Current Projects

Disaster Recovery

Texas Appleseed has been successful in its efforts to ensure that federal disaster relief funds are distributed to Texas communities hardest hit in 2008 by Hurricanes Ike and Dolly -- and that a significant share of this money go to restore housing and to benefit low- and moderate-income households.
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Diversity Legal Scholars

The Diversity Legal Scholars Program is an initiative of Texas Appleseed, in partnership with Kaplan Educational Centers, Inc., to provide Law School Admissions Texas (LSAT) preparation assistance for minority students who could not otherwise afford it. The program provides full scholarships to attend Kaplan's LSAT Prep course anywhere in Texas -- and beginning in 2010, scholarship recipients will be mentored by pro bono attorneys.
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Foster Care

At the request of the Texas Supreme Court's permanent Judicial Commission on Children, Youth and Families, Texas Appleseed and our pro bono partners conducted extensive research and are now working with a panel of experts to identify concrete ways that the courts and legal system can improve life outcomes for children in Permanent Management Conservatorship (long-term foster care). Statistically, children in long-term foster care are at extreme risk of poverty and homelessness, victimization and criminal involvement, early childbearing, and low educational attainment. Major findings will be published in 2010.
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Immigrant & Low Income Communities (Fair Financial Services)

Texas Appleseed is working to improve access to financial institutions and low-cost financial services for Latin American immigrants -- through financial literacy, consumer protections in money remittance services, and more.
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Immigration Court & Detention Reform

Texas Appleseed has recently published (April 2010) a year's worth of research and recommendations for reforming the way the nation's immigration court and detention system addresses the needs of immigrants with mental disabilities. Texas Appleseed is currently working with Immigration Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice to translate these recommendations into policy change.
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International Remittances (Fair Financial Services)

Texas Appleseed has pioneered a market-based approach to make it easier for consumers to know the true cost of wiring money.
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Justice for Defendants with Mental Impairments

Texas Appleseed pursues statutory and other systemic changes to ensure better legal representation for persons with mental illness and retardation. We provide handbooks and training for attorneys representing these clients, and have worked with different Texas communities to create innovative models to provide high quality legal services for persons with mental health needs.
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School-to-Prison Pipeline

Texas Appleseed is involved in a multi-year project to find ways to break a "school-to-prison pipeline" that links school disciplinary policy, dropout rates and future involvement in the juvenile justice system. Texas Appleseed has published separate reports on the disproportionate impact of school suspension, expulsion and alternative school placements on minority and special education students. A third report on ticketing, arrest and use of force by campus police officers in Texas public schools will be released in Summer 2010.
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Small Dollar Loans (Fair Financial Services)

Texas Appleseed is working with a coalition of organizations to encourage state policymakers to close a loophole in state law that payday and auto title lenders are exploiting to circumvent the state's small dollar lending laws. This loophole enables this multi-billion-dollar industry to charge the highest interest rates in the country -- in excess of 500 percent APR.
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Texas Youth Commission Reform (Juvenile Justice)

Texas Appleseed is monitoring mental health care in TYC facilities, as well as implementation of previous improvements negotiated with TYC. These include policy changes to reduce the time that young people are kept in isolation and security as a "behavior management" strategy and reduced use of pepper spray to maintain order in youth facilities. In 2007, Appleseed and Advocacy Inc. sued TYC to prevent a dramatic increase in the use of pepper spray.
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Fair Defense Act

Texas Appleseed’s research and reporting on the legal challenges facing indigent defendants in Texas helped build a reform movement, which ultimately resulted in passage of the Fair Defense Act in 2001. This law fundamentally changed the way that lawyers are appointed to poor people who are accused of a crime in Texas.
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