Free Legal Services for Seniors

I learned today (from an article in this week's Carmel Pine Cone) about a Legal Services for Seniors, a non-profit group that offers free legal representation to seniors age 60. While their focus is on low-income seniors, anyone age 60 and over who is a resident of Monterey County qualifies.

It's a non-profit organization funded by the state bar association, state and local government grants, and private donations. Their mission is to prevent elder abuse in all its forms, and a large portion of their caseload is representing seniors who have been targeted by frauds and scams. They can also help with things like Social Security disputes, heath care and housing rights, wills, probate, guardianships, and other issues primarily affecting seniors. In some cases, they'll even go to court with you.

According to their website,

Each year, an estimated 5 million, or 1 in 10, older Americans are abused, neglected, and exploited. In addition, seniors throughout the United States lose an estimated $2.6 billion or more annually due to elder financial abuse and exploitation, funds that could have been used to pay for basic needs such as housing, food, and medical care.

Unfortunately, no one is immune to abuse, neglect, and exploitation. It occurs in every demographic, and can happen to anyone—a family member, a neighbor, even you.

As much as we don't want to, unfortunately we're all getting older. It's nice to know that a service like this is available. If you know someone who could use some legal help, set up an appointment with Legal Services or stop by one of their outreach sites.

A little bit of rain

Light rain today.

Not nearly enough to relieve the drought, but every little bit helps. My garden is looking much greener.
When I started putting together The Monterey Life, it was my intention to post something at least 3-4 times a week. But sometimes life gets in the way, and I haven't done very well at keeping up with the posts. It's not like I haven't been doing anything though...I've been learning about the biggest Monterey lifestyle issue -- the looming water shortage. If we have to deal with 70% water supply cutbacks, living here is not going to be that much fun anymore.

While still living in Seattle, as we were considering moving to Monterey I became vaguely aware that there were concerns about water, and that there were plans being discussed to build a desalination plant. We came down to look at houses and our realtor, a lifelong resident, shrugged it off...."yeah, they've been arguing about that since I was a kid, and probably always will." I figured it would get sorted out in the end and didn't give it much thought since then. But with the drought dragging on, I started wondering about it, and decided to do a little research.

I started reading about the various proposals. As I read web sites and news articles, I would run across terminology, or references to past events and other projects I didn't know about, and that would take me in a new direction. Soon my head was spinning with information. I started keeping notes in One Note, and, because I can't help myself, I soon found myself organizing it all into categories. It occurred to me that others might be interested in all of this info, and an even better way to organize it would be to put it in a blog.


So I started a second blog...the Monterey Peninsula Water Spot.

The websites for various community-based advocacy groups also have lots of great information about the water supply issue. However, they are all advocating a particular position. My purpose was merely to obtain as much information for myself as I could. Eventually I will probably form an opinion one way or the other, but I still intend for the MP Water Spot be a roundup of the facts in as neutral a way as possible. The subject matter is a little dry (no pun intended), yes, but I have tried to keep it as light as possible.

Please give my new site a visit.