The Perfect Storm at LAO

Alysha Hasham of the Toronto Star interviewed Omar Ha-Redeye in Legal Aid Ontario facing up to $70 million funding drop amid COVID-19 ‘perfect storm’,

Community legal clinics are still reeling from last year’s cuts and the new funding shortfall has the potential to further affect front-line services, said Omar Ha-Redeye, the executive director of Durham Community Legal Clinic.

“The need for support for clinics has never been more acute, in the aftermath of cuts from last year and that we are going to be in a recession if not a depression,” he said. Legal aid clinics help with issues including evictions, unemployment, discrimination, denial of disability claims, domestic violence and criminal charges. Ha-Redeye expects that many of the services will be sought by women and marginalized groups who have been disproportionately affected by the economic fallout of the pandemic.

“Without clinics being properly funded and having that stability, it is very unlikely that we’d be able to meet the needs of the community, meaning that what we are going to see is an increase in homelessness, in poverty, increase in mental health issues, increase in crime even,” he said. “By providing legal services to the most vulnerable members of our society … we are actually the safety net that prevents them from falling into those types of circumstances.”