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Legal Aid Attorney Carrie Stambow Urges Continued Support for Project Renew
Summary
Carrie Stambow of Legal Aid of the Bluegrass testified about Project Renew, a 2021 statewide collaborative that provides civil-legal services tied to recovery. She described housing, benefits, family-law, and expungement work and urged sustained funding to remove legal barriers to long-term recovery.
Carrie Stambow, a staff attorney at Legal Aid of the Bluegrass and an Equal Justice Works fellow, testified that Project Renew — launched by Kentucky’s four legal-aid offices in 2021 — combines holistic legal services with community partnerships to support people recovering from opioid addiction. She said the program focuses on four pillars: health, home, community and purpose, and that attorneys conduct outreach at recovery centers, reentry councils and community health coalitions and have completed hundreds of in-person intakes.
Stambow described the civil-legal problems her clients face, including eviction, family-law matters where addiction is used to challenge custody, and obstacles to public benefits and insurance coverage. She emphasized educating courts and private attorneys about medication-assisted treatment and said expungements, partnerships with organizations such as Goodwill, and direct representation restore opportunities to work and participate in community life. “When someone reaches recovery, the legal system should not be the next barrier they face,” she said, and urged sustaining Project Renew’s services and funding so clients can rebuild stable lives. She closed by recounting a personal example: Narcan saved her cousin from a fatal overdose, treatment transformed him, but nine years later he still faces legal issues that Project Renew helps untangle.
