Women’s Hearth-The Legal Preparedness Project is Up and Running

Imagine that you desperately need to end a bad marriage, or enforce a divorce settlement because your ex-husband refuses to pay the judgment, or you need to show the court that you have completed a long list of requirements in order to see your kids again. What would you do?  What would you do if you didn’t have any money, or a home, or your reading level was extremely low?  Many women have difficulty accessing and fully utilizing the limited amount of free legal services available in Spokane.  Accessing such services can be daunting in the best of circumstances, but add homelessness, disability, extreme poverty or a traumatic life situation and the barriers feel insurmountable. To address this issue, the Women’s Hearth recently received a grant from the Verizon Foundation. The Legal Preparedness Project was designed to help women get organized, determine options and get the help they need to move forward in their lives.

Susan Tyler-Babkirk, the Volunteer Coordinator at the Women’s Hearth, brings her experience as a paralegal and family mediator to this project. She meets with women individually to assess legal needs, provide appropriate referrals to legal services and follow-up case management to help women pursue the recommendations they receive. She also provides temporary legal document storage to help women stay organized and keep their important paperwork safe. She is also working to bring speakers from local legal services agencies to the Hearth. Representatives from the Center for Justice and the YWCA recently presented information on building good credit/repairing bad credit and understanding the stimulus package filing guidelines.  More speakers are planned for the coming months.

The women who have participated in this project were on the brink of giving up and falling victim, once again, to systems that they didn’t understand and couldn’t utilize to their advantage. With a little help, they are empowered to advocate for themselves, and seek just outcomes for the legal challenges they face.