YOU PROVIDE JUSTICE.

Because of your support, One80 Place is able to offer more than just shelter to our clients; available are an array of supportive services that are crucial in helping families and individuals maintain their self-sufficiency and housing once out of the shelter. Attorneys Jeff Yungman and Mary Vosburgh and Paralegal Lea Ann Adkins make up the dynamic team that is One80 Place Legal, a service accessible to all guests of our shelter.

Mary, our Staff Attorney for Veterans, focuses on legal issues that impede a Veteran’s ability to end his or her homelessness. Those areas often include SSA disability, VA benefits, child support, eviction proceedings and other landlord/tenant legal issues, helping obtain identification, credit issues, and various other legal issues. A normal day can involve meeting clients either at her office or a place easier for them to access, holding legal clinic on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons to speak with walk-in clients, going to court, reviewing medical records, making phone calls, sending emails, researching issues, making house visits or hospital visits to meet clients if they are not able to come to the shelter, and working closely with case managers on keeping the clients involved in their cases and case plans.

Lea Ann's duties include assisting Mary and Jeff with research, writing, meeting with clients, assisting with clients with disability and benefits claims, assisting clients with obtaining birth certificates and other identification documents, attending court hearings, and generally “smoothing the way for the attorneys’ work.”

While Jeff’s business card reads “Director, One80 Place Legal”, he states that there is no hierarchy within the Legal team. “The three of us work together to solve our clients’ legal issues. We bring our own strengths and personalities to the team and somehow they mesh together into a finely tuned machine.” On any given day, Jeff can be found interviewing clients, writing pleadings, appearing in court, completing legal paperwork, writing letters, answering many phone calls, or writing progress notes.

As a result of their hard work, since 2007, One80 Place has provided legal services to over 3,300 individuals.  The team has created programs such as the Veterans Child Support Initiative, a Veterans Treatment Court, a Homeless Court, and soon a county-wide Eviction Docket at the Magistrate Courts that will increase access to legal services for people at risk of being homeless due to an eviction.

I love the multitude of services available to the homeless population and the way each staff member works together as a team for the benefit of our clients. We are all here to help end homelessness. Each person is a part of the puzzle, and when working together, great things happen for our clients.

-Mary