Dear Friends,
As we reach the end of 2023, we hope you have been able to take time to unwind and be with those you love. At Bet Tzedek, we continue our fight for justice. December is Universal Human Rights Awareness Month, and we are — as always — helping Angelenos across all communities uphold their rights. Some of the populations whose rights we protect are the unhoused, undocumented immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, workers, tenants, the elderly, Holocaust survivors, small business owners, and more.
A recent human rights victory, with which Bet Tzedek was involved, uplifted our spirits and affirmed our efforts. Working with the Pilipino Workers Center and the California Department of Labor, we helped achieve a landmark $5.5M settlement for essential residential facility care workers.
Ensuring equity and equality is essential to our mission, and we couldn’t do this work without you. This giving season, please help us fight for the rights of Angelenos by making a gift to Bet Tzedek.
| |
You can follow along on our social media accounts, found at the bottom of the page, to see how we fight for human rights every day.
| |
| Bet Tzedek's Work in the News: Landmark Settlement
| |
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — More than $5 million has been awarded to 148 workers who claim they were victims of wage theft. Most of them work as primary caregivers for the elderly.
They are former employees of Adat Shalom Residential Care for the Elderly, and many of them are immigrants from the Philippines.
According to the Pilipino Workers Center, Adat Shalom has rebranded to Land of the Peace assisted living facility. According to Sinagtala Limbo, a former Adat Shalom employee, they had her working 24 hours a day.
The California Labor Commissioner's Office opened its investigation in 2017.
"At Adat Shalom, workers were paid at range of $2.40 to $2.80 per hour with no overtime, no benefits," said Pilipino Workers Center Executive Director Aquilina Soriano Versoza.
“We hope this sends a loud and clear message to residential care home employers,” Bet Tzedek Attorney Yvonne Medrano, who worked on the case, was quoted saying in the LAist. “Pay your workers. If you don't, we will go after you and we will fight vigorously to make sure that workers get money back in their pockets."
| |
Putting Our Clients in the Winner’s Circle
| |
It’s a remarkable story of transformation and triumph, fueled by our generous supporters. Long before the gold medals, Paralympic Champion Breanna and her mother, Rosalyn, first came to Bet Tzedek when they faced a critical turning point in their lives. When Breanna, a girl with a bubbly personality, was diagnosed with autism at four years old, it was an era when autism was a relatively new and mystifying diagnosis, with few available resources.
As she grew up, Breanna, an immensely talented young woman, desired the independence to make her own decisions. However, due to her trusting nature and diagnosis, she was at risk of receiving advice from individuals who may not have her best interests at heart. Recognizing the need to "maintain some kind of connection,” Rosalyn turned to Bet Tzedek for support. Through the conservatorship Bet Tzedek helped them obtain, Breanna's parents gained the legal authority to assist her in making crucial life decisions.
This newfound support led to a remarkable journey. While attending college, Breanna discovered her extraordinary talent in track and field and secured scholarship offers. Guided by her mother and her coaches, Breanna continued her athletic pursuits. In 2016, in Brazil, she clinched a gold medal. She repeated this extraordinary feat in Japan in 2020 and, in a defining moment, broke the Paralympic world record in the 400-meter dash with a time of 55.11 seconds during the 2022 World Championships in Paris.
We are so happy for Breanna’s successes on the field, and her mother’s success in ensuring Breanna’s wellbeing and ability to thrive!
| |
Leaving a Legacy: Ensuring Intergenerational Financial Wellbeing
| |
The County of Los Angeles Department of Consumer and Business Affairs and Bet Tzedek have partnered together to create intergenerational change for the families in our highest needs neighborhoods. The Leaving the Legacy Program will create access to traditionally cost-prohibitive estate planning services and will work to change the perception of estate planning in underserved communities. The project will work to help community members understand the value of their resources and the impact on their families’ futures.
Passing away without a will is one of the factors contributing to the decrease in median wealth (“wealth” defined as the value of assets owned, such as a home) for underserved communities. The median wealth of a Black family, for example, was $24,000 in 2019 (compared to $188,000 for white families), and it was forecasted that this number could fall to zero by the end of 2053 (2017 Institute for Policy Studies & Prosperity Now - The Road to Zero Wealth). This forecast is simply unacceptable. In the U.S., only one-third of Americans have a will, a number that only gets worse for Black and Hispanic communities. This lack of planning represents a loss of opportunity. In the long term, passing away without a will on average subjects the estate to probate costs that amount to 3 to 8 percent of the total estate value, essentially a version of the estate tax for the unprepared.
The Leaving a Legacy Program helps families with all of this. It connects community members to trustworthy legal and estate planning tools and services, including financial tools, estate planning tools, decision-making tools, and more, like help with title transfers, assistance with resolving problems with legal title, legal advice and information, and self-help services.
| |
Help a Pregnant Mom with Young Children Keep Her Housing
| |
Case Description: Ms. A is a Section 8 tenant, married, with two minor children and a baby due in a few months. Her landlord filed an unlawful detainer for nonpayment of rent. Her portion of the rent is $170.00, and she states she did not fall behind on rent. The landlord filed the unlawful detainer case after she filed a complaint with HUD on the habitability conditions of the apartment. Ms. A. feels this is in retaliation because of her complaint. She is seeking help to have the eviction dismissed and the conditions of the apartment corrected.
Work Required & Deadlines: Settlement Negotiations and Full Scope Representation of Unlawful Detainer Case. Work will include preparing pre-trial motions, propounding discovery, and representing the client in court at a jury trial.
If interested, contact Director of Pro Bono Programs, Sara Levine, at slevine@bettzedek.org.
| |
Join the Bet Tzedek Team!
Have a passion for helping underserved residents in the community? Want to work alongside dedicated staff and volunteers who help upwards of 100,000 people per year?
Here are some critical positions we need to fill, plus more (see button below):
| |
Have anything you'd like us to add to future newsletters? Respond to this email.
| |
|
|
|
|
