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Welcome to Alabama Appleseed’s website. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to visit our website and learn about Alabama Appleseed and our advocacy work. Alabama Appleseed is working for a better Alabama – a better place to live and a better place to work. Alabama is a wonderful place with a long and rich heritage, some of which we can be proud of and some of which tarnished the state’s image and reputation. There is much that we still need to work on to make Alabama a more just and equitable place for all of its residents. Alabama Appleseed joins a growing list of organizations and individuals participating in the public affairs arena in the state with common goals of improving our state, correcting dysfunctional governmental systems, and changing the public’s perspective so that we can achieve unity, rather than divisiveness; inclusivity, rather than exclusivity; and social and economic justice for all, rather than privilege for the few and injustice for those with little or no voice or power. By bringing together perspectives from the legal, academic, business and minority-based communities, Alabama Appleseed hopes to be a new and different voice in the public affairs life of Alabama. Our current advocacy projects show the diversity and breadth of our vision for change that is needed in Alabama. We welcome your involvement with us on our current advocacy projects, which are: - Health Insurance Coverage Project – In this project we will develop and implement ways to expand health insurance coverage and to develop and offer more affordable and accessible health insurance for the growing number of uninsured persons in Alabama. We will work on this project collaboratively with one of our closest public interest allies, Alabama Arise. In this project we are also supporting the tax fairness legislative plan of Alabama Arise, as tax fairness reform and health insurance coverage reform are related.
- Restorative Justice/Victim-Offender Conferencing – This project undertakes to develop victim-offender conferencing programs in juvenile courts in the greater Birmingham and Montgomery areas. Victim-offender conferencing is a restorative justice program that focuses on bringing together victims of crimes and their offenders in an effort to bring healing and understanding to victims and accountability to offenders. This project is patterned after the ground-breaking work in Alabama of Montgomery Circuit Judge Tracy McCooey.
- Hurricane Katrina Advocacy – This project grew out of a major report that Appleseed published in August 2006 on how the needs of Katrina victims/evacuees were addressed in five cities in the Gulf Coast region. Alabama Appleseed participated in this investigation, which was conducted by seven national law firms, and since the release of this report, our Katrina Fellow, Craig Baab, has engaged in a broad range of advocacy, including advocacy on both a local, state and national level for immediate action on release of and increases in rebuilding funds for those whose homes were damaged and/or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
- Hispanic Financial Access/Immigrant Policy Project - This project reaches out to both the banking and Hispanic communities in order to find ways to make regular banking services more accessible to the growing Hispanic community in Alabama. Our broader immigrant policy work began in 2007 in an effort to help develop a unified voice for the Hispanic community in Alabama to speak out against the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies being voiced and advanced and to help communities in Alabama develop a more supportive and welcoming atmosphere for civic participation and life in the community for Hispanics, who contribute so much to the social and economic life of Alabama towns and communities.
- Predatory Lending Project – We have worked for several years to raise public awareness and change state policies on predatory lending practices in Alabama, mainly focusing on payday loans and title pawn loans. Both type loans are allowed and are prevalent in Alabama, with few consumer protections. We have helped develop a coalition of consumer advocates seeking needed reforms in Alabama’s laws regulating payday loans.
- Residential Landlord/Tenant Law Reform – In 2006, after three years of involvement in landlord/tenant law reform, we were part of a coalition that helped pass a much needed new and comprehensive residential landlord/tenant law that is fair and balanced as to both tenants and landlords. In 2008 we are continuing that work as we help evaluate and negotiate changes to this new law being proposed by landlords.
- Indigent Defense Reform – For several years we have worked on indigent defense reform, with a central reform idea being the establishment of a state oversight authority to assure quality and effective representation of indigent person in criminal cases and to bring fiscal and budgetary accountability to the system. We have been appointed and served on two Chief Justice Indigent Defense Study Committees, the latest one having been re-appointed in 2008 by Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb.
- Judicial Elections Reform – As more and more special interest money has come into the appellate judicial elections in Alabama, we have worked for several years to change the method of electing appellate court judges so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary is not compromised. We have advocated for either a non-partisan or merit selection system that will focus on judicial qualifications.
I would welcome the opportunity to meet and talk with you about Alabama Appleseed and our advocacy work. I hope you will become a Member and financial supporter of Alabama Appleseed and join us as a volunteer on one of our advocacy projects. As a non-profit organization, we are totally dependent on the generosity of those individuals, foundations, corporations, and other groups that believe in our work. Together we are creating a better Alabama. Please join us. John A. Pickens
Executive Director
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