Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy among nonprofits facing Trump’s funding cuts
The Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy is concerned that federal funding cuts will prevent them from helping people in ways they long have.
CCLA has represented low-income people in Charlotte and the region since 1967. Its attorneys and other staff have helped homeless veterans get housing, represented unaccompanied child migrants in court, protected people from scams with a consumer protection division and shepherded seniors through tax disputes, among other things.
The nonprofit has also filed major lawsuits, including one that ended in 2022 with North Carolina Medicaid settling and agreeing to change how it determines eligibility. That came after the center alleged benefits were being reduced and terminated unfairly.
Now, many of the nonprofit’s programs and its legal work are at risk, some of its staff told The Charlotte Observer. Grant cuts have already happened, and more could be on the way later this year.
It has been a “rollercoaster,” interim Chief Operating Officer Cassidy Estes-Rogers said.
The CCLA will be affected by plans to cut a Medicaid enrollment program it participates in by 90 percent, Estes-Rogers said.
The government has also issued stop-work orders before quickly lifting them, she said. A $230,000 contract for refugee resettlement work by the center has been canceled.
“You hate to speculate and deal in hypotheticals, but if all of it went away, that would be a material impact,” said Alex Castle, the finance committee chair for the nonprofit’s board of trustees.
He said state and county grants and private funding help the CCLA, too. But those won’t make up for large federal cuts.
One unique problem CCLA faces since it offers legal services: While funding ends, people’s lives continue, center staff said. Civil court cases, for example, take years to complete. There are rarely clean breaks.
The CCLA recently helped two children from Honduras explain in immigration court why they and their parents should be allowed in the United States. Their father was being extorted in Honduras, and their mother had been attacked. The family got their initial papers to stay, Chief Financial Officer Kelly Lynn said.
“There’s still more work to be done for the whole family,” she noted.
Helping a vet with PTSD
In another case, Estes-Rogers represented a homeless Navy veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, she said. He got an “other than honorable” discharge from the military after he smoked marijuana to cope with his trauma from combat, she said. Estes-Rogers and the CCLA represented him and got him veteran benefits that he had missed out on.
That case took about five years.
“We still have relationships with these clients,” said Castle, the finance committee chair. “We still have their files. These cases may be open and ongoing. They don’t just go away… It’s not a cut and dry, clean break-type scenario for anyone that’s affected by the loss of these services. This is about the clients. Our clients are our mission.”
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.