9 | AFFORDABLE HOUSING MARCH 21, 2016 | VOL. 52, No. 12
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HUDSON VALLEY LEGAL ADVOCATES STAND UP FOR WOMEN IN POVERTY BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH
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rdeffenbaugh@westfairinc.com
oanne Sirotkin, the attorney-in-charge of the Legal Services of Hudson Valley’s White Plains office, went to law school with just one focus: domestic violence. After starting her career in private practice, she joined Legal Services of the Hudson Valley in 2013 to work as a domestic violence services attorney manager. While she has since expanded her role, she describes her work with the organization, which handled 2,276 cases involving domestic violence last year, as giving a sense of “spiritual satisfaction.” And that’s the message that Legal Services of the Hudson Valley stresses to clients entering its specialized Domestic Violence
Unit. The unit includes 10 attorneys, four supervisors and three paralegals on staff experienced and dedicated to fighting for victims’ rights. About 70 percent of the nonprofit legal service’s clients are women, and domestic violence cases make up a large chunk of the services Legal Services of the Hudson Valley provides to them. Legal Services of the Hudson Valley offers free legal services to anyone with income at 200 percent or below of the federal poverty level, set yearly by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2016, a single person with an income of $23,600 or less would qualify for the services, as would a family of four with no more than $48,600 in total household income.
From left: attorneys Joanne Sirotkin, Barbara Finkelstein and Jill Bradshaw-Soto at Legal Services of the Hudson Valley in White Plains. Finkelstein is CEO of the nonprofit serving low-income residents in seven counties.
The fact that more than twothirds of the clients who require the legal nonprofit’s services are women matches up with national statistics on women and poverty. In the U.S., women of all races and
demographics are more likely to be poor than their male counterparts. A female-headed household is twice as likely as a male-headed household to be living below the poverty rate, according to a 2015
report by the National Women’s Law Center. In Westchester, 28 percent of female-headed households with children live in poverty, accord» LEGAL SERVICES, page 20
Will minimum wage hike help or hurt New York economy? Experts don’t agree BY BILL HELTZEL bheltzel@westfairinc.com
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o understand what’s at stake if New York adopts a $15 minimum wage, consider home care agencies. The agencies assist elderly, handicapped and chronically
ill people, and enable them to remain independent at home. The services cut health care costs by keeping patients out of more expensive nursing homes and hospitals. Most clients are covered by Medicaid. But funding has not increased in recent years, so as
costs have gone up company profits have been squeezed. “We don’t control our monies,” said Sasha Guillaume, CEO of Mrs. G’s Services, a Port Chester home care agency that serves about 600 clients in New York City, the Hudson Valley and Long Island. “If we don’t get additional funds, everything will become extremely difficult.” MaryEllen Gibbs is a home care companion who makes $10 an hour. Last year, including overtime, she cleared $24,000. That’s not enough, she said. Her rent has doubled in the past decade but her wages have
barely budged. She depends on friends to help occasionally with rent, phone bills and keeping the electricity on in her $1,510 a month Riverdale apartment. “I’m living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “I can’t keep going back to my friends.” The realities of the home care industry reflect two different economic views that could soon be tested in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed raising the minimum wage to $15 from $9, to be phased in over three years in New York City and over five years in the rest of the state. Cuomo and legislative
leaders are secretly negotiating the issue as they close in on April 1, the beginning of the state’s fiscal year. The expected effects of a $15 minimum wage depend on one’s economic philosophy. Progressive economists frame the issue from the point of view of workers. Federal and state minimum wages have not kept pace with inflation, so buying power has eroded. At $9, or $18,720 a year for a full-time employee, a single parent with two children earns less than the official poverty line. The progressive economists believe that higher wages make » WAGE, page 6