The nonprofit JLA Trust & Services is approaching a milestone of enrolling 200 clients in their affordable and life-changing pooled special needs trusts.
“Utilizing the Jewish principles of B’tselem Elohim — each person is created in God’s image” and also of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world,” we know that anyone and everyone is worthy of a good, if not great, life,” Michelle Wolf, JLA’s founding executive director, told The Journal.
JLA Trust is a community-based nonprofit, focused on providing caring and personalized support for persons with a range of physical, mental and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
For instance, they helped a 65-year-old Santa Monican with a spinal cord disability, who received multiple government benefits along with a legal settlement of $27,000. “When he first came to us he was very depressed and talked about dying soon,” Wolf said. “After purchasing his pre-need burial plot, we encouraged him to spend his funds and since then, he’s been to Texas twice to visit a friend and went on a birthday trip to Vegas in August. He also bought a new orthopedic mattress to help with his persistent back pain.”
In addition to offering affordable and easy-to-access professionally managed pooled special needs trusts, they provide free educational information about government benefits, as well as low-cost individualized consultations about long-term planning for a family member with a disability. They assist Jewish and non-Jewish individuals.
“Our mission is to ensure that all children and adults with disabilities are able to obtain the highest possible quality of life,” Wolf said.
JLA Trust was incubated at Bet Tzedek Legal Services from 2013 to 2015 under the leadership of then CEO Sandy Samuels, who is now founding board chair.
Photo by Kikuye Sugiyama
“He had seen first-hand the need in Los Angeles for a pooled special needs trust when a Fairfax High School student was terribly injured and donations poured in, but the only recommended pooled trust was in Florida,” Wolf said.
At the time, Wolf was a part-time consultant at Bet Tzedek, working on a grant-funded project called “Transitions” to bring together professionals from the aging field with professionals from the intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) arena.
“People with I/DD are living longer than ever before, now outliving their parents’ lifetimes,” she said. “I am also the parent of a young adult with significant I/DD and was concerned about our own long-term planning for him.” With Samuels as their champion, JLA received a Planning Grant from the L.A. Jewish Federation and then a three-year Cutting Edge grant from the Jewish Community Foundation in 2015.
“People with I/DD are living longer than ever before, now outliving their parents’ lifetimes. I am also the parent of a young adult with significant I/DD and was concerned about our own long-term planning for him.” – Michelle Wolf
“With our legal advisor Stuart Zimring, who is an expert in elder law and special needs trusts, we enrolled our first client in 2016,” she said. “We will soon reach the 200-client enrollment milestone, with close to $12 million in total pooled trust funds under advisement with our financial services partner, True Link Financial.”
“There are a number of pooled special needs trusts across the country providing a range of affordable financial and trustee services to thousands of people with disabilities,” Samuels said. “But until JLA Trust launched, there wasn’t a pooled special needs trust open to people with all types of disabilities – physical, developmental and mental – focused here in Los Angeles, home to the greatest number of SSI recipients in the nation.”
Several years ago, JLA assisted a 75-year-old man with two adult daughters, one of whom (Jane) had physical and mental health disabilities. “He created a special needs trust with JLA for Jane and then sadly passed away a year later,” Wolf said. “With the $75,000 in Jane’s account, JLA Trust has been able to pay for Jane’s living expenses not covered by her government benefits, relieving her sister of daily responsibilities.”
When Jane recently ended up in the hospital after a mental health episode, and needed more support after discharge, JLA Trust staff continued to pay for Jane’s expenses and supported her sister to take on a more active role when it was truly needed.
According to Wolf, 100% of JLA’s clients have one or more physical, mental or I/DD disability, and 90% are on Medi-Cal. “Most have lived most of their lives in poverty,” she said. “Funds in their individual special needs trusts supplement government benefits and allow them to have improved health, safety and overall well-being.” She added, “Clients tell us that the work we are doing for them has helped them in ways they could not have imagined.”
To learn more, go to JLATrust.org.
