Legal aid is key to fixing pandemic-damaged lives in Washington state

The COVID-19 outbreak has shaken our state, exposing and widening gaps between people with resources and those without. Working-class families face not just health issues, but also challenges in gaining protections that federal and state governments have deemed so important to keep our society, and economy, from spiraling out of control.

We were happy to see the recent allocation of $3 million in state COVID-19 emergency funding to help front-line civil legal aid providers address two critical needs: claiming unemployment insurance and protecting against eviction.

This funding will help families obtain the governmental assistance to which they are entitled to pay for groceries, pay for healthcare needs and stay in their homes.

Since March, more than 1.5 million Washingtonians have filed for unemployment insurance to compensate them for lost jobs, hours and wages. They include retail workers, servers and bartenders, hairdressers, rideshare drivers and many others.

Pierce County and the South Sound have been hit especially hard by the economic consequences of the pandemic.

While the recent allocation of emergency civil legal aid funding is important, it won’t be enough to help thousands of our friends and neighbors who will be confronted with legal issues in the weeks and months to come.

For these people, access to justice will be key to stabilizing their lives.

Civil legal aid is a critical front-line service in this time of crisis, well beyond the important role it serves in our justice system during “normal” times.

Newly unemployed people and their families face evictions, foreclosures, barriers to health care, denials of claims to key government benefits, increasing levels of domestic violence, consumer debt and bankruptcy, among many other problems.

As our state recovers, many will face challenges reclaiming their jobs and ensuring safe working conditions.

Data show the crisis is disproportionately affecting low-wage workers, people without college degrees, people with disabilities and people of color. We know our state has a responsibility to address the inequitable impacts. Civil legal aid is critical to our ability to do so.

In Pierce County and the South Sound, front-line legal aid providers and volunteer lawyers at programs like the Northwest Justice Project and TacomaProBono are working to address the surge of COVID-19 related legal problems.

Despite recent state legislative efforts to address the lack of civil legal aid capacity, we know more will be required as waves of problems resulting from the crisis continue to hit.

Ensuring equal access to justice for everyone helps us all. Every worker able to secure their essential benefits, every resident able to stay safe and healthy in their home, every person protected from violence and instability, reduces the impact of this crisis on our community.

We recognize the critical role that our front-line legal aid providers have and must continue to play as we dig out from this pandemic.

We encourage our federal, state, and local leaders to recognize the relationship between these front-line programs and an inclusive and equitable recovery.

Rob McKenna of Bellevue is a former Washington state attorney general and past co-chair of the Campaign for Equal Justice. Salvador A. Mungia is a Tacoma attorney and chair of the Washington State Access to Justice Board and past co-chair of the Campaign for Equal Justice.