NEWS RELEASE 10.12.21: IMPACT FUND MAKES GRANTS OF $90,500 FOR ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE

New Grants to Support Litigation on Behalf of People with Disabilities; Low-Income, and BIPOC Communities.

Berkeley, CA 10.12.21 – The Impact Fund, the nation’s only charity providing broad support to advance the use of impact litigation as a tool to achieve economic, environmental, racial, and social justice, has just made recoverable grants totaling $90,500 in its fall cycle to fund six lawsuits protecting communities threatened by uncaring corporate interests and small-minded government.

“Since being founded in 1992, the Impact Fund has stood in solidarity with people with disabilities and BIPOC and low-income communities, supporting them in their battles for justice,” said Impact Fund Executive Director, Jocelyn Larkin, adding: “we’re grateful today to renew our commitment to economic, environmental, racial, and social justice.”

The first grant was made to California Coastkeeper Alliance, which is working on behalf of low-income communities living in the Sacramento and Bay-Delta region. At issue are alleged violations of the Clean Water Act by the County of Sacramento resulting from discharges of raw sewage and sewage-contaminated stormwater into the Delta and its tributaries. These pose a serious risk to fisheries, wildlife habitat, and human health. The Delta is also the primary source of fresh drinking water for two-thirds of California’s residents; the preservation of this natural resource is essential. California Coastkeeper Alliance seeks to prevent future pollution and contamination by securing improvements in operations and maintenance of the County of Sacramento’s sewage collection system.

The second grant was made to Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario, Canada, to hold the government responsible for mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon river system, which has caused catastrophic environmental and health impacts. The poisoning of the Grassy Narrows people and the fish they rely upon is recognized as one of the most egregious and intractable environmental toxic disasters affecting human health in Canada. The fishery was ruined; economic losses were substantial and continue to be so because there are scant other sources of income for this remote community. Many Grassy Narrows people were personally poisoned by mercury and are suffering from a range of debilitating health impacts, including neurological degeneration, loss of vision, loss of sensation, and premature death. The case seeks to hold the government responsible for implementing an agreement to remedy the situation and, failing that, to embark on new litigation to address the damage.

The third grant will fund the case Thunderhawk v. County of Morton, filed by Initiative for a Just Society, Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, at Columbia Law School on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members. Tribe members were impacted when the local county sheriff closed the primary road connecting the Reservation to Bismarck/Mandan in an attempt to disrupt opposition to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Morton County only closed the road to the Tribe and its supporters. White residents of the area, pipeline construction workers, and private security employed by the pipeline company were all permitted access to the otherwise “closed” portions of the highway. The effects of this closure were immense. Not only were tens of thousands of supporters of the no-DAPL movement affected, but otherwise unaffiliated residents of the Standing Rock Reservation—one of the poorest communities in the country—had to take a substantially longer and more dangerous route to visit relatives, go shopping, or seek medical care. The litigation seeks to provide the affected community with redress for the harms suffered, to further develop constitutional law involving oppressive state tactics, and to deter future constitutional wrongdoing, both in North Dakota and elsewhere.

The fourth grant will support Centro de Análisis y Defensa de Derechos, AC in Sonora, Mexico, on behalf of people with disabilities, challenging the social security regulations that permit discrimination in access to health and rehabilitation services. The case is centered in the unconstitutionality and unconventionality of the social security regulations, which appear to be at odds with both the Mexican Constitution and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The social security regulations exclude from the health services the provision of devices, technology, prostheses, implants, or any other technological treatment that allows rehabilitation of people with hearing, motor, or visual disabilities. The challenge, if successful, will improve the lives of approximately 6.6 million people with disabilities living in Mexico.

The fifth grant funds the case Chicanxs Unidxs v. Spitzer, brought by the Criminal Justice and Civil Rights Litigation Clinics of the UC Irvine School of Law, challenging the discriminatory application of gang injunctions against “traditional Hispanic criminal street gangs.” The case seeks to test the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, an ambitious new law aimed at ending the disproportionate racial effects of California’s criminal justice system. Though prosecutors in several cities and counties in California have ended their gang injunction programs, dozens of gang injunctions remain, including thirteen in Orange County. Available data shows that approximately 160 people are charged with violating a gang injunction in Orange County every year, including violations as minor as taking trash cans out to the curb after curfew or talking to a family member on the back steps of a person’s own home. All of Orange County’s gang injunctions are directed at so-called “traditional Hispanic criminal street gangs” despite the presence of White gangs in the county.

The sixth grant will fund the case Berry v. Hennepin County, initiated by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid on behalf of the unsheltered homeless population in Hennepin County, who have been evicted from public spaces and/or whose belongings were destroyed. The majority of the affected individuals are BIPOC and many are children. The case seeks to end the pattern and practice of evicting unhoused people from the encampments where they have made homes and created community for themselves. The “sweeps”—forcible evictions from homeless encampments—are done in a particularly cruel manner. As early as 3:00am, public workers and law enforcement, with garbage trucks and heavy construction equipment, arrive at the camp, shaking tents and telling residents to wake up and get out. Residents, who have little or no notice of the sweep, scramble to pack up their belongings. If they are unable to pack in time, law enforcement moves them beyond the yellow-tape police perimeter and threatens them with arrest if they ask to go back for the remainder of their possessions. The residents are often left to watch as bulldozers raze the camp and, with it, the residents’ remaining belongings.

Helen Kang, Chair of the Impact Fund’s Grant Advisory Committee, said: “The communities we stand in solidarity with today have earned their day in court and we’re grateful to do what we can so that justice will prevail.”

Letters of inquiry for the Impact Fund’s spring grantmaking cycle are due January 11, 2022. 

ENDS 

For more information and photography, contact:

Teddy Basham-Witherington 415.845.1206 / twitherington@impactfund.org

About The Impact Fund

The Impact Fund was founded in December 1992 to help advance economic, environmental, racial, and social justice through the courts. Originally envisioned as a purely grantmaking organization, the Impact Fund has made 725 grants totaling $8,166,156. Click here for Grant Criteria and information about Grant Deadlines.  

Since its inception, the Impact Fund has grown to include both advocacy and education in its range of services. Today, the Impact Fund litigates a small number of cases directly, authors amicus briefs, provides a substantial amount of pro-bono consulting, and presents an annual conference for plaintiff-side class action practitioners, a training institute for budding public interest class action practitioners, and numerous seminars and webinars. Click here for the 2020 Annual Report.  

www.impactfund.org 

What Is Impact Litigation?

Impact Litigation is a lawsuit, often a class action, where the outcome of the case will advance economic, environmental, and/or social justice for a community or a large group, which may not have access to the courts on its own.