Courage, said Ernest Hemingway, is grace under pressure. There were more than 200 people gathered at St. Elisabeth church in the San Fernando Valley on a winter evening in 2009, and they were all under immense pressure. It was more than a year into the economic downturn, and the housing market had collapsed. Almost everyone… Read more »
Jenny Pho Hua was terrified of losing her father. In the middle of successful treatment for an aggressive cancer, his insurance disrupted his care and forced him to seek treatment with unqualified physicians. Jenny worked tirelessly to get her father’s treatment restored, but nothing worked. That’s when she reached out to NLSLA.
Anabeht and Armando Velasco were among the many families in Los Angeles facing foreclosure because of their bank’s systematic disregard of federally-backed loan modification agreements and repeated attempts to foreclose on the homes of compliant borrowers. Their case underscored a widespread and pernicious practice whereby banks enter into loan modification agreements with eligible homeowners while… Read more »
For years, families in the Antelope Valley participating in the Section 8 program watched with fear as their community turned against them, as their city leaders instituted policies that stripped them of their rights, as the very program designed by the federal government to help them was used to push them out of their neighborhood… Read more »
Ms. King suspected her children’s respiratory illnesses were connected to the broken pipes and mold in her apartment. Unable to get her landlord to address these problems, she continued to bring her children to St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, a community clinic in South Los Angeles, to treat their respiratory symptoms. After learning… Read more »
When Louise Reaves’ daughter could no longer take care of her own young child, Louise knew she could give the three-year-old girl a stable, loving home. But she soon found herself unable to navigate a time-consuming, financially debilitating custody case. “I was going through a hard time emotionally, financially,” she said. “I just didn’t know… Read more »
Alice* was still living in the Middle East when she met the American man who would become her husband. She couldn’t have imagined back in those early days of courtship—before they were married and she moved to the United States to be with him—that the man she was falling in love with would soon become… Read more »
Evelyn Carpio, a single mother who receives government assistance to supplement wages from her job, was surprised when her benefits card was denied at a grocery store due to insufficient funds. Carpio soon learned that her monthly benefits had been withdrawn in their entirety earlier that day, likely through a pernicious practice called “skimming,” whereby… Read more »
Although Sara Ribeiro had worked with victims of domestic violence in her native Colombia, she did not recognize the signs of instability and potential for violence in her own marriage until she herself became a victim. Ms. Ribeiro’s husband, an American Citizen she married in 2007, was an alcoholic. His addiction and consequential abuse soon… Read more »
Ms. Pui Ling Wong thought she had to stay silent about the abuse she was facing at work. Her employer at the garment factory where she prepared and packaged clothing for shipping routinely failed to pay workers required minimum and overtime wages to which they were entitled. Factory working conditions were often detrimental to workers’… Read more »