NIU College of Law Health Advocacy Blog

On February 19 th , 2016, a fellow student and I gave a presentation to Aunt Martha’s about an expansion of the NIU Health Advocacy Clinic into an area of the law we have never ventured before:  criminal expungements and sealings. It appeared everyone who was working that day at Aunt Martha’s HOC or NIU Health Advocacy Clinic was in attendance, including Professor Boraca and Dr. Sun. Because Professor Boraca, my fellow student partner, and I had all talked about how to best format the PowerPoint presentation, we began with a case example of “Rob,” a person whose life is difficult because he has a 2010 criminal conviction of destruction of property on his record. Rob is a 26 year-old man living at Hesed House’s Transitional Living Community who has saved up enough money for a down payment on an apartment. Because of his criminal record, no one wants to rent to him. Likewise, Rob has also been looking for work but because of his criminal record, no one wants to hire him. Because of all t...

It was my first official day at the Health Advocacy Clinic in Aurora. While I had visited Hesed House before, I had never been on a tour of the entire facility and seeing it in its entirety with my colleagues in the clinic provided a fresh perspective of what Hesed House is today. Growing up in Aurora, I had been to Hesed House on many occasions beforehand, as it is a cornerstone in the community and surrounding area. Whenever we had extra food at community events, we would drop it off for the guests there. We would hold drives and collections for the shelter at church, collecting different things at different times of the year. Growing up just down the bike trail from Hesed House, I had many memories of riding past on my bike, always seeing guests outside and sometimes riding away quickly if someone approached me or my brother. In the summers, there were tents behind the shelter, and more people were outside milling about outside in the parks surrounding the shelter. In the winters, y...

On Wednesday, January 13, 2016, the Health Advocacy Clinic group went on a tour of Hesed House with Elise Manzie, the new Assistant Director of Development at Hesed. Some of the students and I had already been on a tour of the building before while others had not. I expected that I would not learn anything new on the tour and that it would be as much of a routine as walking around the Comprehensive Resource Center and Aunt Martha’s is to me because I was a part of the HAC last semester. I suspected that I would not feel any differently walking around Hesed than I normally do whenever I walk over there to drop something off or serve lunch. Although I am sensitive to the plights of guests, I did not expect to see anything new or different. Surprisingly, the main emotion that I felt during the tour was a sense of reinvigoration—especially in the TLC playroom. This was mainly due to the nice refresher we received from Elise about the guests and the problems they face, which reminded me why...

My first time visiting Hesed House was on August 19, 2015. I was ecstatic to join the Health Advocacy Clinic. I wanted to help people get Social Security benefits, conduct intake interviews, and order medical records from local hospitals. As lunch time approached, I decided to order a tuna sandwich from Jimmy Johns. Jimmy Johns stated they would deliver my sandwich, so I decided to wait outside for it. While waiting for my lunch, I saw a man pacing back and forth under a bridge, near Hesed House. It seemed like he was contemplating something, seemed very confused. He continued pace back and forth, until he stopped. He turned to the concrete wall, unzipped his pants, and proceeded to urinate. I could not believe what I was looking at, a man in his late thirties urinating in public, in the middle of the day. He did not seem to care who was looking at him, cars were racing by him, each car that raced by was able to see him in clear vie I was shocked. I began to question why anyone would d...

On August 18, 2015, I resumed working at the clinic after summer break. I now have other students working in the office with me, as well as a VISTA. Today was the first day back, so Professor Boraca and I went on a tour of Hesed House, with the new student and the VISTA. We traveled throughout the shelter, as a small group. As we walked into the main dining room, there were several guests in there and “Mr. Smith” was volunteering. He said hello to us and then began helping guests with breakfast, as it was 9:30a.m. I began zoning more into Mr. Smith helping a man, “Mr. Johnson,” with a breakfast Danish than I was listening to the tour. At this point, Mr. Smith asked the man how he was doing and he said that “it was hard.” Mr. Smith assured him that things would get better. Next, we were walking through the dining room and exiting to see a “secret pantry.” I have worked with Mr. Smith, a former guest of Hesed House, so I know him to be a spirited and caring man. However, Mr. Smith has li...

Recently, the student attorneys of our clinic had the opportunity to meet with graduate students studying Psychology at Northern Illinois University. We all met in a classroom in the psychology building on campus and watched Professor Boraca give an informative presentation on medical-legal partnerships. This was an exciting experience because our team is looking to collaborate with psychology students to evaluate our clients suffering from mental health issues for Social Security cases. I was very unsure about what to expect going in to this meeting. The idea of collaborating with the psychology students seems like an incredible opportunity. I was hoping that the students would show interest in working with us and sure enough they did! As I looked around the room during Professor Boraca’s presentation, I could see that the students were attentive and engaged in the presentation. Furthermore, the students and their professors asked plenty of questions which reflected their interest in ...

I came straight to law school from undergrad. Although I’ve had part time jobs, I’ve spent most of my life in school. I was drawn to law school because in comparison to the other graduate programs I was considering, law appeared to me to be a profession of “doers.” By this I mean, a profession that does more than participate in academic research and writing; a profession that actively interacts with people from all walks of life and has the skills necessary to bring about real change in communities. I do not mean to downplay academic scholarship, which is essential to meaningful debate, particularly in the legal field, and is often a catalyst to change. But to me, as someone who has spent most of her life in a class room and spent a lot of time writing and researching, I wanted to do more—interact with people, find out what people need and want, and help bring those needs and wants to fruition. Over the last two years in law school, I did not exactly find what I came looking for. In f...