Many of our clients need legal advice in addition to health care, so we’re exploring a possible expansion of our supportive services to include a medical-legal partnership. These partnerships link attorneys directly with clients who have civil legal needs, while also providing resources for clinical staff. There are nearly 300 such partnerships in hospitals and clinics across the country, but there is only one in Maryland. We are conducting a survey with clients and staff to determine how such a partnership might be most useful for our clients here at Health Care for the Homeless.

Medical-legal partnerships train health care staff to screen for potential legal issues that have a negative impact on health—such as substandard housing conditions that lead to chronic asthma—and try to intervene before a legal emergency arises. After a potential legal problem has been identified, the health care provider would refer the client to the medical-legal partnership attorney, just as a client would be referred to a specialist for a heart problem or gastrointestinal issues.

This program has proven successful in clinics just like ours. Lincoln Community Health Center, a Health Care for the Homeless grantee clinic in Durham, North Carolina, has entered into a medical-legal partnership with Legal Aid of North Carolina. The attorney there participates in regular case consultation with case managers and medical providers at the clinic, and offers on-site legal services three days a week.

Under a medical-legal partnership here at Health Care for the Homeless, we would aim to have a grant-funded attorney on site fulltime. After collecting and evaluating the survey results, our next step would be to identify and formalize a relationship with a legal partner, then apply for grant funding—together. If successful, services could become available to our clients next year.

Please take the 5-question survey, by Thursday, March 30, and let us know how you think our clients could best benefit from a medical-legal partnership. Your responses will help determine the viability of a medical-legal partnership here at Health Care for the Homeless.    

You can also participate by:

• Joining a conversation on Thursday, March 23,12:10-1 p.m. at 421 Fallsway in the 3^rd-floor group room. Lunch is on us.
• Encouraging clients to participate in the client legal needs survey that will be administered the weeks of March 27 and April 7 at 421 Fallsway (1^st-floor lobby), Baltimore County and West Baltimore.

Please contact Bilqis Rock with any questions.