Nearly every day, Arleen Hernandez battles an aging septic tank that backs up into her toilet and shower. Upon moving to Parklawn in 1986, she didn’t realize her new neighborhood lacks basic public services.
Sheila Hall is director of the HIV/AIDS & Health legal assistance program at the East Bay Community Law Center, the largest provider of free legal services in the East Bay and a nationally recognized poverty law clinic. The center, founded in 1988 by law students at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, serves several thousand low-income clients and community groups each year with legal matters directly affecting their income, shelter and health care. The HIV/AIDS & Health practice offers legal services to HIV-positive clients and their families.