Search Client Stories :: Alliance for Equal Justice

A disabled senior in Grays Harbor County sought legal help when he received an eviction notice from the manager of his public housing unit without a clear explanation of what he had allegedly done to violate his lease. The eviction notice came just a few weeks after the tenant posted notices...

A Whatcom County grandmother who assumed the responsibility to provide care and shelter for her grandchildren sought legal help when her Section 8 rent assistance was terminated. Although she had a notarized statement authorizing her custody, the housing authority claimed fraud because school records listing their mother?s address had not been...

A Yakima-area Native American, who had suffered a stroke, sought legal help for estate planning. He was unable to speak and partial paralysis seriously impaired his ability to write. A legal aid attorney worked through his family tree to help put his wishes on paper. Through his will, the man?s Federal...

A Snohomish County senior was denied Medicaid coverage for a prescribed medication that she needed to stay awake. While the medication was initially not Medicaid eligible, the state subsequently added the drug to the preferred list, allowing for payment coverage. The client, however, was having problems with enrollment in the Medicare...

A Klickitat County grandmother sought legal help to obtain custody of her two grandchildren because neither parent was a suitable custodian for the children due to drug use, mental health problems, and criminal activity. With the help of a legal aid attorney to draft the documents, arrange for service of the...

A senior couple in Thurston County was rendered homeless by an unscrupulous landlord who rented them an uninhabitable unit in a condemned building. A legal aid attorney helped the couple obtain relocation costs pursuant to the new Washington Residential Landlord Tenant Act. When the landlord refused to pay, legal aid started...

A Wenatchee senior sought legal help after falling victim to a telephone solicitation scam. The man, who was recently released from the hospital and feeling anxious about his mounting medical bills, received an unsolicited phone call from a lender?s agent offering to consolidate his debt. He was pressured into purchasing credit...

A Clark County senior sought help when his account was sent to collections. He had agreed to the installation of a satellite dish when a salesman came to his home, but he terminated the service one day later when the products that were installed were not the products that were promised....

Mary, a senior living in Grays Harbor, made repeated requests to her landlord for much needed repairs to her apartment. The stove was dangerous, and neither the range nor the oven worked properly. Cockroaches infested Mary’s home. Her toilet leaked, her front door lock was broken, and the door didn’t even...

A 73-year-old woman from King County was denied Medicaid coverage for a temporary cast metal denture. The woman required a replacement of her denture, which she had had for 37 years as a result of a car accident when she was younger. DSHS maintained that the denture was not medically necessary....

An elderly Pierce County woman sought legal help when she had no money for food because her Social Security representative payee was improperly withholding her Social Security benefits. The payee repeatedly told the woman that a portion of her Social Security was deposited into her checking account managed by the payee,...

A Pierce County senior, who suffers from severe depression, sought legal help when she learned she had been removed from the housing authority?s waiting list. The housing authority removed the woman?s name from the list after documents it mailed to her last known address were returned with no forwarding address. The...

An 80-year-old tribal elder residing in a Burlington assisted-living facility sought legal help to get a will. Plagued with many debilitating heath problems, she was immobile but articulated the need to maintain family ownership of her Federal Indian Trust land on the Swinomish Indian Reservation which had been held by her...

Child Protective Services referred a 64-year-old Asotin woman to legal aid to help get custody of her two young grandchildren, ages three and five. The children?s parents are homeless, addicted to meth and were moving the children from one house to another, wherever they could find a place to stay. The...

An east King County elderly individual received an enormous water bill that turned out to be due to a leak in the apartment complex. The landlord originally agreed to pay the difference, but then asked this senior to move and said he would not pay for the bill. A private volunteer...