LSHV Receives Grant to Support Families

WHITE PLAINS – Legal Services of the Hudson Valley (LSHV), the only provider of comprehensive civil legal services to those that cannot afford it in the seven counties of the lower and mid-Hudson Valley, recently received a generous grant of almost $14,000 from the MBIA Foundation.  Representatives from the MBIA Foundation in Purchase met with LSHV staff to show their support for the non-profit’s Housing Stability Program for Westchester Families.

Through this program, LSHV promotes household and community stabilization by assisting low-income Westchester residents with foreclosure counseling, mortgage modification and eviction prevention to ensure their rights are preserved.  Ultimately, this program reduces homelessness, stabilizes communities, and keep families in their homes so they can retain and build assets and break the cycle of poverty.
With the gap separating those who can and cannot afford legal representation widening each day, LSHV fights to keep thousands of low-income families in their homes and prevent foreclosures and halt evictions, preserving the most basic necessity of life – shelter – for as many families and individuals as possible.  LSHV is the only provider of comprehensive civil legal services to all seven counties of the lower Hudson Valley (Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, Orange, Ulster and Sullivan).

LSHV’s services are available to clients living at/or below 200% of Federal Poverty Income Guideline level (FPIG) or $48,600 for a family of four.  In Westchester alone, 226,456 people live at/or below this threshold.  These low-income residents desperately need civil legal services to advocate and fight for their basic human rights.  Furthermore, the need is especially stark for children in Westchester, where 13% of children (29,319) live in poverty (1 in 8 children) and 1 in 4 children live at/or below 200% of the FPIG Level.  Children living in poverty are vulnerable and voiceless when their basic rights to family/home safety and security, disability services, healthcare, education and benefits are threatened or removed. They grow up experiencing life as a series of volatile situations over which neither they nor their caregivers have any control.  Studies have shown this repetition of volatility hinders children living in poverty from developing a sense of themselves as free individuals capable of making choices and acting on them to shape their lives.  Children raised in poverty are also at an increased risk for a range of health and social problems, including poor performance in school children living in poverty are at least twice as likely to be kept back in school.

“We are truly honored to partner with our friends at the MBIA Foundation to assist our less-fortunate neighbors improve their lives and continue to provide shelter for their families,” said LSHV’s Chief Development Officer, Tom Gabriel.   “Last year, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley positively impacted the lives of more than 32,500 people throughout our seven-county service area, and we would not be able to do so without the MBIA Foundation’s continued support.”