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In June, LegalHealth hosted the inaugural "National Cancer Legal Services Network Meeting: Sharing Ideas to
Improve Legal Assistance within the Cancer Community", attended by many of the country's leading providers of
free legal services to those with cancer. The NCLSN began in 2009 with a grant from the Lance Armstrong
Foundation and has developed into a forum in which network members can discuss and exchange information vital
to the needs of people with cancer. This conference, which was attended by over 30 of the nation's leading
cancer care providers, was made possible through the generosity of Pfizer, Inc. and was considered by all to
be a great success. We look forward to hosting many more conferences and to moving towards developing some of
the innovative strategies discussed at this meeting.
We are very pleased to report that the New York State Bar Association honored LegalHealth with the 2010 Denison
Ray Award. The award is bestowed on those who have rendered extraordinary legal services to low-income and/or
disadvantaged clients, and is presented to publicly recognize the people who provide such services and to further
emphasize the importance of legal services in achieving equal access to justice. This award is testament to the
compassionate work of the LegalHealth team and to the medical-legal partnership model and its importance to serving
the low income people of our state.
I would like to take this opportunity to spotlight the work of legal advocate Pamela Van der Meulen, who runs the
LegalHealth clinic at Mount Sinai's Adolescent Health Center. The AHC provides health services to an economically
and socially disadvantaged population of patients, composed of teens from 10 to 22 years old mainly from East and
Central Harlem and the South Bronx. As legal advocate there, Pamela helps patients with education, family law issues.
Pamela advocates for students having difficulty with high school placements within the NYC Department of Education,
assists teens navigate the bureaucracy of college admission and financial aid offices, who may otherwise be
discouraged from seeking college education. She also aids young parents as they confront custody and visitation
issues for the first time.
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Randye Retkin, Director
By way of example, Pamela recently helped a 19 year old 11th grader with cerebral palsy become accepted to, and attend,
a community college upstate. Pamela worked with the client on the college applications, assisting her with the forms for
financial aid and secured housing on-campus that would be most accommodating for someone with physical limitations. Pam
provides invaluable help to her clients by combining our free legal services with her special brand of advocacy, going
above and beyond to ensure her clients are receiving the services they need.
Pamela's position is made possible through a generous grant from the
J.E.& Z.B. Butler Foundation.
Thank you all for the support you have provided, and please check back soon for more exciting news from LegalHealth.
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Continuing Presentations
CancerCare Telephone Education Workshop
Speaker: Debra J. Wolf, Esq.
Available as podcasts in RealPlayer and MP3, and telephone replay 24/7 for one year from Dec. 3, 2008
Cancer Care – Click on Telephone Education Workshops
icon on home page. Click on “Cancer Type”, then on: 12/03/08 - “Young Women with Breast Cancer:
Treatment-Specific Choices, Fertility and Careers”
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Ms. G, a survivor of domestic violence, suffers from traumatic brain injury as a result of her ex-husbands
abuse. She has been receiving the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver through Medicaid, which provides a rent
stipend and special services to TBI patients, including eye therapies, physical therapy, speech therapy,
and other services that enable her to continue living independently in the community. After Ms. G
received notice that she was no longer eligible for the TBI Waiver program and that her services would be
terminated, her doctor at Institute of Family Health referred her to LegalHealth. Her LegalHealth lawyer
helped Ms. G request a fair hearing with the Medicaid office and request aid continuing so that she would
not have a lapse in her services until after the hearing. Her lawyer also requested that a new evaluation
be completed and worked with her therapist to get documentation that she still needed the services provided
by the TBI Medicaid Waiver program. LegalHealth represented Ms. G successfully at the fair hearing, and her
TBI Waiver has been restored, allowing Ms. G to access all of the services that were previously provided for
her.
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If you have recently moved into a new apartment that your landlord claims is NOT rent-stabilized, or you think
that you may be paying too much for the apartment you have been living in for years, you should double-check
with the New York State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). You can go to your local DHCR office
with a copy of your lease and photo-ID and request a copy of your apartment's Rent Registration History - be sure
to ask the clerk for a complete history going all the way back to 1984. You may learn of discrepancies in the
registration history that could affect the status of your apartment and the amount of rent you should be paying.
If your landlord has deliberately charged you more in rent than she is legally allowed, you may even be entitled
to damages. To find out where your local DHCR office is located and to get a copy of your Rent Registration History,
visit their website at http://housing.ny.gov.
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