Anthony Young sleeps on an air mattress in his barren apartment. He's living a sparse life while he waits for his wife and young teen daughter, who live in Yuma, to join him here, and eventually in a house.
Living a bare-bones existence, separated from his family, is congruous to the spartan organization Young leads.
Since last June, Young, 47, has been executive director of the Southern Arizona Legal Aid Society, a non-profit organization providing legal counsel to people who can't afford it. As social and economic indicators go up and down — many of them pointing to a recession — more people are forced to ask for free legal services.
"That's the reality," Young said.
But what is not increasing is the level of legal advocacy for the jobless and working poor. Even families considered middle-income are losing their stability of home and income and are knocking on Legal Aid's Downtown door.
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Young, a housing lawyer with a drive to open the legal system to low-income residents, said there are myriad issues facing people who need legal representation.
Take a home-sale contract. It's a legal document.
Mortgage companies, banks and lenders, and realty companies all have lawyers who can interpret and understand the contract's language, Young said. But most buyers, especially those at the low end of the housing market, cannot afford a lawyer to translate the paperwork, he said.
"The number one complaint is that they (home buyers) didn't understand the document," said Young, who works in rented Downtown offices at Broadway and Scott Avenue.
As the subprime housing crisis rolls across the land and rocks the state, more Arizonans are realizing they didn't understand their lenders' terms and they are paying for it.
According to a national real estate tracking company, Arizona homeowners are losing their homes to foreclosure at a high clip.
Tucson home foreclosures jumped to 7,372, a 75 percent increase over the past year, according to RealtyTrac of California, a firm that monitors national home foreclosures.
With one in 283 home loans foreclosed, Arizona ranks fourth in the nation, following Nevada, California and Florida. That puts us at nearly double the national average of one in every 538 households receiving a foreclosure notice last month, according to RealtyTrac.
But as foreclosures rise, along with battered homeowners' pleas for legal help, Legal Aid needs relief itself. It has one full-time lawyer who works on housing cases, said Young, who takes on housing cases in addition to his administrative work.
The society has a full-time legal staff of 25 attorneys, he said. The other 24 work on other civil issues involving immigration, family law, consumer protection, public benefits and education.
The legal system should not be closed to people simply because they cannot afford private attorneys, said Young, a 1990 graduate of the University of Nebraska.
Legal advocacy has been Young's passion since then. He worked for Western Nebraska Legal Services before moving to Arizona in 1996 to become managing attorney of Community Legal Services for Yuma and La Paz counties. Last year the State Bar of Arizona honored Young for his work on behalf of low-income residents.
"We make sure their rights are protected," he said.
To bolster Legal Aid's full-time legal staff, more than 1,200 volunteer lawyers and 145 law students assisted clients. Last year, staffers and volunteers resolved nearly 11,800 cases and other matters.
But the society could use more help, Young said.
Staff lawyers start off earning less than $30,000 a year, which makes recruitment and retention difficult, he said. When private law firms can double that or more, legal-advocacy work can't pay the school loans of new lawyers, Young added.
There are efforts to get more public and private financial assistance, in addition to more hours from private lawyers, he said. A fundraising campaign is in the works, he added.
Young said state lawmakers and the public should recognize the importance of legal representation for residents regardless of their income.
Young does. That's why he sleeps on a mattress and dines on his wife's pre-prepared meals, and makes the round-trip drive to Yuma every weekend.
Did you know
In 1951 the Legal Aid Society of the Pima County Bar Association began offering assistance. The wives of Tucson lawyers interviewed applicants, and cases were handled by volunteer attorneys.
In addition to Tucson, Southern Arizona Legal Aid Society has offices in Nogales, Bisbee, Sells, Casa Grande, Sacaton, Whiteriver and Lakeside.
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