2024 Annual Appeal
Dear Friends,
When 77-year-old Sharon was released from the hospital after suffering a stroke, the first thing she saw was an eviction notice. In a mere few days, she was going to be locked out of her home of over ten years.
Her landlord had sued to evict her while she was hospitalized.
Sharon was facing a costly eviction. Still recovering from the effects of her stroke, she would have to uproot herself from her home and from her North Philadelphia neighborhood where she had lived for decades. The neighborhood where she and her late husband had raised their children and welcomed their grandchildren.
That was when she reached out to SeniorLAW Center.
Our staff attorneys immediately filed a petition in Municipal Court to put a temporary halt to the eviction process and to contest the judgment. At the hearing, we negotiated for Sharon to be able to stay in her home, with a lifetime lease at an affordable rental rate.
Thanks to support from generous people like you, Sharon had the representation she urgently needed to fight the eviction – at no cost to her. Now, she can stay in her home and in her community, where the neighbors call her “Mom,” and stop by to ask how she’s doing or if she needs anything from the store.
She doesn’t have to pack up her life and look for a new house – at her age, with a walker, thrown out with an eviction on her record. She can have what we all want: to age in place, with dignity and respect, with all the comforts of home.
This is the difference that your gift makes at SeniorLAW Center.
This is the difference that your gift makes at SeniorLAW Center. For Sharon – for the thousands of older adults we serve each year – it is simply life-changing.
The need for SeniorLAW Center’s legal services is immense. The older people we serve live in or near poverty. Many are homebound, disabled, or in poor health. They are vulnerable to elder abuse, financial exploitation, housing discrimination, and homelessness.
Through your support, our staff of nonprofit attorneys and advocates provide services in all of these areas and many more, serving over 10,000 individuals each year in Philadelphia, the 5-county region, and – through our statewide SeniorLAW HelpLine – all of Pennsylvania.
A gift from you means that older members of our community have somewhere to turn to for help, for justice. So that during some of the most difficult situations of their lives – being abused by a loved one, fearing the foreclosure of their family home, or trapped in an unnecessary guardianship – they won’t have to struggle to navigate the legal system alone.
Your gift makes sure of that.
Will you be there for those who need us most?
I want you to know that the impact of your gift extends beyond our clients. Through our advocacy work, we help change systems and laws which affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of older adults, families, and kids.
You ensure that their voices – their needs – are heard.
Our work depends on you – and caring people like you – to join us in making our vision a reality: a world that values older people, hears their voices, and guarantees their rights.
It’s a world where older adults who are abused or financially exploited can get the legal protection they need to live with safety and dignity. Where grandparents have the resources to raise grandchildren who have been abandoned, abused, or neglected. And where a 77-year-old widow – regardless of her income – can fight an unjust eviction.
Will you join us in support of that vision? We would be so grateful if you would make a gift of $50, $75, $100, or more.
Our work depends on you – and caring people like you – to join us in making our vision a reality.
Thank you for being there for vulnerable older Pennsylvanians, and for believing in SeniorLAW Center’s vision.
Very truly yours,
Karen C. Buck, Esq.
Executive Director
P.S. “I’m glad that I found SeniorLAW Center,” Sharon told us. But there are so many more who don’t find us.
Your gift won’t just support the work that we do. You’ll also help us spread the word about our services in the community, so that older Pennsylvanians have somewhere to turn to when they are exploited, neglected, illegally kicked out of their home
Please make your tax-deductible gift today so that we can reach those who need us most.
Make an online donation by clicking here. Thank you!