2020
Annual Report & Financials
Part of being good stewards of the trust our donors place in us is to make sure we are spending your money and our time on the things that give us the most return on investment. So instead of a high gloss, 20-page annual report, we thought it would be better to focus our energy on making our website more useful. For example, we can summarize and link to full reports or more details and simultaneously demonstrate transparency to the public. Plus, as an added bonus, we can adopt an open advocacy model (where we share our work) so that it can serve as a teaching tool for other justice seekers.
And since this saves us a ton of time and money, we can use more of your generous donations on doing what you are paying us to do... untangle the mess of policies and laws that keep people poor.
program highlights
Street Outreach Court Detroit read the full report
Revised and streamlined SOCD process to continue program despite pandemic-related issues, resulting in 96 people "graduating" from the program
Provided technical assistance to Flint, MI as they opened their homeless court in October
Provided technical assistance to Oklahoma City, OK regarding pandemic-related process changes
Started conversation with Marquette, MI social service and legal community about starting a homeless court
Started development of app to streamline back-end processing of homeless court cases
Veterans Law Project learn more
Extended partnership with VOA to June 2022
campaign & advocacy wins
BLM / Police Reform / Decriminalization
Advised on fair and impartial policing policy in Lansing Township
Sent letter with ACLU, NLCHP, and Street Medicine to Detroit calling for ending inhumane homeless sweeps resulting in modified police procedure
Advised and testified on decriminalization and police reform bills
Started pursuit of impact litigation regarding the doctrine of abatement (i.e. stopping all prosecution) on charges that later have been decriminalized, in this case marijuana possession
Court Watch
Led grassroots advocacy to persuade Governor to veto SB420, a bill that would have turned courts into bill collectors
Functional Sentencing learn more
Created Action Plan to link community and defense, webpage having 408 unique views and 31% interaction rate
Created continuing legal education materials and in-court materials for defense counsel
Presented CLE to Kalamazoo Defender
Started development of app to ease adoption of functional sentencing
Public Benefits
Advocated for Michigan Public Service Commission to include rate information on their list of Lifeline (i.e. Obamaphone) providers
Provided grassroots partners and policy orgs with legal strategy to allow SNAP use for grocery delivery
ReThink Education
Helped negotiate and draft settlement terms in right to literacy case before the US 6th Circuit
Convened our 5th Rethink Summit and addressed discipline issues related to pandemic
Voting Rights
Developed simplified poll worker training materials and accessibility checklist
Presented poll worker training materials to city clerks association
Participated in Election Day Observer with Michigan Department of State, NAACP
Participated in non-partisan absentee ballot counting observation with Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
internal updates
Conducted internal racial equity assessment, adopting policies to use market power to advance racial equity and promote within existing vendors and to develop capacity and leadership potential of staff; Expanded board membership to include lived experience; Hired consultant to assist with funding development and implementation of more formalized business operations.
Financials
financial statements (forthcoming), 990 (forthcoming)