Open AccessNational Survey of Legal Clinics Housed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to Inform Partnerships with Health and Community Services
Author(s) -
Christine Timko,
Emmeline Taylor,
Amia Nash,
Daniel M. Blonigen,
David Smelson,
Jack Tsai,
Andrea K. Finlay
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of health care for the poor and underserved
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.511
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1548-6869
pISSN - 1049-2089
DOI - 10.1353/hpu.2020.0104
Subject(s) - veterans affairs , medicine , mental health , family medicine , health care , nursing , political science , psychiatry , law
Legal clinics housed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) help veterans eliminate service access barriers. In this survey of 95 VA-housed legal clinics (70% of clinics), clients' legal problems were mainly estate planning, family, obtaining VA benefits, and housing (14-17% of clients). Most clinics rarely interacted with VA health care providers, did not have access to clients' VA health care records, and did not track clients' VA health care access (58-81% of clinics); 32% did not have dedicated and adequate space. Most clinic staff members were unpaid. Survey findings-that most VA-housed legal clinics do not interact with VA health care or directly address clients' mental health and substance use needs, and lack funds to serve fully all veterans seeking services-suggest that VA and community agencies should enact policies that expand and fund veterans' legal services and health system interactions to address health inequities and improve health outcomes.