The recently released 2015 Washington State Civil Legal Needs Study Update reveals a sharp increase in the average number of civil legal problems facing low-income people – from 3 to more than 9 per year ? since the original 2003 Supreme Court study.

The Northwest Justice Project, in partnership with the City of Seattle Office of Housing and Seattle University School of Law, presents a short educational video on the foreclosure process, entitled “Plain Talk about Foreclosure.”

Many states are beginning to look at a growing body of research that shows that having a parent behind bars can have a destabilizing effect on an estimated 1.7 million children like Jamaill. The separation can have costly emotional and social consequences, such as trauma and trouble in schools, homelessness, and bigger welfare and foster care rolls.

Millions of Americans live with the possibility that, at any moment, their wages or the cash in their bank accounts could be seized over an old debt. It’s an easily ignored part of America’s financial system, in part due to a common attitude that people who don’t pay their debts deserve what’s coming to them.

NJP’s Veterans Project has launched an interactive legal information resource for Washington veterans and advocates working to assist veterans: RepWaVets.org.

A Shared Sentence: The Casey Foundation recently reported on the more than 100,000 Washington children who have had an incarcerated parent. These children suffer long-term effects due to their parents’ incarceration that are as damaging as child abuse or domestic violence. Children with parents in prison move more frequently than their peers and are at greater risk of ending up homeless; 75% of them receive foster care, Medicaid, food stamps or welfare services; and they face much higher childhood poverty rates, even after their parents are released. NJP’s RISE Project works to preserve a child’s relationship with a parent during incarceration, reducing children’s mental health issues and anxiety, and provides vital legal assistance to support family reunification upon release.

The Washington State Foreclosure Mapping Report identifies, for the period 2008-2013, the Washington zip codes most significantly affected by mortgage foreclosures.

Local officials take a moment to celebrate ongoing efforts to help former inmates make it on the outside.

Seattle Children’s Hospital’s recent Justice for All article in its Spring 2016 Connection magazine features the Washington Medical Legal Partnership and highlights the critical role NJP attorneys play in helping families get the care they need for their children by working with families, doctors and social workers to find legal solutions to health care barriers.  

The “plain language” initiative could have a big impact in Cowlitz County, where nearly 60 percent of family law cases in the last seven months were handled “pro se,” meaning at least one party represented themselves without a lawyer. Laurie Garber, family lawyer with the Northwest Justice Project, said low- to middle-income families who can’t afford lawyers often get caught in a tangle of legalese and paperwork.