January 27, 2020 by rebeccanovak
Lone Star Legal Aid’s EJ Team to Develop Client-Based Mobile App for Reporting Environmental Concerns
Houston, TX – Lone Star Legal Aid clients will soon be able to report and track their environmental concerns through a new mobile app. LSLA’s Environmental Justice Team, part of the Equitable Development Initiative, proposed this client-based application as a tool that community members will be able to use for reporting and tracking environmental issues that they see and experience in their neighborhoods – problems like dust, smoke, odors, water pollution, air pollutants, noise, and other nuisance conditions that happen in fence-line environmental justice communities in our 72-county service area in Texas.
The EJ Team’s proposal for the app was recently accepted by a team of developers from The Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law, who will work to create the app alongside the team’s members. The new app will assist the team in documenting community concerns, while concurrently reporting community complaints to regulators. Environmental Justice Team Managing Attorney, Amy Dinn, added that the concept for this app could be scaled up for communities to use state-wide or on a national level in the future. “We are excited about the prospects for this app and what it will mean for our client communities,” shared Dinn. “It will expand their ability to report and document environmental concerns in their neighborhoods.”
Lone Star Legal Aid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy on behalf of low-income and underserved populations. Lone Star Legal Aid serves the millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines that reside in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and 4 counties of southwest Arkansas. Lone Star Legal Aid focuses its resources on maintaining, enhancing, and protecting income and economic stability; preserving housing; improving outcomes for children; establishing and sustaining family safety and stability, health and well‐being; and assisting populations with special vulnerabilities, like those who have disabilities, or who are elderly, homeless, or have limited English language skills. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at www.lonestarlegal.org.
Media contact: Clarissa Ayala, cayala@lonestarlegal.org
