Government Benefits
For those who rely on government benefits to access food, health care, and housing, a disruption in benefits can be catastrophic.
Public benefits such as SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, Medicare, disability benefits, and social security are managed by complex government systems. Many people who are eligible for benefits do not know they are eligible or how to apply. Applications for benefits are routinely incorrectly rejected and require advocacy.
These benefits are lifelines to so many individuals and families experiencing poverty—veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, children, and many others—who rely on them to live full lives.
$5.6M
secured last year in ongoing yearly public benefits for our clients
Services
Our lawyers help clients navigate intricate legal and administrative bureaucratic systems to access the critical services to which they are entitled. NYLAG’s lawyers can help in the following ways:
- Advocating for homecare for seniors to allow them to live safely in their own homes
- Navigating access to shelters for people without homes
- Ensuring that individuals with disabilities receive benefits
- Establishing economic stability for veterans
- Working with immigrants to ensure access to health care, food, and housing
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NYLAG is part of the solution for people using government benefits.
City Limits: New Yorkers See Uneven Improvement in Food Stamp, Cash Assistance Delays
NYLAG’s Deborah Berkman spoke to City Limits for this piece about how tens of thousands of New Yorkers have faced delays to their benefits applications, despite some strides made by the Human Resources Administration after NYLAG’s class action lawsuit in January 2023.
Testimony: City’s Shelter Policies for Recent Immigrants are Discriminatory
NYLAG’s Deborah Berkman testified before the New York City Council Committees on General Welfare and Immigration about the harms of a recently implemented 60-day limit on shelter stays for adult migrants.
Pix11: NYC Must Speed Up Food Stamp Application Processing Amid Backlog, Judge Rules
This Pix11 story covers a court order secured by NYLAG, Legal Aid Society, and Dechert LLP requiring the City to eliminate all SNAP and Cash Assistance delays that have long contributed to food insecurity for low-income New Yorkers.
The work of NYLAG’s Public Benefits Unit is partially funded by Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).
