Pottinger Volunteer Page

Pottinger Volunteer Page
	This page last updated January 15, 1999.

This page has basic information for volunteers in the Pottinger case. I will continue communicating by e-mail, but you may wish to check this page periodically for information.

Volunteer!

Click here to volunteer to help in the claims process. The form has more information on the kinds of projects for which we need help.

Please note: even if you earlier indicated an interest in volunteering, I would very much appreciate it if you would fill out the form. The nature of the work changed in some important ways after the status conference with the Magistrate. In addition, people’s schedules will undoubtedly have changed since the fall semester.

Recent events ...
Date	Event
January 4, 1999	Claims period begins running
December 24, 1998	Translation of Proof of Claim Forms into Spanish and Creole completed.
December 24, 1998	Miami New Times features story on homelessness in Miami and the Settlement Agreement
November 16, 1998	Order by Magistrate Judge Ted E. Bandstra setting the beginning of the Claims period at January 4, 1999, and ending April 5, 1999.
November 13, 1998	Status conference before Magistrate Judge Ted E. Bandstra.
October 14, 1998	Magistrate Judge Ted E. Bandstra appointed to oversee claims process.
October 1, 1998	Judge Federico Moreno approves Settlement Agreement.
Volunteers Needed Now ...
We are now scheduling visits to shelters, and need volunteers. There is a calendar showing the dates we have scheduled visits at various shelters. The Calendar is not yet complete; we may schedule visits to other shelters (e.g., in South Dade), and it is possible that the dates on some of the visits will have to change. But it should give you a good sense of when the visits will be, and approximately how long they will take. For the first trip, an attorney will accompany you, and there will be a meeting with the staff (which will also be helpful to you in understanding the claims form), followed by an hour or two in helping people fill out claims forms. It would be desirable to volunteer to go a number of times to the same shelter, but if you can make it only a few times, or even once, that could be useful as well. There will definitely be other times and places, not all of them in the evening. These are just the first ones. Please click here to indicate your availability.
*The next steps ...*
We are in the process of contacting shelters to determine what times they would like for volunteers to come, and will be scheduling additional visits shortly.

Other:

As announced earlier, you will need to read the following:

Pottinger v. City of Miami, 810 F. Supp. 1551 (S.D. Fla. 1992)
The Settlement Agreement, including
- Exhibit A: The Departmental Order
- Exhibit B: Proof of Claim Form, with Instructions. NOTE: To read this, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not already have it (if you’re uncertain, try clicking on the link to the Proof of Claim Form and see what happens), you can obtain it for free here.
The Magistrate’s Order of November 16, 1998.

Note: you can look at these on-line, but I would strongly suggest that you get a hard copy of the Settlement Agreement itself from my Assistant, Nancy Frost, at Room G278 of the Law Library, because the hard copy is better formatted.

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