TESTIMONY
Elisa Tustian, Supervising Attorney at Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS), on Providing Legal Services to Low-Income Older New Yorkers
2:22:24
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163 sec
Elisa Tustian from Volunteers of Legal Service emphasizes the necessity of legal services for low-income New Yorkers aged 60 and above, especially for immigrants.
- VOLS, established in 1984, partners with private attorneys to offer free legal aid, focusing on life-planning documents like powers of attorney and healthcare proxies.
- Tustian shares examples of clients, including centenarians, highlighting the challenges of planning for the future and the importance of legal support to prevent situations like homelessness.
- The testimony underlines difficulties faced by immigrant clients, such as having no local family, which complicates designating healthcare and financial proxies and leaving assets to relatives abroad.
- Stories illustrate the critical role of having prearranged plans, particularly highlighted by a pandemic-related incident where a client passed away without the necessary authorizations for a friend to handle his remains.
- Tustian calls for continued support for legal services focusing on language access to assist immigrant populations effectively.
Elisa Tustian
2:22:24
Good morning.
2:22:25
My name is Elisa Medsevastastian, and I am the supervising attorney at senior law project at volunteers of legal service.
2:22:33
Vols was established in 1984, and we partner with private attorneys to buy free legal services to low income New Yorkers to help fill the justice gap.
2:22:41
Volley senior law project serves as low income New Yorkers aged 60 plus by providing powers of attorney and healthcare proxies and other essential life planning documents.
2:22:49
We have had many clients this year who which had at least about 5, actually, who are over a hundred years old.
2:22:58
And one of our over a hundred year roads, she needed a POA, a power of attorney, so that someone else could sign her lease for her.
2:23:05
And That way, she would avoid homelessness.
2:23:10
Her her grip was not as strong as it was.
2:23:13
Planning for the future is a hard process.
2:23:15
It is a process that forces older adults to face their mortality and think seriously about who they trust to do these things for them.
2:23:23
And through our program, we think it's very important to have legal services providers that explicitly acknowledge the unique challenges of planning for your future and how immigrants particularly face that challenge.
2:23:41
With our outreach to Latinae and Asian immigrants, we have noticed that our immigrants more often than our non immigrant clients have no family in the United States.
2:23:50
We receive questions during our clinics, throughout the 5 boroughs.
2:23:56
Recently, one of our clients wanted to know how to name her best friend in New York city as a health care and financial proxy because she had no families here and how to leave her modest savings to her niece in China.
2:24:07
Another client asked similarly about a nephew in Colombia.
2:24:11
We help our clients to make sure their last wishes are fulfilled.
2:24:17
As well, we have seen that friends of family members step in as caregivers sometimes.
2:24:22
And so we do outreach specifically to care big givers, but we stress to clients the importance of having these plans set in place beforehand.
2:24:31
Because we have had situations such as in the pandemic where a client's friend had passed away and he was in the morgue for months.
2:24:39
He was in all of that could have avoided, been avoided if he had had a document stating that his friend could handle his remains, but instead, we had to chase authorizations from relatives in Cuba, and the body was in the morgue for months.
2:24:55
Just by understanding our laws better, we can help clients.
2:24:59
And so we ask that you please continue to support legal services that is specifically targeting language access to our immigrant populations.
