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. HALCO was established in partnership with the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation (PWA).
From 1991 to 1994, we operated on a project basis through the then ARCH Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped (ARCH is now called the ARCH Disability Law Centre).
HALCO is an independent registered charity funded by Legal Aid Ontario, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and other sources including corporate, foundation 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 (maximum of three consecutive two-year terms). Our By-laws require that the majority of our Board members must be living with HIV. For information about our current Board members, please see our Board of Directors 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: executive director/lawyer, community legal worker and administrative assistant. We now have ten permanent staff: our executive director/lawyer, six staff lawyers, an intake/legal assistant, a director of administration and a business coordinator. As well, we often have law student volunteers. Please see our Staff 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. For information about our services, including casework statistics, law reform, community development and public legal education activities, please see our Our Services and our annual reports on our About Us page.
Please see our Contact Us page for information about contacting HALCO and getting legal help.