For the past two months, Active Support Against Poverty has been offering help to low-income people facing complex legal problems - and its launch could not have happened at a better time for Amber Mueller.
Finding herself in a dispute with her landlord, the single mother of two children walked into the ASAP office at Sixth and Dominion just two days after the service came into being on January 6.
"I didn't know where to turn, but I did need some kind of help, some kind of advice," Mueller said Tuesday during a media event held to showcase the service.
With the help of Dawana St. Germain, a lawyer working out of ASAP, Mueller filed some appeals related to an eviction notice and took the issue to arbitration.
"Unfortunately, those didn't go in my favour but we did end up going to (B.C.) Supreme Court almost right away and applied for writ of possession to stay and that was really helpful for me because it was able to buy me a little bit of time," she said.
During the reprieve, Mueller was able to scrape enough money together to find a new home.
"It's worked out for us," she said. "I have already and I will continue to point people in this direction. It's something that is needed in town and I was very thankful that I got the help that I did."
Mueller is the first of more than 15 clients who have received assistance through the service at ASAP so far. It's aimed at people on low incomes and in need of help dealing with a range of "poverty law" issues, said ASAP executive director Audrey Schwartz.
"Tenants rights, CPP, welfare, EI, WCB, those kinds of issues, and not at an advocacy level, (but) at that higher level," she said.
Legal aid for criminal matters remains the responsibility of the Legal Services Society.
The program at ASAP comes courtesy of a $250,000 grant from the B.C. Law Foundation. The non-profit organization takes interest accrued in lawyers' pooled trust accounts and, in turn, distributes those funds by way of grants.
Similar ones are either up and running or are about to get going in Kamloops, Kelowna and Surrey while one specializing in tenants rights is based in Vancouver but with the ability to serve the rest of the province.
Those seeking help can simply drop into the ASAP office but they must go through a review that looks at their income, assets and what their legal problem is.
Attorney General David Eby and B.C. Law Foundation executive director Josh Paterson were on hand for the event.
Eby said he has come across similar programs in other provinces and along with aiding people in need, he said they provide opportunities for articling law students and junior lawyers.
Paterson said the clinics will add lawyers to the existing non-lawyer advocates the BCLF has supported for many years.
