Funding Dries up for CA Legal Hotline for the Elderly
A California hotline that provided free legal advice for seniors is a casualty of budget cuts, and the impact can be felt right here in the Bay Area. The California Senior Legal Hotline lost both its state and federal funding.
Supervising attorney David Mandel says he was forced to suspend most service outside Sacramento County. Click to Listen
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"We really had to take this step to say, 'sorry we can no longer accept general calls on the wide range of general subjects that we usually help people with," said Mandel.
Bay Area agencies that serve the elderly have lost a key resource.
"There was a working relationship," said Laine Lawrence, who runs Contra Costa Senior Legal Services. "But I think it varied from one program to another."
She says the loss of the senior legal hotline is compounded by the fact that JFK University is no longer running the Elder Law Clinic which targeted the financial abuse of seniors.
