Since its opening Oct. 2, the clinic, a project of the Urban Justice Center, has helped over 50 residents, giving quick advice, offering referrals and providing full legal representation.
The focus is on food stamps and public assistance, though counselors occasionally help with eviction or other problems.
The Long Island City branch is the first the center has opened in Queens. A 2004 Food Bank for NYC report indicates Long Island City and Astoria had the most people at risk of going hungry in the borough, according to Leslie Annexstein, an attorney and the director of the Urban Justice Center’s Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project.
Annexstein added that partnering with the food pantry located between the Ravenswood and the Queensbridge housing developments, seemed a natural choice. “We’re going to where the need is,” she said.
The clinic is staffed by two eager legal counselors working at computers. Kyle Dandelet has been working legal clinics for about a year and a half. He says New Yorkers like Harry, who are eligible for city benefits but have never gotten them, are common among his clients.
Other clients need help with the paperwork, which can be voluminous, proving eligibility or fighting for benefits when they have been reduced or denied.
Annexstein noted that many working people still desperately need food stamps and other public benefits, but often confront “an overwhelmingly bureaucratic and frequently hostile bureaucracy designed to deter them from obtaining and maintaining those benefits.”
The clinic has already filed some cases in the success category.
There is the young mother, who was living out of a kitchenless, $500 per month room with her infant on about $100 in monthly public assistance. While the case is still not completely resolved, Dandelet’s efforts have gotten the woman’s benefits increased fourfold.
There is also the 73 year old Queensbridge woman who relied on the food pantry and $10 per month in benefits, when she deserved much more.
“You should fight this, we’ll fight it with you,” legal counselor Samantha Elkrief recalls telling the woman. It worked and she now gets over $100 per month in benefits
Many of the staff’s favorite success stories involve standing up for people who have no other champions.
Angela Andino fits that description. A mother of three young sons, she served 22 months in state prison on drug charges a few years back. She discovered Hour Children when she felt she had no other options and now works as the food pantry coordinator there.
When her sons’ food stamp benefits were suddenly cut off, the clinic’s legal advocates stepped in. “They did everything” she recalls. Before long, Andino had her benefits back. Now, between handing out blue bags of food to her clients each week, she can confidently refer them back to the small office. “They do a really good job,” she said.
The legal clinic is open every Monday from 2 4 p.m. at the Hour Children food pantry in the St. Rita’s parking lot on 11th Street between 36th and 37th avenues in Long Island City.
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