UPLC advocates for prisoners, tenants, and disabled people denied public benefits.
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We assist clients in fighting illegal evictions, recovering security deposits, and working with tenants whose landlord has allowed the building to fall into disrepair.
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We have multiple class action lawsuits currently filed against the state of Illinois for unconstitutional prison conditions.
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We represent disabled adults seeking Social Security Disability Income benefits in Chicago.
In the News
“We hope this is the beginning of the end of prisoners’ needless suffering and even death. It is a long road, and we are committed to ensuring the necessary changes are made,” declared Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center.
A federal court has ordered the State of Illinois to address its “failure to . . . meet the constitutional requirements with respect to the mental health needs of” its approximately 12,000 prisoners with mental illness. This case reached a settlement agreement in 2016, but the Illinois Department of Corrections failed to live up to the agreement, and constitutional violations continued.
Amid claims of preventable deaths and substandard medical care, state officials have agreed to a sweeping overhaul of the health care system at prisons across Illinois, according to a proposed federal consent decree filed in Chicago on Thursday.
The Illinois Department of Corrections has agreed to a plan that would allow a federal judge to oversee health care in the state’s prisons. The agreement comes eight years after a lawsuit was filed alleging the treatment in Illinois’ prisons is so poor that it violates the constitution.
