A little “HALCO History”
The HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) was founded in 1995, and began operating as a full service legal clinic in December of that year.
From 1991 to 1994, we operated on a project basis through the then ARCH Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped, now called the ARCH Disability Law Centre.
In 1995, HALCO was established in partnership with the AIDS Committee of Toronto and the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation.
HALCO is now an independent registered charity funded by Legal Aid Ontario, the AIDS Bureau of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, as well as support from corporations, foundations and individual donors.
HALCO is governed by a nine-member volunteer Board of Directors, elected from and by our members. Board members’ terms are for two years. The majority of our Board members are people who are living with HIV. For information about our current Board members, please see Board of Directors on our About Us page. For more information about getting involved, including our Board and Committees, please see our Get Involved section.
We started with a staff of three in 1995, but we now have ten staff: our Executive Director [who is a lawyer], five staff lawyers, a Community Legal Worker, a Director of Administration and two Administrative Assistants. As well, we have a full-time articling [law] student each year and law student volunteers. Please see Staff on our About Us page for a list of our current staff.
Since 1995, the demand for our services has continued to grow. In recent years, requests for service have been increasing dramatically. In 2010, we handled 4,400 requests for legal services, and opened over 227 case files and 153 public legal education files (the majority of which were workshops and presentations). We also engage in law reform, public legal education and community development initiatives. Please see Our Services page for more information about HALCO services. Please see our Contact Us page for information about contacting HALCO.