How We Can Help
We provide free legal services for low income residents of Ottawa. Contact us to get information on how we might be able to help. Click here to find out about specific legal topics.
We can help you with:
- Housing law (tenants or co-op members only – not landlords), like evictions and repairs
- Immigration law, like sponsorships, refugee claims, appeals and permanent resident status
- Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), like applying for ODSP and problems with your benefits
- Ontario Works (OW), applications and problems with your benefits
- Workers’ Compensation (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board)
- Employment Insurance
- Canada Pension Plan (disability benefits, retirement benefits and other)
- Old Age Security benefits and the Guaranteed Income Supplement
- Canada Child Tax Benefits
Our offices have limited capacity and as a result, not all clients will be able to receive assistance. Clients will be triaged based on needs, the strength of the legal case, and the available resources of the office.
We also give legal information presentations to community agencies and members of the public and participate in a range of community development and law reform initiatives that will positively affect the lives of the low income Ontarians we serve. See our Community Initiatives page for more information.
We can’t help you with some areas of law. . .
If we can’t help you, we will try to refer you to someone who can. We have information on how you can get help for problems in these areas:
- Criminal law problems
- Family law problems
Legal Aid Ontario may be able to help with these issues. For help with other areas of law, see our section on legal information.
How We Help
We start with advice for your problem. Some people need more help than advice. Sometimes we will help you by preparing documents (for example, an application to the Landlord and Tenant Board).
And we can represent you in a court or at a tribunal, such as the Social Benefits Tribunal, the Landlord and Tenant Board and the Immigration and Refugee Board.