ALMOST 200 vulnerable community members could miss out on receiving free legal help over the next year when covid-related funding to Canberra Community Law ceases on June 30, says its executive director and principal solicitor Genevieve Bolton.

It’ll come after the free, independent legal service, that’s run by community managed boards, had already been struggling with funding reductions over recent years, she says. 

However, the service, which is the only ACT service that specialises in housing, Centrelink, disability and racial discrimination law, and homelessness law, will face one of its biggest funding hits at the end of this month, when it will be forced to decrease its service delivery capacity by 20 per cent.

“In the last financial year, we provided free legal help to 859 clients – 93 per cent were experiencing financial disadvantage and 68 per cent were experiencing, or at risk of homelessness,” Genevieve says.

“If this 20 per cent reduction in our services occurred last year, this would have meant that 170 of some of the most vulnerable in our community would not have been able to access a lawyer to help with their legal problem. 

“Without ongoing funding it is inevitable that many people will miss out on free legal help.”  

But the days are running out and Canberra Community Law still doesn’t know if the ACT government will give them the $550,000 they need. 

“$550,000 is not going to meet the demand we’re going to need but it will make up for the shortfall that we’re currently facing,” Genevieve says.

“That [money] will enable us to maintain current staffing levels at a time that we continue to see a significant spike in demand. 

“And to highlight how significant that demand is on our services, at the moment we’ve also got two full-time lawyers from a couple of the big Canberra law firms working here pro bono, and we’re still struggling to keep up with demand even having those additional lawyers so I can only imagine what’s going to happen if that money is not found.”

Without the funding, Genevieve’s greatest concern is that Canberra Community Law will have far less capacity to provide the much-needed ongoing support and representation that their client group really needs. 

“We run an advice line for initial advice but what it’s going to mean is our capacity to do the follow-up work is going to be significantly reduced and that’s going to lead to prolonged homelessness, people being at a high risk of eviction and people not having legal issues resolved at the earliest opportunity,” she says.  

“There will be nowhere else for them to go for assistance with those matters. It’s ultimately going to cost the ACT government more by way of community-based support.”

Demand has always been going up for their services but there’s been a significant hike since the onset of covid last March, Genevieve says.

“There’s also a housing crisis in the ACT at the moment in terms of public housing stock and crisis accommodation,” she says.

“It’s almost impossible to access crisis accommodation and there’s very limited public housing stock at present which has generated a lot of work for us in terms of people contacting us seeking our advocacy for them to get onto the most urgent list.”

The end of the rental eviction moratorium has increased workloads, too, she says. 

“Recently our ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) duty lawyer has seen their workload doubled with Housing ACT bringing applications to ACAT where rental arrears are very high due to delayed debt recovery action,” she says. 

The service has also seen an increase in helping more people with Centrelink debt, as Services Australia has started to recover debts – many of which were still being accrued during the debt recovery pause, unbeknown to clients, Genevieve says.

“This has resulted in our clients being very distressed at the high debt  amounts, especially now that the covid payments have stopped and they receive less money,” she says. 

“The ending of JobKeeper has also seen people needing to access Centrelink for the first time and requiring assistance to navigate a complex system.” 

Other areas where Canberra Community Law is seeing demand are with people with disability seeking employment discrimination advice around flexible working arrangements to accommodate their disability as COVID-19 restrictions ease, and there has been an increase in demand from people in the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) seeking out services. 

Donations can be made by calling 6218 7900 or via canberracommunitylaw.org.au

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