LSNYC targets the most pressing problems of low income people. We stop foreclosures with the largest foreclosure-prevention team in the country. Our housing practice prevents the evictions of thousands of low-income tenants and their families, forces the repair of unsafe living conditions, and preserves affordable housing. We secure safe environments and financial stability for victims of domestic violence and their children, and help to stabilize immigrant and other families. Our education practice secures access to education and protects students' rights by stopping inappropriate school discipline. We ensure that students with special education needs have access to meaningful education. We help low-income, uninsured people who are seeking access or trying to keep public health insurance benefits and partner with health care providers so that patients get needed legal assistance. LSNYC’s Disability Benefits, Public Assistance, Unemployment and Employment, Pension, Consumer, Tax and Bankruptcy practices and projects ensure that thousands of low-income families each year can secure and keep essential sources of subsistence income. We coordinate services across practice areas for especially vulnerable populations; our Veterans Justice Project, LGBT Coordinating Committee and HIV/AIDS Practices are examples.
In all of our work, we challenge systemic injustice and try to expand our impact by challenging the laws, policies and practices that hurt low income New Yorkers. Our work fights discrimination and helps to achieve equal opportunity and racial, social and economic justice for all New Yorkers.
To improve our ability to carry out our mission, Legal Services NYC operates the largest poverty law training program in the country, through which we provide cutting edge substantive law and practice skills training to our staff and to the entire poverty advocacy community in New York City.