argues that its operation violates Pennsylvania law. In a similar case, a Texas court recently found that family detention facilities there violated the state’s human services law.

Human Rights First and the Shut Down Berks Coalition also provided crucial assistance for the Center’s brief.

PhilaPOSH recognizes work of Jen Lee and Sheller Center students

At its Annual Awards Reception last week, the Philadelphia Project on Occupational Safety and Health (PhilaPOSH) presented Prof. Jennifer Lee with its Crystal Eastman award for the Sheller Center’s work on behalf of “the most marginalized and vulnerable workers in Pennsylvania.” PhilaPOSH  specifically noted the Center’s report, “Shortchanged,” which exposed wage theft in Pennsylvania and led to the enactment of a city ordinance creating remedies for wage theft. Students in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, Amanda Reed (’15), Andrea Saylor (’15), Maggie Spitzer (’15), Elyssa Geschwind (’14), and Solaris Power (’15), researched and wrote the report.jen-lee-philaposh-award

The award is named after Crystal Eastman, an activist lawyer who co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – and whose many accomplishments included writing a report that led to the first workmen’s compensation law.

Public interest conversations: now more than ever

As the election results sink in, it seems important to reaffirm the commitment of the Sheller Center – and many other projects and programs at the Law School – to social justice and to the practice of public-interest law.  We’re grateful for the extraordinary energy that Temple students and faculty bring to the task of making life better for the most disadvantaged people in our communities. And we continue to believe that by offering legal support to organizing efforts, collaborating with non-profit and governmental partners when that’s possible, and representing people in administrative and court proceedings, we can make a difference.

We believe, too, that part of our work is to support each other.  A few weeks ago, the Center started a series of “Public Interest Conversations” aimed at helping students navigate the sometimes-confusing array of public-interest opportunities that the Law School offers – courses, clinics, connections to external organizations, fellowships, career planning, and more.  Providing a venue for these conversations, both organized and informal, was important before the election, and seems even more so now. We look forward to continuing to be there for students and faculty who are seeking to make America a more just society.

Real money: news from the Sheller Center/Ceiba tax clinic

Some numbers came in recently from the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) clinic held at the Sheller Center earlier this year.  Over the period from February to April, law student volunteers helped neighborhood residents prepare 231 tax returns, resulting in federal and state refunds totaling $264,259, plus $69,300 in saved tax preparation fees. Thus, the clinic provided $333,559 in benefits to low- to moderate-income people in our community.

The VITA clinic, which we expect to operate again in 2017, is organized by Ceiba, a North Philadelphia community organization, and staffed in part by students trained by tax professor Alice Abreu. We’re pleased to be able to provide space and help to this terrific project.

Philly’s problematic “Live Stop” policy

When a Philadelphia motorist is found to be driving without a valid license or registration, the Police Department tows and impounds the car.  The driver must pay — sometimes upwards of $1,000 — to get the car back, in addition to any fines resulting from the violation.

State law does not actually require towing in most of these situations. But the City’s “Live Stop” policy calls for it anyway, mostly ignoring other options. According to Karen Hoffmann and Katelyn Mays, students in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic who recently wrote a report on Live Stop, “Philadelphia seems to be one of the only cities in the nation with such an aggressive [towing and impoundment] policy.” (Some exceptions were created in response to a 2011 lawsuit filed by Stephen Sheller, who helped to create the Sheller Center for Social Justice.)

Among those harmed by the policy are undocumented immigrants, since – in a double whammy – state law makes them ineligible for drivers’ licenses (a problem discussed in another Sheller Center report). Thus, when an undocumented driver is stopped for even a minor violation, a license violation is also found and the car is towed. As Ms. Hoffmann notes, many of these drivers have valid registrations and insurance: “These are people who are trying to do the right thing, and the law is getting in their way.”

More generally, Live Stop imposes needless financial hardship on people who are struggling to get by.  As the report puts it, “Philadelphia should not have a policy that unnecessarily impoverishes city residents.” According to Ms. Hoffmann, moreover, the City seems unclear about how the policy was created or why it exists. “I learned how obscure city policies can be,” she says, “and how hard it can be to get to the root of where they came from.”

In researching the policy, the team worked closely with the New Sanctuary Movement, many of whose members have been affected by Live Stop. The experience, according to Ms. Hoffman, was “valuable, sometimes frustrating, definitely eye-opening.”  Read the full report here, in English or Spanish.

Billing parents for their children’s incarceration?!

When Philadelphia children are incarcerated, the City bills their parents for the costs of confining them. And if parents don’t pay, the City garnishes wages, withdraws funds from bank accounts, or garnishes tax refunds.

Justice Lab students Sela Cowger, Kelsey Grimes and Wesley Stevenson worked this spring with their client, the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project, to seek a moratorium on this practice. The team’s research included interviews with attorneys who represent children, the City attorney who handles collections against parents, and parents who had been sued.  The students also met with members of Mayor Kenney’s administration.  While the problem is not yet fixed, there’s reason to be optimistic that it will be soon.

Ms. Stevenson commented: “What struck me most was that every single person we talked to about our project was outraged that the City would charge parents to incarcerate their own children.  From the social worker, to our friends outside of law school, to acquaintances I know in my neighborhood, everyone agreed: it’s just not right. That consensus provided me with clarity and a sense that my team’s work mattered and could have real impact, both in changing everyday lives but also changing attitudes. And it inspired us to extend the length of our project; some of our team will be returning to this fight in the fall semester in the hope that the City will end this harmful policy before the end of the year.”

 

Cracking down on wage theft

When a large company contracts out jobs to smaller ones, who then hire workers as “independent contractors,” is the large company liable when the workers aren’t paid what they’re owed? It’s a tricky question that depends partly on how much control the large company exerts over what the workers do. It’s also an issue that’s leading to major litigation, including a recent lawsuit by New York State against Domino’s Pizza (which allegedly encouraged its franchisees to use payroll software that undercounted workers’ hours), and a $240 million settlement by Fed Ex in a nationwide class action on behalf of 12,000 underpaid drivers.

This spring, three Sheller Center students – Crystal Felix, Paige Joki and Daniella Lees — confronted a local version of the problem. Working with attorney Marielle Macher of the Community Justice Project, the students filed suit in federal court against a company that initially argued that it had no responsibility for wage theft by its subcontractors.

Ms. Felix notes that “seeing how prevalent wage theft is in Philadelphia is just mind-blowing.” And so, besides handling the case, she worked with Community Legal Services on the implementation of Philly’s recently-enacted wage theft ordinance.  More on that soon!