Eve A. Stotland, NYCT Program Officer, Education & Human Justice 

Grow Brooklyn is a nonprofit that helps New Yorkers in low-income communities of color build wealth. But they saw that it wasn’t enough to help people build wealth. They also needed to help them hold onto it and transfer it from one generation to the next. In particular, when people die without a will, it puts their whole estate into chaos and makes it very likely that they can lose the estate.

Eve A. Stotland:

For low-income people, especially low-income homeowners who are elderly, they may not have the funds or know how to find a lawyer to do this for them. So, Grow Brooklyn started a new project called, “Preserve Your Treasure,” that helps low-income seniors who are homeowners make estate plans. Not just for their homes, but especially for their homes, to make sure that when they pass, their homes, which often represent their single largest asset, sometimes their only asset and a lifetime of work, make sure that those homes go to the people they want to have them after they leave.

Eve A. Stotland:

With a grant from New York Community Trust, Grow Brooklyn has two attorneys and a paralegal who work with elders in low-income communities of color to make sure that they make plans, like creating a will, proxy, power of attorney, that ensures that their property goes to the people they love and care about when they die.