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). We require that the majority of our Board members must be living with HIV. For more information, please see our Board of Directors page.
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. Please see our Staff page for a list of our current staff.