ATTORNEY Shelli Neal, program manager for the Micronesian Legal Services Corp. disaster legal aid program, said they can help individuals with disaster-related issues involving Typhoons Mangkhut and Yutu as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.
Neal said when MLSC was setting up the typhoon disaster legal aid program, the pandemic happened.
“We got additional separate funding for Covid-19 — all of our offices throughout Micronesia have that funding that can help low-income people deal with issues related to Covid-19, such as eviction and job issues,” Neal said.
As for typhoon disaster-assistance issues, she said most are land-related.
“A lot of people who received a certain amount of money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it wasn’t enough to repair their home so they wanted to appeal that amount,” Neal said.
On April 22, 2021, MLSC held a disaster aid program community clinic at Saipan World Resort to discuss typhoon-recovery probate and other related issues.
“We want people to know the maximum number of [FEMA] assistance [programs], and we want to know if they did get all available assistance including Small Business Administration loans,” Neal said.
She said MLSC has clients who have been given FEMA money but were later notified by FEMA that they need to repay the full amount because they were not qualified.
“It happens all the time,” Neal said. “People are trying quickly to respond to the disaster, [and FEMA] wants to get people back into their homes and [so they] gave money very fast because they don’t want you homeless, but when they do a review of their records — and you know how our community is, we have a lot of different people with different immigration statuses.”
In some of those cases, Neal said, “we help them appeal, and we have given FEMA the right paperwork to show that this person was entitled to it.”
She said MLSC is still handling cases related to Typhoon Yutu disaster unemployment assistance.
“If you lost your job because of the disaster you are entitled to disaster unemployment. If you cannot readily show that you are a qualified [non-U.S. citizen], then you may get denied and so we have several cases still pending.”
Neal said the process can take a long time, “but eventually we already submitted paperwork to show that they are green card holders or have another valid immigration status; so those people eventually get relief.”
Neal invites community members to call the MLSC offices if they have questions regarding disaster-related assistance needs.
For example, Neal said, “a lot of people are still waiting for [Pandemic Unemployment] Assistance, and we don’t really know why that is.”
“If you have a question, and you feel like you are within the reasonable time period, come to us and we will see if we could help. You don’t actually have to come to the office — we can [talk] over the phone,” Neal added.
“I just have one caution: There’s a lot of federal money flowing around right now and that’s a great thing for the CNMI, but you have to be careful that you don’t take money that you are not entitled to because if you ever owed the federal government any money it will always affect you when you apply for an immigration status — they will cross-check that and they will hold it against you. So just be careful and make sure you are eligible for [the federal assistance].”
For more information, call MLSC at 234-6243 or 234-7729 or email legalhelp@mlscnet.org
Shelli Neal
