Newly-formed Debt Free Justice California coalition celebrates stunning victory as Board of Supervisors votes to make Alameda the nation’s second county to end wealth extraction through criminal justice fees and bring about “Debt-Free Justice” for communities.
Contact: Lemlem Rijio, Director of Development & Communications lrijio@ebclc.org / 510-269-6627 AFTER 11 YEARS, TIRIEN STEINBACH TO STEP DOWN AS EAST BAY COMMUNITY LAW CENTER’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Steinbach says, “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served my community through my time as a staff member at EBCLC. I do not see this as […]
In the view of Frank Martin, deputy director of the East Bay Community Law Center, the legal services offered by Keep Oakland Housed will give pause to property managers looking to evict tenants as a ploy to boost rent.“Generally speaking, 90 percent of landlords have lawyers and 90 percent of tenants do not,” he says. “That makes for an imbalance and leads to people losing their cases even when they have legitimate reasons for why they couldn’t pay their rent. Having lawyers who will negotiate settlements with landlords or who show up in court with tenants levels the playing field.”
The board should vote yes on repeal and discharge because its most vulnerable constituents are being exploited for money they simply do not have. As detailed in EBCLC’s recent report, “Pay or Prey: How the Alameda County Criminal Justice System Extracts Wealth from Marginalized Communities,” the ripple effects of these debts are immense and reinforce systems of cyclical poverty, with families usually paying a significant price for their loved ones criminal justice debts.
Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods, the East Bay Community Law Center, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and other groups told the board that the fees should be eliminated because they create a long-term financial burden for low-income people who already served time for their crimes but then have problems turning their lives around.
“The real problem is there’s no place for people to go. Caltrans has to come to grips with this,” said Osha Neumann, an attorney for the East Bay Community Law Center. “They have to deal with this in a rational way, just like they do with earthquakes. This is a man-made disaster.”
This time last year, EBCLC advocate Vinuta Naik was fielding frequent phone calls from clients whose path to gainful employment had hit a deeply unfair dead end.
Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods, the East Bay Community Law Center, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and other groups told the board that the fees should be eliminated because they create a long-term financial burden for low-income people who already served time for their crimes but then have problems turning their lives around.
Newly-formed Debt Free Justice California coalition calls on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to put an end to this form of county-sanctioned wealth extraction and bring about “Debt-Free Justice” for communities.
Urban Habitat and the East Bay Community Law Center have released a new report, Rooted in Home: Community-Based Alternatives to the Bay Area Housing Crisis, which highlights examples of responses and long-term solutions to the housing crisis—rooted in permanent affordability and democratic community control.
