When Demetris Taylor-Brown, at age 21, learned his girlfriend was pregnant, he made some big decisions. He turned down his scholarship to Grambling State University, and instead of going to college, got two jobs so he could support his son.
“I sacrificed a lot to be a father,” he said.
A year later, they broke up.
“When we broke up, I just had two bags; that’s it,” he said. “I guess I was at rock bottom, honestly. I was at rock bottom, just trying to come up.”
He eventually found himself homeless and jobless, and his son’s mother wouldn’t allow him to see his son on his own.
“That’s where it started, because I felt like I wasn’t able to have a relationship with my son. I couldn’t even take him up the street for food, or anything,” he said.
He wasn’t sure where to start. He went to court and asked what he needed to do to get visitation, but he couldn’t afford to pay the application fees.
His cousin connected him with the Native American Youth and Family Center, or NAYA, for help finding work and housing. His mentor there heard him talking about his son and suggested he talk to John Salois.
Salois is half of the Homeless Youth Law Clinic. The other half is his partner, both in life and work, Nicole Mandarano. With the help of the HYLC, Taylor-Brown started the process to secure visitation with his son.
Salois and Mandarano met in law school in New York and worked in New York in legal service nonprofits and the child welfare and foster care systems. Together they decided they wanted to open a youth law project, and they wanted to get out of New York. In 2011, they made the move to Portland.
They volunteered at a local Portland nonprofit serving homeless youths and began to see the magnitude of youth homelessness and the need for legal support, from legal representation to navigating complicated legal processes, completing long legal forms and paying steep fees.
As of 2017-18, almost 4% of all K-12 students in Oregon were homeless – 21,756 students altogether, according to the Oregon Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition, 1,309 of the homeless adults in Oregon were unaccompanied young adults ages 18-24.
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“We just realized there was no one doing it. There were no legal services for homeless youth,” Taylor-Brown said.
“(That were) free,” Mandarano added, “brought to youth, where they could feel safe and comfortable.”
The HYLC started small in 2014 at the New Avenues for Youth drop-in center.
“I just sat in a corner in the drop-in center and said, ‘You want to talk to a lawyer?’ And that’s how it all started,” Salois said.
It was a volunteer project meant to provide advice and refer youths to outside legal services. But they quickly realized that to gain the trust of the youths, and to serve the great need they saw, it needed to be more.
“It wasn’t (easy) at first, but now they know me, they call me John the Lawyer,” Salois said. “At first there were major trust issues, and that’s really what we try and build, is trust, right away. So now that I’m known in the community, they don’t really trust me right away, but they know I’m there; they know who I am.”
As they worked with more youths, they saw that the scope of legal issues homeless youths faced was much more widespread than they’d thought.
“We just sort of opened it up to anything. It wasn’t restricted to housing,” Mandarano said. “It was interesting to see how things evolved and what some of the other major issues were.”
Some youths needed to expunge their record in order to access housing and jobs. Some were facing eviction and didn’t know their rights. Some needed help finding birth parents or gaining custody or, like Taylor-Brown, visitation with their children.
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Salois and Mandarano found that many of the legal issues they saw were a result of poverty and homelessness, like charges for fare evasion or unpaid legal fees – issues that kept youths in homelessness by making it harder to find housing and jobs.
“We just started crafting it based on the needs of the youths and for the youths, so it’s all based on what we’ve observed and what the youths have told John,” Mandarano said.
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By 2015, the HYLC achieved 501(c)3 status as a nonprofit organization. As a practicing lawyer, Salois set up shop at NAYA and p:ear, and he connects with young people directly and through referrals from case managers, as well as through outreach to educational institutions and social service organizations. Mandarano keeps everything running from behind the scenes.
In 2018, the organization served 94 youths with 165 separate legal issues, but it remains small and committed to a community lawyering model, driven by the youths and what they say they need to achieve their self-identified goals. Salois and Mandarano see what they do as a blend of law, social work and case management.
“In the lawyering world, someone has a housing issue and comes in,” Salois said. “OK, I fix your housing issue, and that’s kind of it. But we see the youth as a whole piece and ask them questions, get to know them. And then they sort of feel comfortable asking us questions. We’ll help them solve really almost anything.”
One of their clients had aged out of foster care, had a child at age 17 with a member of the Warm Springs Reservation, and he wanted visitation rights. Salois tried to find him a lawyer, but no one would take the job because it would require them to take the bar exam on the reservation. So John studied for it and took it himself. After this year-long process, he was able to represent his client on the reservation, and the client was awarded visitation with his child.
Another client, a Portland Community College student living in subsidized housing, had just gotten a new job. So Salois and Mandarano bought him work clothes and even helped him pay his rent for a couple of months until he got back on his feet. The HYLC provides financial assistance for expenses such as legal fees, immigration costs, money for a driver’s test and food.
“The (issues) don’t always get fixed quickly, and (John’s) not going to promise anything, but at least you know you’re not this Client A and just going to be moved along after one contact,” Mandarano said.
In Taylor-Brown’s situation, Salois talked to him about his rights as a father and helped him apply for visitation in July 2018.
“Part of what the clinic is, is teaching people about their rights,” Salois said. “So we filled out all the forms together, did it together, went to the court.”
In January, they went to court. The mother of Taylor-Brown’s son told the court he was a great father, and he got the visitation he was asking for.
“If it wasn’t for John, it wouldn’t have gotten done,” Taylor-Brown said. “If it wasn’t for John, I probably (would have) backed out, if I was trying to do it myself. Talked myself out of it. If it wasn’t for John, I probably would’ve had to wait longer than expected. And even outside of this, he’s just been supportive, even little things in my life that I’m going through. Him and Nicole also have just been very supportive in my life in general – not just with my son and with the case, even after.”
“I think Demetris would’ve figured this out,” Salois replied. “But it probably would’ve taken (his son) getting older for them to develop their own relationship. (The process) is confusing. It’s overwhelming.”
Now, Taylor-Brown is employed and in his second year at the Northwest College of Construction.
“I feel I’ve accomplished a lot, but I have so much more to accomplish,” he said. “I’ve got so much more to do, and I’m going to do it. Honestly, that’s how I feel. I didn’t fight for him just for him to struggle and be at the bottom for his whole life.”
“My long-term goal,” Salois said, “was always – because Portland has such a high need with youth homelessness – we could have a model clinic here, where every youth could be represented, we could be at Janus (Youth Programs), at some shelters, we could be at youth homes, high schools. The long-term goal would be that we work together, have a model clinic where we’re serving as many youth as possible.”
But for now, the HYLC is just the two of them, a project they take home with them, that is interwoven into their daily life together. They are quick to support youths far beyond the legal realm, and they value not having to wade through the bureaucracy that often comes with large nonprofits.
“The funding and the way we run it isn’t conducive to that, I think in a way,” Mandarano said.
“It’s sort of nonstop. It’s on weekends, nights,” Salois said. “It’s a lot, but it’s also a labor of love.”
“A commitment,” Mandarano added.
“You see the impact,” Salois said, “so we keep it going.”
Youths served by the Homeless Youth Law Clinic
60% grew up in or had contact with the foster care system
56% are youths of color
40% are LGBTQ+