Links, resources, and information to make sure you get all benefits you’re entitled to
Everyone deserves to feel financially secure. But sometimes money is tight. Or you may be concerned that you’re not getting paid all of your wages. Check out the resources below for information about accessing benefits and asserting your rights as a worker.
1. To start the benefits screening process with the CASH Campaign of Maryland, visit: https://cashmd.org/benefits-screening/. The CASH Campaign can work with you to make sure you get all the benefits you’re entitled to – from housing to food to Medicaid, and more.
2. For a one-page summary on the CASH Campaign’s benefits screening, click here.
3. For help with SNAP (food stamps) benefits, visit https://www.mdhungersolutions.org/get-help/ and call Maryland Hunger Solutions at 1-866-821-5552 for an appointment.
4. For information about the CASH Campaign’s free tax preparation help, visit https://cashmd.org/free-tax-preparationresources/.
5. Workers’ Rights and Benefits: A training on workers’ wage rights (and how to assert them) and benefits (and how to get them)
6. For a one-page summary of common violations of employee rights in Maryland, click here.
The COVID-19 (also known as the coronavirus) pandemic has shaken the lives of Marylanders in many ways. You may be concerned about your health, income, or home. We’ve compiled answers to some frequently asked questions in the links below. While the PJC’s office is closed, we are still working. If you are seeking legal assistance or advice, please contact us by phone at (410) 625-9409.
Workers’ rights and COVID-19 / Derechos del trabajador y COVID-19
Have questions about sick leave, unemployment insurance, or other issues relating to workers’ rights during this crisis? Check out these resources.
Housing and COVID-19 / Alojamiento y COVID-19
Get answers to questions about tenants’ rights, utilities, evictions, and other housing issues.
Information about accessing healthcare
For more information about COVID-19, please visit:
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
World Health Organization (WHO)
The Office of Governor Larry Hogan
Baltimore City Health Department
County Health Departments throughout Maryland
Maryland Access to Justice Commission
Information on free legal help, changes in court procedures, housing, utilities and other essential services, unemployment, immigration, and domestic violence.
Families First: COVID-19 Constituent Resources Toolkit
Toolkit from the office of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi about benefits and protections available to help individuals and communities deal with the pandemic.
Information about eligibility for SNAP benefits, from Maryland Hunger Solutions
When a person’s basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving their home, income, health care, or children, a lawyer can help protect what matters most. But in the United States, there is no federal right to state-funded counsel in civil cases. While all states provide a right to counsel for some types of civil cases by either statute or court decision (or both), the laws are patchwork and incomplete. Consequently, 92 percent of the civil legal needs of low-income individuals go unmet, and half of those requests made to civil legal aid organizations are turned away due to limited resources.
At the same time, low-income individuals routinely face opponents (the government, landlords, banks, and so on) who are represented. Studies have shown that this disparity in representation leads to unbalanced outcomes, and that the presence of counsel dramatically improves a person’s chances for success while saving money for cities and states by avoiding negative outcomes, such as the use of homeless shelters, emergency medical care, unemployment, and foster care.
As the operator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC), the Public Justice Center supports efforts across the country to establish the right to a lawyer for low-income individuals in civil cases involving basic needs. The NCCRC provides significant technical, research, and writing support to over 300 coalition participants and 200 partners in 40 states, maintains the national clearinghouse of information on civil right to counsel, and engages in public advocacy and awareness throughout the country.
Visit the NCCRC website, civilrighttocounsel.org, for the latest about right to counsel developments from across the country.
Impact
The movement for a right to counsel in eviction cases has reached a seminal moment: New York City, San Francisco, Newark, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boulder, Baltimore, Seattle, Louisville, Denver, Toledo, Minneapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Detroit, Washington State, Maryland, and Connecticut now guarantee tenants a lawyer when their housing is threatened, and NUMEROUS other cities and states have introduced bills to do the same. The NCCRC provided and continues to provide extensive support to these campaigns.
The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that low-income parents have a right to an attorney in involuntary adoption cases under the Equal Protection Clauses of the federal and state constitutions.
The NCCRC has a regular presence in the national media. NCCRC Coordinator John Pollock co-authored an op-ed in Newsweek about the necessary federal, state, and local response to the eviction crisis, and the NCCRC was featured in right to counsel stories in The Appeal and Law360 as well as in eviction stories in the Wall Street Journal, Salon, NPR, and Washington Post.
NOTE: The NCCRC cannot assist individuals with representation, legal advice, or attorney referrals. Therefore, we do not respond to individual requests for assistance. Please contact the legal aid organization in your state or your state’s attorney referral program.
Everyone should have a place to call home. Yet renters face many challenges to securing stable, safe, and affordable places to live:
- Landlords often charge predatory, unexpected fees, making rent unpredictable and expensive.
- Landlords frequently don’t maintain properties in low-income neighborhoods, forcing tenants to live with mold, broken furnaces, leaks, and other threats to health and safety.
- Rent court practices favor landlords, making it difficult for tenants to get a fair hearing when they’re in danger of eviction.
- Development efforts fail to address the needs of people with limited incomes and neighborhoods where residents are predominantly people of color and have lower incomes. Development projects ignore the needs of these neighborhoods or gentrify them, driving up rents that force people out.
The Human Right to Housing Project takes on these challenges. We stand with tenants to protect and expand their rights to safe, habitable, affordable, and non-discriminatory housing and their rights to fair and equal treatment by Maryland’s landlord-tenant laws, courts, and agencies. We defend renters facing eviction, demand repair of unsafe housing conditions, and represent renters seeking systemic relief from predatory landlord practices. We advocate to change the law regarding evictions and to demand the development of equitable and sustainable affordable housing.
The Public Justice Center provides free legal assistance, depending on capacity, to 1) renters in Baltimore City who are facing eviction or have questions about their rights and 2) renters statewide whose landlords are in foreclosure. Please call us at (410) 625-9409 for more information. If you are a renter outside of Baltimore City and your landlord is not in foreclosure, please contact the Maryland Court Help Center or another nonprofit legal services provider. You can also find information on our Get Legal Help page.
