WURD Radio Interviews Jessica Hilburn-Holmes

WURD Radio host Solomon Jones interviewed the Philadelphia Bar Foundation’s executive director, Jessica Hilburn-Holmes, to discuss the Equal Justice Center.

SJ: Good morning, this is Solomon Jones on 900 AM 96.1 FM WURD and I want to welcome you back to Wake Up with WURD. Our first guest is attorney Jessica Hilburn-Holmes. She’s the executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation. She manages the Foundation’s activities and grantmaking efforts while working to make the Philadelphia Equal Justice Center a reality. Jessica, good morning.

JHH: Good morning.

SJ: How are you?

JHH: I’m great! How are you?

SJ: I’m doing well. So, tell us what the Equal Justice Center is. What is that idea?

JHH: I’m happy to, and I really appreciate you being curious. The Equal Justice Center is a nine-story building in Chinatown. It’s going to co-locate some of the largest nonprofits in Philadelphia that provide free or low-cost legal and social services to Philadelphians, and it’s going to be the first of its kind in the United States.

SJ: Okay, and so the Philadelphia Bar Foundation is leading the way on this effort?

JHH: It is, with a lot of other people. We are in a partnership with the developer, which is Pennrose, with the architect, WRT, and with twelve other nonprofits that are joining us in the nonprofit center.

SJ: Now are the people in Chinatown, are they on board with this project?

JHH: Yes, we’ve been meeting with the Chinatown community over the last couple of years since the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority selected this project to be the one to develop the land and we’ve had a lot of enthusiasm from members of the Chinatown community. It’s one of the most diverse areas of Philadelphia and they’re very open to the possibility of having the assistance of the agencies that will be located there, as well as access to spaces in the building. Part of what we’re trying to do is not just create an office where people can come to get these services, which is in and of itself a good thing. And also we’re creating a civic center where the spaces in the building can be used by the community.

SJ: Okay, and so the building is going to be a multi-purpose building then? So there’s going to be these services in there, but there will be some other things in the building as well?

JHH: Right, there will be programming, so there will be public education, and I heard earlier on the show you were talking about the census questions. We could have meetings to talk about what this means and how people can address it, how we might fight against it, those types of activities.

SJ: Okay, and so in terms of the fundraising for this, so the Philadelphia Bar Foundation took the lead on this. And who are the nonprofits that are involved and got grants in order to bring this forward?

JHH: Right, so Community Legal Services and Philadelphia Legal Assistance are probably two of the largest groups you may have heard of. We also have SeniorLAW Center and their strategic partner CARIE. We have the Public Interest Law Center, the ACLU, and then a number of others. Some of them do direct service and some of them do impact work. So, for example, the challenge to the voter ID registration rule that was here in Pennsylvania a few years ago, the organization that led that charge, they’re going to be in the building too.

SJ: Okay, and so these are services. What do you hope that putting all of this under one roof will do for the people of Philadelphia, many of whom or poor?

JHH: Right exactly, so the services are free, so part of what we’re doing is making it easier for people who have these kinds of legal challenges, whether it’s with their landlord or getting access to education or healthcare, can come to one place, explain what their issues are, and receive the services at the same time instead of going from one location to another, which is frequently what happens today. So that’s one of the things we’re going to achieve. We’re also going to have some pretty innovative technology that will make it possible for people to come into the center. And if the people in the building can’t help that person, we’ll have links to other agencies around the city that we can skype into so that we can get the help at that time. That’s ultimately the goal. And the third thing, which is equally important, is that this is a place of hope. People are facing these challenges and don’t know where to turn, and don’t know even whom to ask or if they can ask, or what they should ask. And this is going to be a place that people can come for that help.

SJ: Alright we’re talking with Jessica Hilburn-Holmes. She is the executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation. She manages the foundation’s activities and grantmaking efforts while working to make the Philadelphia Equal Justice Center a reality. Since this is a new building, one of the things that I have to ask about is inclusion, in terms of the workforce, in terms of the contractors who are involved in this, and was there a plan for inclusion, and was the Philadelphia Bar Foundation insistent in putting a plan in place for inclusion.

JHH: The good news is that because some of the public monies we’re attracting, there are requirements in law to do that, so we made sure that was going to be followed. But the good news is because there have been good lawyers along the way writing these regulations, we were already in a position of having that leverage with the developer, the architect, that minority business owners, women business owners, and union workforce needed to be employed.

SJ: Okay, so there have been some City projects, City-funded projects, where they had plans in place, but they still didn’t have anyone black or brown on the workforce side of it. And so when you talk about government regulations do you mean state and federal regulations in addition to what happens with the City?

JHH: I do.

SJ: Okay.

JHH: And I can tell you that this is a conversation that I have regularly with the developer and the architect. I know very well the importance of this, so I can’t tell you exactly whose been hired, but I know that it is in the works.

SJ: Okay, so in terms of the economic impact of this Equal Justice Center, how do you see it impacting Philadelphia and Philadelphians economically?

JHH: Right so the very misunderstood, or not well understood, story with legal aid is that if you give a dollar to a legal aid lawyer, it’s going to end up returning into the economy twelve or thirteen dollars. There was recently a study done by the Bar Association about the help that the City Council recently provided to low-income people in landlord tenant court, and the report showed this exactly. So our expectation, which we’re going to be measuring and reporting on as the center goes forward, is that we will be serving or over 30,000 people a year and we will return over $100 million into the economy every year.

SJ: Okay, so this project then is going on now. What’s the timeline? When should we expect that this should be up and running?

JHH: So right now we’re in the fundraising campaign. We need to raise the money that we need to close on the financing, which we’re planning to do in September, and then we have an additional closing for all of the tenant improvements next spring. Then it’ll be about a year and a half after that before the building opens in January of 2022.

SJ: Okay, and where can people go to get more information about this plan and about this project?

JHH: Yeah, we have a website. It’s philaequaljusticecenter.org. People can get information about the project, about where we are in the timeline, about the agencies that are coming into the building, and about how to make a donation. If you want to be a part of this effort, we’re very happy to accept donations. There is contact information for me as well, please call. We are looking for partners.