Medical joins with legal to aid clients

Maria Castilleja’s heart sunk, she says, when housing authorities threatened to oust her out from her apartment because she forgot to report a $5 increment in food stamp benefits.

Castilleja, 58, had been living at Paseo de Plaza apartments on Paredes Line for at least three years under Section 8, a federal housing program that provides assistance to low-income renters and homeowners. The eviction notice came in the mail for her in May — nearly a year after her food stamp benefits increased by a few dollars, as they do every year, she said.

“The letter said I had failed to report an increase in benefits, and that we had 30 days to get out. It was only a few dollars. I had completely forgotten to report it,” said Castilleja, who took in her three grandchildren after her daughter died of cancer seven years ago. “I was desperate, we had nowhere to go. ... I cried a lot.”

The family would have moved out had a neighbor not taken Castilleja to the Brownsville Community Health Center — not just to treat her anxiety but to provide her with legal help through the hospital’s Medical-legal Partnership.

For years, the traditional health-care system and the legal system have treated low-income, underserved populations in isolation, despite the strong connection between social stressors and health, partnership members said. But the health center’s medical-legal partnership, which was founded in Brownsville in 2008, allows doctors and attorneys to work together to help patients like Castil-leja.

“(It takes) a holistic approach to help vulnerable populations, providing health and legal aid services so that legal issues are not an impediment to treatment,” said David Hall, executive director for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, the agency that joined with the city’s health center for the program.

The partnership has been a “resounding success” thus far, said Hall, who has been in touch with organizations looking to imitate the health-legal services model in Hidalgo and Bexar counties.

Indeed, raising awareness of the program is not a problem, but resources are, he said. In the Brownsville area alone, there is only one attorney for every 25,000 potential clients, he said.

Medical professionals say they too have seen the importance of the program through the high number of clients in just the last two years, said Paula Gomez, executive director for the Brownsville Community Health Center. The program’s mission also has helped medical professionals look into other issues that might be hurting the patient aside from the illness, she said.

“When patients come in, they tell you they hurt some place, but they don’t always tell you the real story behind their hurt,” Gomez said. A child with a stomachache, for instance, might not just be hurting from an infection, she explained. He or she might be over-hearing their parents speak about financial problems at home.

“I think (the partnership) offers one more avenue that helps the family solve some of their problems and do better physically and emotionally,” she said.

Castilleja said she has been more than helped, she has been “blessed.” Attorneys from Texas RioGrande Legal Aid helped her sign a settlement with housing authorities to get her benefits back.

“I am a very timid person. I would just have accepted what was happening to me,” she said. The attorneys “helped me out so much, and I am thankful.”

julloa@brownsvilleherald.com