Commentary: The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (the Center), a statewide nonprofit organization, is recognizing its 20th year of working with low-income New Mexicans to improve living conditions, increase opportunities, and protect the rights of people living in poverty. The Center first opened its doors in 1996 as a small spinoff group with limited resources. Today, the Center on Law and Poverty is one of the larger law firms in the state and represents groups of poorer New Mexicans in the courts, the state legislature, and executive policy-making arenas. “We have an extraordinarily talented staff who have been able to make a real difference for our state,” said Kim Posich, the Center’s Executive Director.
The Center’s achievements include:
· Improving the state’s on-time delivery of emergency food assistance.
· Pushing the state to comply with federal law by allowing eligible pregnant women to access food stamps throughout their pregnancy.
· Working with state administrators to draft regulations for the modern version of New Mexico’s cash assistance program for families in deep poverty.
· Winning a landmark lawsuit extending workers’ compensation benefits to very poor agricultural laborers. Stay tuned: this ruling was appealed and the Center will soon be arguing its merits before the state Supreme Court.
· Restoring Medicaid and food assistance to over 80,000 New Mexicans whose benefits were stuck in a bureaucratic backlog.
· Collaborating with community groups to persuade the University of New Mexico Hospital to stop charging uninsured, indigent patients 30% more than insured patients and requiring them to pay 50% of expected charges for some services in advance.
· Arguing for improvements to the state’s administration of public benefits that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people getting assistance more effectively when they needed it.
· Winning an out-of-court settlement with UNM Hospital that resulted in their developing an exemplary language interpretation and translation services system. Some of the other larger hospitals in New Mexico also improved their language services systems as a result.
· Coordinating campaigns that brought $16 million of financial support to New Mexico’s civil legal services system—the “legal emergency room” for the poor.
· Providing education and training to thousands of direct service providers, attorneys, and advocates, enabling them to help their clients access public benefits and exercise their labor rights.
The Center will celebrate its history and some of the people who have made a difference in the organization’s work with a special anniversary event this week. The 20th Anniversary Celebration will be held on Thursday, April 14, 2016 at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center from 5 to 7 pm. United States Senator Jeff Bingaman and State Senator Michael Sanchez will be featured speakers.
The event will honor key leaders of the organization, including the Center’s first Executive Director, the late Bob Ericson, and the Center’s current Executive Director, Kim Posich, who has overseen the Center’s remarkable development over the past 13 years.
It will also honor the following members of the Founding Board of Directors:
· Ruth Kovnat, Emerita Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law.
· The late John D. Robb, partner at the law firm of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb.
· Bill Strouse, former Executive Director of New Mexico Legal Aid and former Executive Director of the Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico.
· Timothy M. Sheehan, retired attorney from the law firm of Sheehan & Sheehan, PA.
· The late Virginia Sears, lifelong advocate and activist and former legal services consultant with Northern New Mexico Legal Services.
“The Center’s 20th anniversary provides an opportunity to look back at the Center’s enduring accomplishments, celebrate our friends and colleagues, and look ahead to our next steps in the fight against poverty in New Mexico. This is a special organization and we look forward to the next twenty years of making change for the people of our state,” Mr. Posich said.
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The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty is a non-profit law firm and advocacy organization working toadvance economic and social justice through education, advocacy, and litigation. For additional information about the Center on Law and Poverty and its achievements, or to purchase tickets for the upcoming 20th anniversary
celebration, please visit www.nmpoverty.org.