Media ContactLisa Ramirez, Communications Manager, lramirez@mylegalaid.org
The class action, Murphy v. Harpstead, filed on behalf of people with disabilities living in group homes is nearing its end. This preliminary agreement is expected to positively affect the lives of 1,000 Minnesotans.
“Things changed so fast when I got a lawyer — well, if you wear a hijab, they don’t even give you time to talk. I told them, that’s not how you talk to people, you need to treat everyone the same. But once the lawyer talked to them, they said, okay, you can move.”
A friend asked to stay in his home for a week. Then COVID happened and David became an unintentional landlord who couldn’t get his visitor, turned tenant, to leave.
As a former social services worker, Trina knew her rights, yet she was denied the benefit of a live-in PCA. When that happened, she told them she would get an attorney to represent her. That’s when Legal Aid stepped in.
“I was getting medical treatment for a bad leg, but I was in there (a nursing home) a long time. What they were doing for me wasn’t different than what could be done at home. I’d rather be at home…but they wouldn’t let me go.”
“If someone using disability services makes a wrong move, they can be cut off or might owe thousands of dollars in an overpayment,” warns Attorney Anne Robertson. In the case of college student James Lee, that might have kept his college degree out of reach.
“I kept getting denied and it’s so hard to deal with a kid with disabilities when you don’t get help,” Connell says. “It’s so, so stressful. You have to figure out everything and deal with this and that. I didn’t know which way to go, and I was getting doors slammed in my face. My friend told me to try Legal Aid.”
The summer of 2020, when Tilly was almost eight, her parents were told she could not return to school in the fall. Tilly’s Legal Aid lawyer described it as an attempt to create a new policy for students with disabilities. That didn’t fly with Tilly’s parents and it didn’t fly with Legal Aid’s Disability Law Center, either.
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