LEGAL AID OF THE BLUEGRASS

We serve low-income families with children, the elderly, veterans and people needing access to healthcare. Our clients are frail and elderly nursing home residents, those suffering abuse at the hands of a loved one, people with a barrier to employment, those who are financially exploited and those that lack the basic necessities of life.

Statistics tell us that the people we serve are particularly vulnerable, often living with the risk of losing something be it their home, job, health, safety or independence. For example- low-income single parents are seven times more likely to experience domestic violence than those at higher income levels (Intimate Partner Violence, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (May 2000). Kentucky studies also show us that the leading causes of homelessness are evictions and utility cut-offs typically resulting from divorce or loss of employment (Kentucky Homeless Survey Report: Kentucky Housing Corporation (2001). These problems cause a domino effect where one loss leads to another. Through the legal system, our attorneys and paralegals can preserve the home, protect assets, stop the violence, remove employment barriers, and support families towards the goal of achieving maximum independence and safety.

It is our goal to resolve the most important problems of low income and other vulnerable people by providing high-quality legal assistance through direct representation, education, advice, advocacy and coordination with other community resources. We are working to create a community where all are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness and do not lack the basic necessities of life.

We provide the opportunity for Kentuckians to protect their families, homes, and health. Our work can remove barriers, protect assets, save homes and empower families.

LABG provides access to legal help for people to protect their livelihoods, their health, and their families. LABGmakes it easier to access information through easy-to-understand forms, legal assistance, representation, and self-help centers to enable people to know their rights – regardless of their income.

LABG offers a combination of services and resources that help Kentuckians of all backgrounds – including those who face the toughest legal challenges: children, veterans, seniors, ill or disabled people, and victims of domestic violence – to effectively navigate the justice system.
LABG connects Kentuckians with a range of services—including legal assistance and representation; self-help centers and other court-based services, free legal clinics and pro-bono assistance, and access to web-based information and forms—that help guide them through complicated legal proceedings. In doing so, LABG helps Kentuckians protect their livelihoods, their health, and their families.

For almost 50 years, LABG has been fighting to ensure fairness and accessibility to our justice system, especially the most vulnerable members of our communities. By protecting families and individuals through advocacy aimed at securing housing, income, family and interpersonal safety as well as many other needs LABG empowers individuals in order to help them achieve economic and family stability in order to rise out of the confines of poverty.

At LABG, we have 4 offices plus our mobile office (i.e. Justice Bus) to serve a 33 county area in Central, North & Northeast Kentucky. This service area includes approximately 220,000 people living in poverty.

We have a staff a 65 FTE attorneys, paralegals and administrative staff that provide direct representation to thousands of clients each year. We also have hundreds of volunteer attorneys that provide pro bono legal representation.

Based on U.S. Census data, 18.5% or nearly 818,000 Kentuckians live in poverty. About 220,000 of these people are living in Legal Aid of the Bluegrass’s service region. Kentucky’s four civil legal aid programs are the only Kentucky programs helping low-income people with civil legal problems like domestic violence, dating violence and sexual assault, consumer scams, denial of disability benefits for Veterans, home foreclosure due to predatory lending, elder abuse, unlawful eviction from a nursing home, and helping disaster survivors back to their feet free of charge.
For almost 50 years, LABG has been fighting to ensure fairness and accessibility to our justice system, especially for the most vulnerable members of our communities. Even with all of the funding challenges that we faced in 2017, it was no different. Last year, through the services of our advocates and staff, LABG provided legal assistance impacting 10,047 adults and 5,549 children. This includes over 1,000 veterans and their households and 2,449 domestic violence victims and their children.

While these results are laudable, the needs of our community continue to be great. The rate of persons living in poverty in our communities continues to increase and the rate of children living in poverty is truly alarming. There is much work that remains to be done. LABG will continue fulfilling our role of helping to establish justice for all in our Commonwealth