Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service
The Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS) is the largest pro-bono legal services organization in Maryland and its small, paid staff leverages a large network of volunteer lawyers to provide free legal assistance to people who otherwise would not have access to an attorney. Funding from the Abell Foundation will support the rebuild of MVLS’ CLUE (Client Legal Uitlity Engine) data scraping tool. CLUE is owned by MVLS and used by many community partners to scrape public data from the Maryland Judiciary Case Search to support social justice reform. MVLS and its community partners have used CLUE to assist in areas such as identifying class action lawsuits, bail reform, consumer debt issues, and fine and fees related to court proceedings.
The Baltimore Station
The Baltimore Station provides residential treatment for over 250 men annually. It operates out of two facilities in Baltimore City (South Baltimore and Sandtown-Winchester) providing 144 beds for men in recovery. Funding from the Abell Foundation will support start-up operations for an on-site Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program (PRP) to help its clients transition successfully to permanent housing.
ACLU Foundation of Maryland, Inc.
On-going support for ACLU’s criminal justice program to include efforts around expanding parole opportunities for individuals sentenced to life sentences and encouraging meaningful family and community connections for incarcerated individuals.
Office of the Mayor
Funding from the Abell Foundation will support the salary of a Warrant Service Analyst who will assit with evalutating and reconfiguring Baltimore City’s warrant service to focus on violent and repeat offenders. By prioritizing warrants, the Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department increase the likelihood that law enforcement will catch violent and repeat offenders and will help both agencies more effectively deploy limited resources.
Light of Truth Center, Inc.
The Light of Truth Center has been providing safe, supportive housing to women in recovery since 1999. Funding from the Abell Foundation will support increasing the hours of its clinical supervisor and staff to align with COMAR requirements. This will allow LTC to bill for and provide Intensive Outpatient Treatment (IOP) and Outpatient (OP) level of substance abuse treatment on-site to its clients and members of the surrounding community.