Causes:
AIDS,
Civil Rights,
Crime & Law,
Disabilities,
Disabled Persons Rights,
Health,
Human Services,
Legal Services
Mission: ALRP helps people with HIV/AIDS maintain or improve their health by resolving their legal issues. During the past 22 years, ALRP’s panel of over 600 volunteer attorneys have handled more than 45,000 legal matters for people who may have otherwise had nowhere to turn. The free legal help our clients receive meets basic human needs for health care, shelter, income, autonomy, and life lived free from discrimination.
Target demographics: Those infected and affect by HIV/AIDS
Geographic areas served: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma, and Solano counties
Programs: The ALRP Referral Program:
When ALRP was founded in 1983, our main focus was to refer people living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco to free or no cost volunteer attorneys, and to provide the support these attorneys needed to help our clients.
Since then, ALRP has handled over 45,000 legal matters for our clients.
Our services include housing, employment, insurance, confidentiality matters, family law, credit, government benefits or public accommodations, wills, power of attorney and guardianship contracts.
Today, ALRP serves over 1,500 clients each year in 7 counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay, and our volunteer panel numbers over 600.
The ALRP Housing Program:
ALRP's housing program has become the centerpiece of our service provision, with more than one-third of all ALRP cases now comprised of housing issues.
Many of these clients are facing not only housing discrimination, but also eviction, threatening their very survival.
The ALRP Outreach Program:
This program ensures that ALRP's services are available to underserved communities such as people of color, women, transgender constituents, people with substance/mental health issues along with HIV/AIDS, and the indigent.
Outreach efforts include the provision of community clinics, outreach presentations to community-based organizations (CBOs) in collaboration with local bar associations, and various partnership alliances such as the current partnership with AIDS Project East Bay.
The ALRP Work Readiness & Legal Assistance Project:
Supports people living with HIV/AIDS in the San Francisco Bay Area in their efforts to become or remain employed. We do this by providing HIV-related legal assistance in securing and stabilizing housing, resolving debt and bankruptcy issues, and addressing employment discrimination and harassment issues.
The ALRP Immigrant HIV Assistance Project (IHAP):
Provides free immigration legal services to HIV positive immigrants living in San Francisco. IHAP services include assistance with obtaining legal permanent residence (green cards), HIV waivers, political asylum, suspension of deportation, and naturalization.
The ALRP Client Education Program:
ALRP creates, publishes and distributes a variety of HIV/AIDS brochures, pamphlets and manuals for people living with HIV/AIDS, including "Living in the Cycle of AIDS," ALRP's Employment Discrimination Guide. Other guides cover issues such as fair housing, habitability, eviction protection, security deposits, and companion animals.
The ALRP AIDS Law Manual:
ALRP publishes an HIV/AIDS Law Manual for use by our panel of attorneys, legal and community partners, and AIDS services organizations (ASOs). This manual is a critical resource for our staff, volunteers and clients, and was updated in 2004.
The ALRP Volunteer Attorney Training Program:
This program enables ALRP to provide our volunteer panel attorneys training in not only effectively handling HIV/AIDS related cases, but also to address critical legal issues facing ALRP clients today, such as housing and employment discrimination.
ALRP Law Clerk Fellowships:
Law clerks provide critical program support for all ALRP client services, including conducting intakes, handling housing disputes cases and employment discrimination claims, managing insurance/SSI benefits appeals, and writing and research.
