This summer, Mary Kaczorek was honored by the Hennepin County Bar Association (HCBA) with its 2023 Excellence Award for Improving Access to Justice. The award was in recognition of Kaczorek’s outstanding leadership of the housing unit at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA) during the height of the pandemic, as well as her legislative advocacy for remote court hearings and eviction reform.
This fall, Kaczorek transitioned to MMLA’s consumer unit and will turn her attention to the prevention of home foreclosures on Minnesotans who’ve lost home equity in scams or are dealing with predatory financing terms.
In its Breaking the Ice series, Minnesota Lawyer gets to know one of legal aid’s most passionate advocates a little better. Read Breaking the Ice: Housing advocacy brings award, gratitude.
Legal Services Advocacy Project (LSAP) Publishes 2023 Legislative Session Summaries
Each year the Legal Services Advocacy Project (LSAP) compiles a comprehensive review (with citations) of Minnesota law changes that, in whole or significant part, impact Legal Aid’s clients. The 2023 legislative session produced perhaps the most momentous and transformative set of legislation in Minnesota’s history.
LSAP’s Legislative Session Summaries are divided by substantive law topic area and reflect the law changes made by the 2023 Minnesota Legislature. They are available for download here: 2023-Session-Summaries.pdf (mylegalaid.org).
LSAP staff attorneys Jessica Webster, Ellen Smart, and Ron Elwood work on discrete and systemic policy issues that impact the lives of thousands of Minnesotans. Their outstanding and historic work this session was lauded on the back cover of Attorney at Law Magazine’s September edition, which outlines some of the far-reaching legislative changes they championed.
Legal Services Advocacy Project Makes Gains for Clients in Active Legislative Session
The 2023 legislative session was historic. The well publicized “trifecta” produced perhaps the most momentous and transformative set of legislation in Minnesota’s history. Many major advancements for legal aid's clients, and all Minnesotans, that were enacted include paid family leave and earned sick and safe leave time; codification of reproductive freedoms; passage of significant gun safety laws; a 100% carbon-free energy requirement by 2040; and a massive affordable housing funding bill, which includes a permanent rental assistance fund.
While these broader issues captured headlines, the Legal Services Advocacy Project (LSAP) worked to pass a wide range of bills across a variety of substantive areas that made significant inroads in advancing protections for legal aid clients.
The first increase in General Assistance in 30 years;
Giving survivors of domestic violence a path to relief from “coerced debt”;
MFIP disregard for participants receiving RSDI;
Major MFIP sanction reform and MFIP drug testing repeal;
Banning school seclusion for children through 3rd grade;
Funding to fully fund wage supports for persons with disabilities holding subminimum wage jobs;
Extending the period within which to file a UI appeal to 45 days;
Providing for an annual COLA to the housing assistance grant;
Extending MNCare coverage to undocumented persons;
Providing for recertifications once every 12 months for MA recipients;
Removing asset limits for persons applying for MA-EPD;
Eliminating the requirement that tenants must pay back rent to assert a habitability defense;
Making eviction filings nonpublic until the court issues a final judgment;
Providing that the new 14-day pre-eviction notice is prima facie evidence of an "emergency" for purposes of emergency assistance eligibility;
Payday lending reform; and
Eliminating the court-imposed bar to taking actions under the Consumer Fraud Act.
LSAP — which is comprised of staff attorneys Jessica Webster, Ellen Smart, and Ron Elwood — annually champions both discrete and systemic policy issues that fundamentally impact the lives of thousands of Minnesotans. They work with lawmakers, legislative staff, government agencies, legal aid staff, and dedicated partner advocacy groups to design, negotiate, and refine hundreds of new and existing laws, and always with legal aid’s clients and mission guiding their work.
Minnesota at Forefront of Federal Move to Provide More Contract for Deed Protections
Late last year, ProPublica in collaboration with the Sahan Journal published an investigative report about the serious risks posed to Minnesota Somali families by the sale of contracts for deed. Many prospective Somali home buyers looking for increased space, better schools and neighborhoods, and a way avoid paying or profiting from interest (a principle important to members of the East African Muslim community), have taken the non-conventional, contract for deed route. But the potential pitfalls are not always clear, and buyers are often mistaken about the lack of protections and unforeseen consequences they might face.
Now, as a result of the ProPublica-Sahan Journal report, some federal lawmakers, including Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, are calling for further consumer protections. A recent senate subcommittee hearing led to discussion about how to better shield unwary consumers and whether federal or state laws ought to apply to these deals.
Witnesses testified that low-income buyers, frequently from communities of color who cannot secure traditional mortgages or choose not to use them because of religious beliefs, instead have opted to use contracts for deed. Among those witnesses was Beth Goodell, supervising attorney at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA). Goodell told senators that because state law offers so few protections, buyers are at risk of losing everything.
“My clients tend to have trusted the sellers,” Goodell said. “One of my clients said to me, ‘Why would this seller sell me a house that he knew I couldn’t afford?’ And the answer, ‘The seller would make a lot of money if you fail,’ was beyond her understanding.” Read the full story.
Minnesota Disability Law Center (MDLC) Premieres "In Our Own Words"
People with disabilities share what they most want health care providers to know
Released as an unlimited-run for health care providers everywhere, "In Our Own Words: Improving Care for People with Disabilities" is a two-part video series that debuted June 14, 2023, on Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid's YouTube channel. The first installment, "Communication," is playing now. The second, "Understanding," is set to drop June 21. Both are subtitled in Spanish.
Enlightening and powerful, the voices featured in this production reveal with sheer frankness what works and what doesn’t work for members of the disability community in health care settings. "They describe and refute assumptions made by some physicians and health care professionals but also praise the ways other providers make meaningful connections," says MDLC Public Health Advocate Anna Phearman.
Produced in partnership with the University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration and Special Olympics Minnesota, the intended audience for the series are health care professionals. However, Phearman adds, "Anyone and everyone can benefit. We produced this series to be a voice of empowerment. Getting people thinking about how they can promote health equity for the disability community is the goal.”
Distributors will be Mid-MN Legal Aid's Minnesota Disability Law Center—direct to providers—but key distributors will be health care recipients themselves.