SLC Legal Director Chelsea Dunn
Why This?
When I began working at SLC nearly seven years ago, I knew this was the role toward which my career had been building. In my prior career as a public defender in child welfare law, I approached the representation of my clients holistically, because the only way to enact a lasting reunification is to address the myriad barriers facing impoverished families navigating the dependency system.
SLC encourages this holistic approach. Upon joining SLC’s staff, as I worked to establish a Medical-Legal Partnership for pediatric patients, we would identify and assist with all the health-harming legal needs impacting each family. Similarly, our Decriminalizing Poverty Project has always focused on more than just preserving the civil rights of our unhoused clients. We also work to help them establish more stability.
What I love most about my work at SLC is that we craft and develop each case to make the greatest impact. And with that freedom comes the power to make great change—not just for a single client but for all those affected by unjust laws and policies.
The freedom to choose our cases and issues is at the heart of an impactful litigation program. We go where the need is the greatest and the results will reach the farthest.
Despite recent constraints on some of our funding sources, we will continue to do so. But we will also take advantage of all resources available to us to provide legal assistance to as many Floridians as possible. This means expanding into areas that have not been as much of a focus in recent years: housing, access to healthcare, consumer protection. These legal issues all have a place in SLC’s history. We will use our institutional knowledge, our litigation skills, and our passion for helping those who need it the most to make sure that all of our work continues to have the greatest possible impact. As Legal Director, I am excited about the opportunity to expand our impact in new ways.
But there are still gaps. Gaps that our supporters can help us fill, so that we can continue to serve those who are most at risk in the current political climate. Private support is incredibly needed right now, with the recent restrictions that have been placed on our IOTA funding, and with the unprecedented onslaught of civil rights violations we are watching occur. I hope you will join us in our fight!
Why now?
As I watch with dismay the assault on human rights, civil liberties, and the basic foundations of democracy that has been unleashed in the last few weeks, I am determined to continue the fight that SLC started over four decades ago. Government accountability is vital in these uncertain times.
We must stand up for the marginalized communities being deliberately targeted by politicians at both the highest and most local levels.
We are currently facing the reality of living in a world in which the government believes itself to be free to criminalize the act of sleeping outside when those experiencing homelessness and poverty have nowhere else to go. A world in which the government endeavors to deny LGBTQ+ people the opportunity to live as their authentic selves. A world in which the government seems empowered to ignore the basic freedoms that Americans know to be instrumental to a peaceful, prosperous, and stable society. And we, along with colleagues and like-minded attorneys throughout Florida and across the nation, will rise to this challenge, knowing that we are on the right side of history.