The “Second Responders” of Natural Disaster Recovery
Earlier this year, from a part of the country so often beset by wildfires, San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh co-wrote about the importance of civil legal aid in the wake of natural disasters. Harbaugh and John G. Levi, the board chair of the federally funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC), wrote of legal aid lawyers as “second responders” who “help survivors navigate the complex and overwhelming legal issues that follow in a disaster’s wake.”
Earlier this month, flash floods brought death and damage to Central Texas, while fatal storm flooding impacted the Carolinas. It has been a hard year in North Carolina, where in 2024 Hurricane Helene wiped homes, and nearly entire towns, off the map.
The Trump administration has proposed dismantling LSC, the main federal funder of legal aid. Congress created LSC in 1974 to administer federal funds, through a competitive grant process, to legal aid organizations in every US state. These organizations exist for one reason: to help Americans who have no money but who have legal problems that could upend their lives. Legal aid represents domestic violence survivors who need protection-from-abuse orders, seniors who get scammed out of their savings, and families who lose their homes to illegal evictions.
LSC and its grantees have also developed expertise as disaster “second responders.” Natural disasters force ordinary Americans to wrestle with extraordinary crises, like destroyed homes, broken-up families, and lost jobs. Legal aid lawyers help people apply for emergency assistance, negotiate with landlords and insurance companies, get new copies of vital documents, and much more.
Just weeks ago, Texan legal aid leaders had gathered with peers from Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina to emphasize disaster legal aid’s importance in vulnerable Southern states. Even before this month’s horrors, Texan legal aid lawyers were helping with a disaster-recovery response to flooding in the Rio Grande Valley. And in North Carolina, legal aid is still ready to help families rebuild their lives, post-Helene.
Here’s more info on what LSC funds do to help Americans after disasters strike. This includes launching Heartland Disaster Help, aimed at helping people in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.
LSC is a wise investment of public resources. Year-round, legal aid efficiently delivers life-stabilizing help to Americans who are enduring disasters, natural and otherwise. Legal aid also embodies one of my favorite American values: reaching out a hand when people get knocked down.
Legal aid is wise, moral, and compassionate. To destroy LSC is foolish—it is to cause a needless, man-made disaster. Let’s be wise, instead: support legal aid in America.
