ACTION ALERT: Ask Your Legislators to Protect Legal Aid Funding
The IL General Assembly is set to reconvene today (May 20) to begin final budget negotiations so we need your advocacy help!
Please contact your state legislators and urge them to protect funding for civil legal aid (via the IL Justice Foundation) in the FY2021 budget. The current appropriation for the IL Equal Justice Foundation stands at $1.4M and is housed in the Attorney General’s budget.
Whether it’s helping people wrongly denied critical benefits or protecting the rights of renters facing eviction, legal aid programs are part of Illinois’ front-line response to the COVID-19 crisis. Our grantee Illinois Legal Aid Online reports a 1000% increase in the use of its online legal resources.
And once the courts open again, legal aid providers expect a flood of people needing legal help with financial, housing, and domestic violence issues.
Without access to legal assistance, people struggling to make ends meet may never be able to recover from the fallout from this pandemic.
You can use our online advocacy tool to TAKE ACTION HERE. Please also share our advocacy alert with your network.
Thank you in advance for taking action to support state funding for civil legal aid and the IL Equal Justice Foundation!