A South Carolina Homeless Shelter Has An On-Site Lawyer to Handle Poverty

One80 Place is one of the few shelters across the country that offers on-site legal services.

By Roshan Abraham | July 23, 2021

Excerpt

Jeffrey Yungman, an attorney based in Charleston, South Carolina, is used to clients experiencing homelessness dropping into his office unannounced. Yungman’s legal office is based in a homeless shelter that offers social services, called One80 Place. His work is exclusively dedicated to handling civil legal issues of the shelter’s residents.

One80 Place is one of the few shelters across the country that offers on-site legal services. Yungman and a full-time paralegal are at the shelter five days a week. They host a drop-in legal clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays where any resident of the shelter can come see them about problems they’re having. Another attorney handles veteran’s services, although they are not based at the shelter.

“We have unlimited access to a lot of our clients,” Yungman says.

The location is helpful for people experiencing homelessness, who may not always have a cell phone or be easy to contact. “If we can’t find someone because they don’t have a phone and they live on the street they can pop in anytime,” says LeaAnn Adkins, a paralegal with One 80Place. “They don’t need to be dressed up because it’s a fancy law office downtown.”