Pro Bono

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal,Georgia
• Citation: Vol. 26 No. 5 Pg. 0052
• Publication year: 2021
• Pages: 0052
• Year: 2021
• topic: Family Law

Pro Bono No. Vol. 26, No. 5, Pg. 52 Georgia Bar Journal April, 2021

Make 2021 the Year of the Unseen Veteran

This year, MLAP and its volunteer lawyers will delve more deeply into legal issues affecting our low-income rural veterans. No one left behind, no veteran left unseen.

BY MIKE MONAHAN

The Pew Research Center reports that U.S. military veterans have consistently had higher standards of living than non-veterans over the past 40 years. The Pew Research Center study also indicates more good news—that "households headed by veterans have higher incomes and are less likely to be in poverty, on average, and this is especially the case for veterans in racial or ethnic minority groups and those with less education."^[1]

Despite the overall good economic health of veterans, the U.S. Census reveals 1.5 million veterans live at or under the federal poverty level in the United States.^[2] In Georgia, more than 52,000 veterans are receiving SNAP (food stamps) benefits—that's about 8% of the state's 625,000 veteran population. It's a population small enough to be politically weak, unseen and ignored.

What would a "New Legal Deal" look like for these unseen 52,000 low- or...