Pax Christi Long Beach Island Chapter NY

POVERTY

Michah bulletin inserts

Homeless Vets Reveal A Hidden Cost of War

USA Today

I was walking out of a grocery store recently when a homeless man approached me and said, "Excuse me sir, I'm trying to buy some food. Can you help me out?" After talking to him for a few minutes, I discovered that he was a Vietnam War veteran. I gave him a few dollars knowing that my humble contribution might help him eat today. But what about tomorrow? As I drove home, I thought about this man and the countless other homeless veterans who walk our nation's streets looking for a crust of bread and a corner to sleep in. Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the USA, though they are only 11% of the general population, according to The Alliance to End Homelessness.

 I am working as a Downstate Organizer with a group called the Campaign
for an Independent Public Defense Commission, (IPDC) which is trying
to push the governor into adopting the recommendations of the report
to Chief Judge Kaye by the Commission on the Future of Indigent
Defense Services. There is a current legislative proposal (A9806-B) to
create an IPDC to conduct its own study of the current system, with
the mandate to report back to the New York State Legislature . While
supporters of the Kaye Commission recommendations see it as falling
short of their ultimate goal, they are supporting the measure as a
means to further underscore both the problems with the current system
and the path to the resolution.

Negotiations surround the bill to create the IPDC also involve the fate of
nine counties - Albany, Allegheny, Delaware, Fulton, Genesee, Herkimer,
Rockland, Washington and Yates - which are being denied any funds due to
failure to maintenance of effort requirements under the law governing the
Comptroller's Indigent Legal Services Fund, which was created after the
state raised the hourly rates of court-appointed lawyers under County Law
18-b.

The funding issue is part of a larger complaint from counties that public
defense services amount to one of the largest unfunded mandates imposed by
the state, which requires counties to provide the services without
covering their costs. Public defense services cost counties a collective
$260 million in 2006, more than a quarter-billion dollars, while the state
fund, designed to pay for enhancements, kicked in an additional $60
million. The disbursements for last year are being held up because of
disputes surrounding the nine counties which were zeroed out.

In 2008 Council members Miguel Martinez, Alan J. Gerson, and Letitia James
introduced Resolution 1229 which calls for implementation of the Kaye
Commission recommendations, which include the independent public defense
commission. That commission called the state's current county-based system
of providing defense services to poor defendants who can't afford a
private lawyer "an on-going crisis" which doesn't serve the interests of
justice, nor of counties around the state. Because the state tells
counties, including of course the city, to provide the services but does
not pay the costs, the resulting unfunded mandate costs city taxpayers
more than $150 million a year, and statewide costs counties a collective
quarter of a billion dollars to provide the services.


     The biggest cost, of course, is paid by innocent inmates who sit in
prison because of their inability to mount an effective defense. We
have been pressing Governor Patterson to take steps in his budget to
add $6 million to begin the process of creating the IPDC to set
statewide standards for caseload limits and the like, with the eventual
goal of a statewide takeover of the funding and operation of the system.

 We are working with Darryl Towns and the legislature's Black, Puerto
Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus, which has made this a priority for
2008. Several upstate counties have already passed resolutions and more
will be in the upcoming months. I am asking you to join our campaign by
signing the form attached to this email and faxing it over. Over 100
organizations have joined already including the Drug Policy Alliance, the
Correctional Association, The Innocence Project, NAACP New York
Conference, and New York City Council of Churches.

Justice delayed is Justice denied.


Keith L.Kinch
Downstate Coordinator
New York State Defenders Justice Fund
917-344-9019
www.newyorkjusticefund.org

~practice preemptive peace