After meeting with advocacy groups, two issues that have emerged as the most pressing are legal services needed for homeless transgender people, men and women who identify as being of a gender different from the one they were born into.
"There's a large population in the city of homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth who have been sort of abandoned by their families, especially the transgender youth," said Aaron Merki, 24, a third-year student at the University of Maryland School of Law, one of the organizers of the project.
With homeless youths, issues include discrimination in the foster care system and schools, Merki said. Other groups in need of services include immigrants trying to join their partners in this country or trying to stay here with their partners, and those facing employment and housing discrimination, Kershner said.
Philadelphia-based Equality Advocates Pennsylvania opened in 1996. The nonprofit group, which serves the whole state, does legal work in addition to working on policy reform.
It received 600 to 700 calls for assistance last year, the majority dealing with employment and family issues, said Stacey Sobel, executive director of the group.
About 80 of those callers received free legal services. The remainder received lawyer referrals or other information, Sobel said.
Lizza Robb is among the hundreds who have received legal services from the group. The 32-year-old Philadelphia resident first used the clinic about five years ago when she and her partner wanted to have the same last name.
"We were faced with the prospect of paying a lot of money to get a name change," Robb said.
Later, they used the center for a donor contract and adoption of their child, and then for wills and a domestic partnership agreement.
"Really, without their services, we wouldn't have been able to do it," Robb said. "Clinics like that are really important. Before, I thought they would focus on higher-profile things. But in reality, one of the biggest impacts they have is just helping normal people get normal things that we should be getting anyway."
In addition to providing legal services, the Maryland project will attempt to quantify a sprawling population that often goes unnoticed, Merki said.
"These communities have been ignored for so long," he said. "We know they're here. So we really need to nail down who they are, where they are, what they're doing and what they need."
sumathi.reddy@baltsun.com
