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Our staff, our coMMITMENT
HIV Law Project recently hired three new staff members, including a senior managing attorney, a paralegal, and a community organizer for the Center for Women and HIV Advocacy. “The new staff brings a diversity of professional experience and dedication that will bolster our capacity to meet the growing demand for our services,” said Cynthia B. Knox, deputy executive director at HIV Law Project.
For the past 19 years, HIV Law Project has been a place of last resort for New York City’s most underserved, disenfranchised people living with HIV/AIDS, including women, people of color, recent and undocumented immigrants, low-income members of the LGBT community, and the homeless. “Fortunately for our clients, we kept our doors open over the years, even after donors and the media moved on to other issues during the late-nineties,” said Ms. Knox.
HIV Law Project has handled more than 20,000 cases since its inception in 1989. The sheer volume of cases speaks to the fact that, although the demographics of those living with HIV/AIDS and those newly infected has shifted over the years, the epidemic continues to rage, particularly among the poor, the disenfranchised, and the underserved.
As demand for free direct legal services for low-income HIV+ people continues to climb, HIV Law Project is working hard to maintain the high quality of services for which it is known. Asked how HIV Law Project will measure its success in meeting this challenge, Kendell Johnson, HIV Law Project’s new senior managing attorney who has more than sixteen (16) years of experience in legal services, pointed out that “we are already seeing increased demand for our services and expect the number of cases to increase in 2008, it is not just the volume of cases handled, but rather the diversity of our services and the high quality of care that makes HIV Law Project stand out.”
Most clients come to HIV Law Project with multiple legal and social service needs. Most are not aware of their options or, not wanting to impose, generally only identify what they consider to be a primary issue. “We are not a factory,” Ms. Johnson added. “At HIV Law Project, we take the time with each client to unpack the complexity of barriers and pressures in their lives. In this way, we are able to properly identify a diversity of legal and social support solutions that not only address obvious injustices, but also work to inform each individual client of their options and link them to the social services that can help lift them out of the vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health.”
HIV Law Project welcomes its new staff and looks forward to creating positive change in more peoples lives in 2008.
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