Powerful Partnerships: Legal Action of Wisconsin

Pathfinders collaborates with organizations across the community to create a strong network of support for our young people. Our partnership with Legal Action of Wisconsin ensures youth have support an advocacy as they navigate the many challenges that come with homelessness. This summer, Legal Action generously provided an intern, Connor Gorrell, to offer support in our Drop-In Center once a week. We spoke with Connor and Legal Action’s Equal Justice Works Fellow, Renee Pasciak, about our partnership.

Renee, what is the mission of Legal Action and how does partnering with Pathfinders help fulfill that mission?

Renee Pasciak: Our mission is to deliver exceptional civil legal services and structural change advocacy, free of cost, to those most in need. We prioritize assisting people with housing, barriers to employment, consumer law, family law and public benefits, and we know that people usually don’t experience just one legal issue. A young person might go to Pathfinders for shelter or social services and realize they could benefit from some legal advice related to eviction, or getting something expunged from their criminal record. We also provide support to victims of crime, in terms of knowing what their rights are and helping them to access those rights. Unfortunately, vulnerable populations tend to be targeted for victimization, including young people and those experiencing homelessness.

How does free legal support impact unhoused young people?

Renee: One of the most important ways it helps is by giving them a sense of control over their lives. Young people are subject to people trying to tell them what to do, rather than listening to what they want and helping to assist with those goals. Free legal support empowers young people to make their own choices. Knowledge is power and helps to reduce stress, especially for young people experiencing homelessness.

Connor, as a Legal Action intern working with youth in Pathfinders’ Drop-In Center, did you notice an overlap between housing instability and the legal challenges faced by our young people?

Connor Gorrell: There is absolutely a large overlap between the legal challenges youth are facing and housing instability. One such systemic flaw is that an unhoused youth who is not accepted to a group home must sit in detention in a juvenile facility until a group home will take them in. However, many youths face abuse, violence and exploitation in these settings, and some leave their group home to escape such conditions. In doing so, every other group home in the state is then allowed to deny that youth service on the grounds of them “running away” from the previous group home, which they only left for their own safety and well-being. In these cases, a capias warrant is put out for the youth, meaning they can either turn themselves in to the courts to be put into detention until a group home eventually allows them in (if one ever does), or avoid being arrested and live unhoused day-to-day trying to find a place to sleep. In many cases, the youth choose living day-to-day over detention, as some youth stay in detention for years at a time while group homes refuse to accept them. Finally, when youths age out of juvenile detention at 18 years old, they are simply released from detention into the world with zero resources, education or knowledge on how to secure safe housing as a legal adult.

What did you learn about Milwaukee’s young people from this experience?

Connor: Milwaukee’s young people are only young by age, as so many of them face conditions and realities that most people never experience. Despite many systemic barriers and being a population prone to exposure to violence and exploitation, these young people still are caring, motivated and stronger than even most adults. While they are mature beyond their years, they are also still just kids who enjoy the same things in life as any young person does. Pathfinder’s youth deserve every opportunity to be young and enjoy life the way most other young people do, and Pathfinders goes a long way in making sure this vision becomes a reality for so many young people in Milwaukee.

Want to hear more about Pathfinders’ community work? Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.